Trump may visit Israel
President Trump is considering a visit to Israel in the near future, the Jerusalem Post reports. “We are exploring the possibility of a future visit to Israel as well as other countries,” a White House official told the paper.
A delegation of U.S officials will reportedly visit Israel this week to prepare for the visit, slated for late May or early June, according to the Post.
Ten detained in Hyper Cacher attack investigation
French police have detained ten people in the investigation of the deadly 2015 attack on the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris, according to JTA. The suspects include a suspected arms trafficker, Claude Hermant.
Investigators are seeking to ascertain how the assailant, France-based jihadist Amedy Coulibaly, obtained the weapons used in the Jan. 9, 2015, attack. Coulibaly was killed by police after murdering four in a hostage siege that began on the same day that jihadists killed 12 at the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine.
New haredi neighborhood north of Jerusalem under consideration
Israel’s Housing Ministry is bringing back plans for a new haredi neighborhood on the site of the now defunct Atarot Airport, near Ramallah north of Jerusalem, Haaretz reports.
The 10,000-home plan, drawn up several years ago by the Jerusalem municipality, had been frozen because of U.S. opposition, but is being reconsidered since the inauguration of President Trump.
The Atarot Airport was abandoned was abandoned at the beginning of the second intifada about 15 years ago for fear that the Palestinians would shoot at planes taking off there.
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NASA: No kosher food for astronauts
Astronauts who keep kosher or eat only halal are going to have a difficult time keeping up with the task in space, ynetnews.com reports. NASA’s food lab—where space meals are produced—observes neither dietary law.
Vickie Kloeris, director of NASA’s Food Systems Laboratory, said astronauts would not have kosher or halal meals because the place where the agency’s food is produced is not kosher, even if the food itself is kosher.
Kloeris added that every astronaut is given the opportunity to take a small amount of personal food that would be solely his or her own, comprising about ten percent of the astronaut’s menu.
No offense meant, these Israeli kids are space cadets
A group of Israeli high school students have built a tiny satellite that was launched recently by NASA from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral to study the atmosphere as part of an international research project.
According to Arutz Sheva, 28 other nanosatellites are participating in the project, Israel’s is the only one that involves high school students.
More than 80 pupils in grades 9-12 at schools in Herzliya, Ofakim, Yeruham, Ofra, and the Bedouin town of Hura helped to construct Duchifat-2, which weighs four pounds and is eight inches high. The satellite has no motors and instead uses the earth’s magnetic field to keep itself correctly aligned in space.
The Israeli satellite will study the plasma density in the lower thermosphere, a layer of the atmosphere that begins at about 53 miles altitude. Signals from the satellite will be received at the Herzliya Science Center, where pupils will then analyze the data.
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