Finance Minister and Kulanu chairman Moshe Kahlon is conducting advanced negotiations for the unification of Kulanu and the Likud party to act as one faction in the 21st Knesset.
Kahlon will continue to hold the Finance Ministry portfolio and will receive another portfolio as well in the new government.
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
{Matzav.com}

The US government this week denied entry to Omar Barghouti, the leader of the Palestinian-led boycott movement against Israel, according to a Washington-based advocacy group who claimed the travel ban was retribution for his political activities.
Barghouti, a co-founder of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement, possessed a valid US visa, and the required Israel-issued travel documents, the institute said.
Israel has barred Barghouti from leaving the county a number of times in recent years, by refusing to renew travel documents granted to Palestinian residents of Israel who do not have full citizenship.
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}

A driving factor behind Brooklyn’s measles outbreak is the circulation of a magazine called PEACH (Parents Educating and Advocating for Children’s Health), a religious illustrated handbook that demonizes vaccines with alarming drawings and storylines.
Blima Marcus, an Orthodox Jewish nurse in Williamsburg, is trying to counteract PEACH with her own magazine (PIE, Parents Informed and Educated).
Marcus warns the situation is incredibly complex, with layers of cultural beliefs and deep-rooted concerns that could be intensified with a hard-line approach.
‘It’s not getting to the root of the problem,’ Marcus told Gothamist of the state of emergency Mayor De Blasio declared this week.

Recent visitors to Woodbury Common may have been exposed to the measles after a New York City resident with a confirmed case of measles visited the mega shopping area, according to the Orange County Health Department.
The infected person visited the shopping area between the hours of 4 to 9 p.m. on Sunday, March 31, the department said in a news release.
Areas the person visited included Nike Factory Store and Sayki Men’s Fashion Store, they added.
Read more.
{Matzav.com}

Yahadut HaTorah (UTJ), which was celebrating its growth to eight Knesset seats in the elections this week, is now feeling pressure as the latest count appears to move its eighth seat to the Meretz party.
UTJ is now just a few dozen votes shy of that eighth seat, which had previously seemed safe, as the Central Elections Committee is coping with a spate of irregularities in the reported votes.
The party which is benefiting at UTJ’s expense is the far-left Meretz party, the Kikar Hashabbat website reported.

Israel’s Central Election Committee chairman Hanan Meltzer said Thursday evening that results would be posted on the Knesset website “by midnight,” adding that while the figures released would be accurate, they could still be subject to updates.
“I wish to stress that we did not find any irregularities in the system or in the counts of the votes,” he said.
Based on consultations with security officials, Meltzer added that there was no suspicion of a foreign origin cyber attack.
The final total will be posted by April 17, when it is to be handed over to Israel’s president for review.

Israeli spacecraft Beresheet made its final maneuver ahead of a planned descent to the moon on Thursday, which, if successful, will propel Israel into an elite group of countries that have mastered the lunar landing.
The unmanned robotic lander dubbed Beresheet – Hebrew for the biblical phrase “in the beginning” – has traveled through space for seven weeks in a series of expanding orbits around Earth before crossing into the moon’s gravity last week.
The final maneuver brought the spacecraft into a tight elliptical orbit around the moon, just 15-17 kilometeres from the surface at its closest. The landing is set to begin late on Thursday, with touchdown expected around 3:30 pm ET, the Israeli space team said.