welcome to bbc news — i'm mike embley. our top stories: to try to break months of deadlock over brexit — the british parliament finally votes, overwhelmingly, for a snap general election in december. a senior white house official tells the impeachment inquiry into donald trump, he witnessed, firsthand, the president pressuring ukraine's government to investigate joe biden. politicians accuse the plane—maker boeing of putting profit before safety — as the company boss testifies over the 737 max crashes. on behalf of myself and the boeing company, we are sorry — deeply and truly sorry. lebanon under pressure to form a new government

as anti—government protesters celebrate after the prime minister resigns. here in the uk, a general election has finally been called, for december 12th, to try to end the deadlock over brexit. it may also have serious implications for the unity of the country. it'll be the first december election in the uk in nearly 100 years. the prime minister has said the public must be "given a choice" over the future. the leader of the labour opposition described the election "as a once—in—a—generation chance to transform our country". these will soon be portraits from the past. speaker: order! order! the howls and the rage

of a house divided. they'll be replaced with some new voices. some here will disappear. i call the prime minister. mrspeaker, thank you... it's never been that straightforward with this group of mps, as this still new prime minister knows to his cost. there is only one way to restore the esteem in which our democracy is held, and to recover the respect in which parliament should be held by the people of this country, and that is finally to offer ourselves to the judgement of the people of this country, and i commend this bill to the house. labour had said no three times already, but this morning they were up for the rallies and the photo—ops of a campaign, ready after weeks of refusing for the first december election in nearly 100 years. we're going out there to fight an election campaign, and i can't wait to get out there on the streets. in every town and village in this country, labour will be there, giving a message of real hope, where

this government offers nothing. labour only in line because the smaller parties changed tack. the snp and the lib dems reckon now the eu has backed a delay to brexit, their best chance of stopping our departure is that election. if you'd heard them earlier, you might have imagined it was underway already. as a united kingdom family of nations, strong together, working within the eu, we can reshape our economy and harness the technological revolution, and build a brighter future, and that's the message the liberal democrats will be taking to the country in this general election. speaker: order. those backing a trip to the ballot box won the day. the ayes to the right, 438. the noes to the left, 20. barring something strange happening in the house of lords tomorrow, the election will be

on the 12th of december — giving the prime minister his way, giving all of us the chance to say who will come here, which mps, which parties will have the job on unfurling the tangle of the last few years, who will be the prime minister who defines what happens next. senators in the us have accused boeing of putting profit over safety in its design of the 737 max 8. two of the aircraft crashed within 5 months, killing 346 people. the head of the company faced a flood of questions and accusations from a senate committee. tom burridge reports. the photos of loved ones killed were for boeing's boss, who senators said to put profit of a safety when designing an aircraft which crashed twice in the space of five months. we do have competitive pressures around the world, but i can also tell you that never takes precedent over safety. our business model... i could tell you it definitely did in this case, i would walk before i got on a 737 max. the 737 max had a new flight control system, called mcas,

which malfunctioned and pushed the nose of each plane repeatedly down. the senators pointed out today it was not are in the pilots manual. those pilots never had a chance, these loved ones never had are a chance, they were in flying coffins as a result of boeing deciding that it was going to conceal mcas from the pilots. and on the key question of whether the aircraft should have been grounded after the first crash, this. we have asked that question over and over, and... if we knew everything back then that we know now, we would have made a different decision. sammy was 2a when she boarded the flight from addis ababa in march. her mother nadia wants answers from boeing and its regulator, the faa. the only way to re—establish trust is to share information,

and i are still guarding it. to allow scrutiny. and they are still guiding it. still grounded, the 737 max has been modified to make it safer and get it back in the air, but today boeing's reputation took a battering again. tom burridge, bbc news. the us house of representatives has voted to recognise as genocide the mass killing of about 1.5 million armenians in the ottoman empire a century ago. the move is widely seen as a rebuke to turkey over its recent incursions into northern syria. i asked our north america correspondent, david willis, if this was an attempt to recognise a historical injustice or a political move. it is symbolic, as you said, historic, but largely symbolic because there is unlikely to be a similar vote in the senate. i think it highlights the growing frustration on the part of lawmakers from both parties here, democrat and republican, over the actions of the turkish government in recent years, not least the purchase of a russian

missile defence system in contravention of us sanctions and, of course, that assault on northern syria, where kurdish forces have been allies of the united states. so what we have seen here is something that turkey has long lobbied against on capitol hill, this resolution which i think will cheer a lot of armenian americans. there are said to be up to 1.5 million of them here in the us. it was a long time ago, david, i believe the killings happened between 1915 and 1923. why is it felt to be so important to say publicly that this was genocide and other real—world impact? it is something that has been shied away from for such a long time. there have been these resolutions which have not come to a full vote. president trump, indeed his predecessor, ba rack 0bama, have shied away, both of them, from using the word genocide.

but nancy pelosi clearly believes that with a majority in the house so what we have seen here is something that turkey has long lobbied against on capitol hill, this resolution of representatives the time has come to address this issue. it has not gone down well in ankara. the turkish foreign ministry has said this will harm ties between turkey and the united states, that it is a meaningless step, and a political move. fewer people would have died in the grenfell tower fire if london's fire brigade had acted differently, according to an official report. 72 people died in the tragedy, in 2017. the report is due to be published officially on wednesday but sections have been seen by the bbc. it strongly criticises what it calls "serious shortcomings" and systemic failures in the fire service response. here's our special correspondent lucy manning. just a warning, you may find parts of her report upsetting.

who was to blame? yeah, hello, hi, the fire in grenfell tower. how did 72 people die in their homes, unable to escape the flames? get out, get out! some told by those sent to rescue them to stay put. where is the fire brigade?! jesus! firefighters were brave that night, risking their lives, but the fire brigade failures were many. the blaze was like one never seen, but institutional failure, wholly inadequate planning and communication problems left people trapped. most damning, the decision to tell residents to stay put in these flames for nearly two hours. the report says if the building had been evacuated sooner, it's likely more lives would have been saved. it's very hard, very hard, very hard, to go on. nabil choucair lost six members

of his family in the fire. the families have been told they can't discuss the report before it's formally published tomorrow, but he can talk about what happened to them. do you think your family could have been saved if the building was evacuated earlier? of course, of course. i believe a lot of families could have been rescued, without a doubt. i personally believe they were inadequate of dealing with the fire. the report also criticises leadership failures. the commissioner of the london fire brigade gave little comfort to families at the inquiry. i wouldn't change anything we did on the night. ithink... remarkable insensitivity, said the inquiry. she has already announced her retirement with an estimated £2 million pension pot. i was very disgusted in her comments, and how can you... it shows her incompetence. it's the fact that, you know, she's given an escape route for herself.

there's some frustration the main criticism centres on firefighters and not those who made the cladding and refurbished the tower. that will be for the next stage of the inquiry. but the report did find there were building failures, that the cladding failed to comply with building regulations — it spread fire rather than stopping it. we've got planners, designers, architects, builders, subcontractors, building owners, building maintenance. all those things failed before the fire service comes along to put things right. it does feel at times that 20 years of building regulation failure is being laid at the feet of the fire and rescue service. the chairman of the inquiry, sir martin moore—bick, met the grenfell families yesterday and told them he has written to the prime minister, saying he confidently expects the government and those in charge of the emergency services to implement his recommendations without delay. and the bereaved wonder if they will ever get justice.

hamid aljafari's family didn't all escape. his father ali died. there's not a day i won't remember him. every second, anywhere, i can smell him, i can feel him, you know? the memories, you know? to be honest, i don't know, we lost what we are fighting for, i don't know the meaning ofjustice. i don't know, it's now more than two years. we're kind of like leftovers, we don't know what's happening. this tower once dominated the skyline in the most terrible way, a symbol now of so many failings, and the families agonise about how 72 people could have died in what was supposed to be the safety of their homes. lucy manning, bbc news. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: the 4,000—year—old relaxation technique using gongs to cleanse the mind suddenly popular with

millennials in singapore. indira gandhi, ruler of the world's largest democracy, died today. 0nly yesterday she'd spoken of dying in the service of her country and said, "i would be proud of it. every drop of my blood would contribute to the growth of this nation". after 46 years of unhappiness, these two countries have concluded a chapter of history. no more suspicion, no more fear, no more uncertainty of what each day might bring. mission control: booster ignition and lift—off of discovery, with a crew of six astronaut heroes and one american legend. well, enjoying the show is right. this is beautiful. a milestone in human history. born today, this girl in india

is the 7 billionth person on the planet. this is bbc world news, the latest headlines: the british parliament finally votes, overwhelmingly, for a snap general election in december — to try to break months of deadlock over brexit donald trump's attempts to fight off moves to impeach him have suffered a serious setback — first—hand evidence from a senior white house official that he was so troubled by the president's phone call with the ukrainian leader that he reported his concerns to a superior. lieutenant colonel alexander vindman is the first serving white house official to speak to the congressional inquiry. 0ur north america editorjon sopel is at the white house. donald trump sought to characterise them as do—nothing democrats trying to tear him down over what was a perfect call.

he's called it a lynching and says it is people giving evidence are never trumpers and that is what he accused lieutenant colonel vindman of being, except that lieutenant colonel vindman is a decorated war hero, injured in iraq and it's hard to characterise him as some kind of party hack who wants to destroy the president. he served both republican and democratic party administrations so that makes it more difficult and what he said in his testimony was devastating. he said, "i did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a us citizen." the us citizen he is referring to is donald trump's democratic rivaljoe biden and his son hunter over his business dealings and he said there was no national security justification for turning ukraine into a partisan issue, which it shouldn't be, and he said the president's interest in ukraine and joe biden predated this particular phone call.

in other words, he is flatly contradicting what the president has said. not only that, the white house has tried to put a ban on officials giving evidence to this impeachment investigation. they have given evidence and it hasn't been favourable to the president. john used the word devastating but there has been other testimony. but why is this so problematic for the president? because one after another, career public servant or in the case of this colonel, a veteran, has come before a committee in the house and testified that they were disturbed in real time about what donald trump was doing and a parallel foreign policy that he

seemed to be running that instead of being focused on protecting us security or the security of our allies, focused on digging up dirt on his opponents and focused on trying to relitigate the findings of every intelligence agency that has looked at it. that russia interfered with the 2016 election. that has been disturbing and witness after witness has gone before congress and said that is what they observed. and it isa said that is what they observed. and it is a first—hand witness of course, not something he heard from someone else. and yet many people on my timeline, some of them are very pro— trump some of them want to be fair, they say that diplomacy has a lwa ys fair, they say that diplomacy has always been tit—for—tat and it has a lwa ys always been tit—for—tat and it has always been tit—for—tat and it has always been quid pro quo. why is this different? when tit-for-tat is interfere with my political rivals to improve my chances of winning an election, historically in this country that has not been something we do. if we want free and fair elections we need to make sure that

someone is not threatening to with hold half $1 billion in military aid u nless hold half $1 billion in military aid unless the president of foreign nation gets on television and says negative things about arrival. during an election. that is what appeared to be going on here and the risk to the integrity of our democracy if that happens is clear. republicans also point out that the democrats have been loath to hold a vote on this because they don't want to expose the split in their own ranks. they have now voted to go public. hasn't always been the case that in an impeachment enquiry that the house does the enquiry and the senate does the actual public trial. what difference does it make that the democrats will go public with this? this isjust proceeding in the fashion you would expect as the fa cts fashion you would expect as the facts emerge and it becomes clear that this will proceed further and eventually it will take place in front of the full house to decide whether to impeach the president which then goes to the senate for

trial. but this is the process you would expect. beginning with private meetings and interviews and it will become very soon, it appears, more public proceedings in the house that i think will be of great interest to the american people who will get to hear this testimony, or parts of it at least, first—hand. lebanon's prime minister has said he will resign, in the face of huge protests that have rocked the country for almost two weeks. sa'ad hariri said lebanon was deadlocked and needed a shock to break the crisis. gareth barlow reports. cheering after weeks of protest, a moment of celebration as the prime minister announced he would step down. saad hariri said a great shock was needed to fix the crisis, which has brought rare unity to a country often plagued by sectarian division. translation: i am going to the palace to present the resignation of the government to the president and the lebanese people in response to the will of many lebanese who took to the streets to demand change.

lebanon is burdened by debt and chronic corruption, and demonstrators are demanding change. they say the resignation of the prime minister and the cabinet is only the beginning. translation: hariri's resignation is the beginning of what we are working for. this is not enough. we want more of this. we want to continue with the remaining steps. translation: the resignation of hariri is a first step in building a patriotic, democratic country. first victory of this uprising has been realised. now we have to start planning for the second victory. earlier on tuesday, protests turned violent when supporters of the shia groups, hezbollah and amal, attacked the crowds, forcing the army to intervene to restore calm. meanwhile, both iran and the united states have urged the lebanese authorities to establish unity and stability. the resignations might bring joy

to many but they haven't been welcomed by everyone, and they're no instant fix to lebanon's endemic issues. gareth barlow, bbc news. let's get some of the day's other news. officials in western cameroon say nearly a0 people have died in a landslide caused by heavy rain — it's feared others are trapped. rescuers in the highland town of bafoussam searched for survivors in the remains of flattened houses. in the neighbouring central african republic nearly 30,000 have had to leave their homes. one and a half million people in california look set to lose power as wildfires threaten cables across the state. pacific gas & electric has already cut power to almost a million properties to reduce the risk of a spark causing a fire. strong winds have been fanning the flames, and thousands of people in los angeles have been told to evacuate homes and businesses. two brothers are being hunted by police on suspicion of manslaughter over the deaths of 39 people in the back of a lorry in south east england.

ronan and christopher hughes, from northern ireland are also wanted on suspicion of human trafficking. a mountaineerfrom nepal has broken records by climbing the world's 1a highest peaks within seven months. nirmal purja — who's 36 and a former british marine — reached the top of his last mountain, shishapangma in china, on tuesday. it seems nirmal could have been even faster: he climbed everest, lhotse and makalu in five days instead of three — because he stopped for two nights "to have a drink". there are plenty of ways to relax and zone out — how about lying down while somebody hits a gong? a gong bath — claimed to "cleanse" the mind and body — is a tradition that goes back 4,000 years. but the 90—minute sessions are popular with millennials in singapore. we went to find out why, from one practitioner, suraya sam. it cleanses the mind, the body.

why is it called a gong bath? it's because it's a sound bath, right. you are nourished through the frequency. so you're basically showered with 90 minutes of gong. you can definitely feel the vibrations through your body. it is a unique experience. singaporeans in this city in general you are always rushing. people are on their phones, they are chatting or e—mailing and we forget about our surroundings. there is a place and time for you to

slow down and appreciate a sense of wholeness. sound has always been an ancient practice and gong meditation goes back to 4000 bc. it isjust coming back now, going in a circle. so the gong that is right in front of me is the earth gong. the earth gong will ground you and the saturn gong will uplift you. the moon gong is basically for expelling negativity or any stale energy.

all of our sessions are 90 minutes long. we do breath work, we do sound bath. i do take people on a sound journey. i definitely feel responsible for bringing an ancient tradition to this era. just before we go let's leave you with these images of skeletons arising from the dead in mexico city. residents are preparing for ‘dia de muertos' — the day of the dead festival at the weekend. families will remember their dead on november the second, and celebrate the continuity of life by setting up offerings to the dead — flowers, candles, food and sweets. and you can get in touch with me and most of the team

on twitter — i'm @bbcmikeembley. hello. well, most of us on wednesday are in for fine weather, bright to even clear skies, but feeling on the nippy side. that easterly breeze is making its presence felt. the temperatures slightly below the average for the time of year. the south—west of the country, different story here. in fact, it's been overcast and damp for the last 24 hours or more and that's how it will remain through the course of wednesday, so we have a weather front that's basically stalled across the south—west of the country, so that means slightly milder conditions here but some outbreaks of rain for cornwall and for devon. you can see nine degrees at 6am on wednesday, whereas the clearer skies in northern england and scotland by this stage have led to an air frost, at least in the countryside,

and towns — close to freezing. so the forecast on wednesday morning shows cloudier skies nudging into north wales and maybe the midlands as well, certainly quite cloudy in the south and south—east at times, but outbreaks of rain for cornwall and devon. wherever you are, the winds will still be blowing out of the east. easterly winds tend to be quite cutting, feeling quite chilly, so temperatures around ten whether you're in glasgow, edinburgh and london, feeling on the nippy side, despite the sunshine. that's wednesday. there's a little bit of a change wednesday night into thursday. this weather front will be moving eastwards and northwards, and that's going to introduce one — some slightly cloudier weather and some spots of rain, but also milder conditions coming off the atlantic, so when we see the change from the colder air to the milder air, we often see misty, murky conditions and it does look as though that's what we're going to have on thursday

and thursday, of course, is halloween. so halloween, cloudier weather, especially for some western and south—western areas and spits and spots of rain, nothing too heavy but at times it will be damp. still nippy, single figures there in eastern scotland and the north—east of england but in the south—west, we're around the mid—teens, 15 expected in plymouth. then a big change friday and the weekend. big low pressure swings in off the atlantic. in fact multiple low pressures with multiple weather fronts, and that can only mean one thing — very changeable and windy weather at times, we will have to get the wet weather gear out once again. so here's a summary — thursday predominantly dry, at times damp weather for halloween, and then friday into the weekend, it's all change. a big low and outbreaks of rain and wind. bye— bye.

all this is bbc news, the headlines:

political parties in britain are braced for a general election in december after parliament voted for a snap poll, as a way of breaking the deadlock over brexit. if the conservatives win, the prime minister, borisjohnson is expected to engineer a swift exit from the european union. a senior white house official has told the impeachment inquiry into donald trump, that he witnessed, first—hand, the president pressuring ukraine's government to investigate his political rivaljoe biden. the officer, told the hearing that he had been concerned about the request, and reported it to government lawyers. us legislators have accused boeing of putting profits over safety — and engaging in a "pattern of deliberate concealment" after two deadly 737 max crashes, killed a total of 346 people. the accusation came while boeing's chief executive was being questioned by the senate commerce committee.