Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Republican senators Wednesday to be ready for an impeachment trial of President Donald Trump as soon as Thanksgiving, as the Senate began to brace for a political maelstrom that would engulf the nation.
An air of inevitability has taken hold in Congress, with the expectation that Trump will become the third president in history to be impeached – and that Republicans need to prepare to defend the president. While McConnell briefed senators on what would happen during a Senate trial, House GOP leaders convened what they expect will be regular impeachment strategy sessions.

Rep. Elijah Cummings has died at the age of 68, his office said in a statement early Thursday.
Cummings “passed away at Johns Hopkins Hospital due to complications concerning longstanding health challenges,” according to his office.
Cummings served as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, one of the panels overseeing the impeachment inquiry into President Trump. He also famously clashed with the president this summer over the president’s attacks against the Maryland Democrat and his Baltimore congressional district. Several Democratic lawmakers, including city officials, labeled Trump’s comments as racist.
Read more at The Hill.
{Matzav.com}

A vandalized Israeli flag defaced with symbols of anti-Jewish hate was found last week on the premises of a synagogue in Cape Code, Massachusetts, local media reported.
According to the Cape Cod Times, Elias Lieberman, the rabbi at the Falmouth Jewish Congregation, found an Israeli flag with a swastika and the numbers 14 and 88 scrawled on it.
The so-called “Fourteen Words” refers to a White nationalist slogan, while 88 in this instance is a code for “Heil Hitler.”
Lieberman was quoted by the Cape Cod Times as saying that “this should be a wake-up call for everyone who lives on Cape Cod. The Cape is not the picture-perfect postcard people like to think it is, or for that matter, any place in the country.”

The Anti-Defamation League has announced that Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, pledged a gift of $2.5 million to the organization in support of ADL’s ongoing efforts to combat hate and bias in the United States and Europe.
The donation, which will be made through the Sheryl Sandberg & Dave Goldberg Family Foundation, is a birthday tribute to her parents, Joel and Adele Sandberg, and will be used to support anti-hate and anti-bias education programs, research and advocacy.

The United States carried out a secret cyber operation against Iran in the wake of the Sept. 14 attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, which Washington and Riyadh blame on Tehran, two US officials have told Reuters.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the operation took place in late September and took aim at Tehran’s ability to spread “propaganda.”
One of the officials said the strike affected physical hardware, but did not provide further details.
The attack highlights how President Donald Trump’s administration has been trying to counter what it sees as Iranian aggression without spiraling into a broader conflict.

In a rare move, the leader of Israel’s centrist Blue and White party, Benny Gantz, met formally with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi on Wednesday to discuss what have been described as major developments in the country’s security situation.
The IDF said the meeting took place place “in light of security challenges and regional developments.”
Sources close to Gantz, a former head of the IDF himself, said he officially requested the sit-down because he wanted “a direct update from the chief of staff on the latest developments in the area.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly approved the meeting.
Both Netanyahu and Kochavi have recently warned of a deterioration in the security situation due to heightened tensions between the US and Iran.

The number of hate crimes targeting Jews reported to police in England and Wales in 2018-19 has more than doubled compared to the previous year, interior ministry statistics show.
While the largest proportion of religious hate crime offences targeted Muslim people (3,530 offences), that number has remained steady over the last five years, according to the UK’s Home Office.
Whereas hate crimes against the Jews have more than doubled, representing some 18% of religious hate crime offences targeting Jewish people (1,326 offences) in 2018-19, compared with 672 in the previous year.
Read more at i24NEWS.
{Matzav.com}

The French court sentenced five Muslim women to lengthy prison sentences for attempting to blow up the Notre Dame cathedral.
The women, all converts to Islam, plotted to detonate a car bomb outside the cathedral in September 2016.
A Peugeot 607 was parked near Notre Dame in Paris. The car’s license plates had been removed and the lights were flashing. Police called to the scene found fuel tanks, diesel tanks and cigarette butts that were supposed to ignite the fuel tanks and cause the car to explode and damage the famous church.
According to French police investigators, “the attempted attack would have been successful if the women had chosen the right type of fuel.”

Iran’s economy is expected to shrink by 9.5 percent this year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said, down from a previous estimate of a six percent contraction, as the country feels the impact of tighter US sanctions.
The IMF forecasts, published on Tuesday in the fund’s World Economic Outlook report, are not far from estimates given last week by the World Bank, which said the Iranian economy by the end of the 2019/20 financial year would be 90 percent smaller than it was just two years ago.
Iran, a large oil producer, saw its oil revenues surge after a 2015 nuclear pact agreed with six major powers that ended a sanctions regime imposed three years earlier over its disputed nuclear program.