Is Israel ready to accept a Ceasefire, initially proposed by Israel? President Biden is urging the parties to say yes. Some of Israel's right-wing government is not willing to go along. It's also unclear if Hamas would accept. I'm Steve Innskeep with A. Martinez, and this is up first from NPR News.
Jerry Selection begins today in a gun case against Hunter Biden. Prosecutors say the president sunlight on a background check when he bought a firearm in 2018, and they intend to use passages from his memoir as evidence. And 71 years after Mexico extended voting rights to women, voters there appeared who have elected their first woman president, Claudia Sheinbaum. For the first time in 200 years, women have come to the presidential party.
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a moment to hit pause, set intentions, and reset. That's where BetterHelp Online therapy comes in. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists any time for no additional charge. Visit BetterHelp.com slash NPR. The US is putting new pressure on Hamas and Israel to permanently end the war in Gaza. Yeah, President Biden surprised Israeli leaders last Friday when he went public with the ceasefire proposal that Israel had offered privately.
This is truly a decisive moment. Here's those made their proposal. Hamas says it wants a ceasefire. This deal is an opportunity to prove whether they really meet it. Biden's speech set off debate inside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet, which raises the question as to whether Israel can deliver on its own ceasefire deal. NPR's Daniel Estrin is in Tel Aviv, Daniel. What does the ceasefire proposal say?
Well, it's a proposal for a six week initial ceasefire, which would include a major hostage prisoner exchange, and it would allow Palestinians to return to North Gaza for the first time in the war. Then it would be followed with a next phase, a final release of hostages, including male Israeli soldiers. And Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza, and it would be a permanent end of hostilities. And then there would be a final phase after that, a big
reconstruction effort for rebuilding Gaza's decimated infrastructure. This is a very similar proposal to what has been proposed for many months now, but that really never went anywhere. And so President Biden is making an effort for a breakthrough here. And he said, quote, it's time for this war to end. Okay. Now our Hamas and Israel on board with this framework to end the war. Hamas says it is. It says it's ready to deal with the proposal positively and constructively.
President Biden is promising, Hamas, what it essentially has been asking for all along, which is a guaranteed and permanent end of the war. And our producer and Gaza, Anas Baba, has spoken to residents in Gaza who are eager to see President Biden push this deal through. The bigger question is if Israel is ready to get on board. Biden has packaged this as a ceasefire that Israel is backing. When in reality, there is major disagreement about
this in Israel. Public opinion wise, there's a new survey that found 40% of Israelis pulled a due support to ceasefire deal. If you look at the military, you see that Israel's army is actually focusing new attention elsewhere in addition to Gaza. It's focusing on the Lebanon border and training troops there because there's been an escalation of his Bola fire onto Israel. The problem here with this deal is political. On the one hand, Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has endorsed this plan privately. That's what an Israeli official tells me. But Netanyahu cannot come out and say it outright because the far right flank in his government is threatening to resign over this proposal because they say it would keep Hamas intact. And if the far right does resign, Netanyahu simply won't have a government anymore and that could spell the end of his political career. So Netanyahu is in this bind. How is it likely to play out?
Well, Netanyahu does have an important choice to make. Ending the war could cost him his own political survival. At the moment, Israel's government politicians are holding consultations. They're making their own calculations about whether to embrace the steel and Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with Netanyahu's two other war-cavidant members to try to push
it through. Biden is making the case here that accepting the deal will bring a reward for Israel, which is diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, something Israel has long sought. And Biden is saying that that can help Israel become less isolated globally over its actions and Gaza. All right. That's NPR's Daniel Estren in Tel Aviv. Daniel, thanks. You're welcome. Today in federal court in Delaware, jury selection begins with a Hunter Biden trial on gun charges.
This case against the president's son was brought by Justice Department special counsel David Weiss. Just last week, former president Trump was in the spotlight announcing the jury verdict against him in a Democratic state. Now trial begins for a Biden as part of an investigation that dates back to president Trump's administration. NPR Justice correspondent Ryan Lucas is joining us now. Ryan, a gun case against Hunter Biden here. But what are the charges he's facing?
So there are three charges against Hunter here that all relate to a cult co-ber revolver that he bought in October of 2018. He faces two counts of making false statements when purchasing the weapon. Prosecutors say that Hunter lied on a federal background check form. He had to fill out when buying the gun. That form has a boilerplate question that asks whether you use illegal drugs or addicted to drugs. Prosecutors say that Hunter lied on that form by checking the
no box. In other words, saying that he wasn't using illegal drugs when prosecutors say he was. And then there's, of course, also the third count. And that is for the unlawful possession of a firearm by a drug user or addict. Okay. How do prosecutors and then approve their case? Well, they've said in filings in an open court that they expect to call around a dozen witnesses that includes Hunter's ex-wife, Kathleen Buell, as well as the widow of his brother
Boe, Haley Biden. Hunter had a romantic relationship with her after Boe died. Prosecutors say that Haley Biden will testify that Hunter had the gun in question that she threw it into a dumpster outside a market in Wilmington less than two weeks after he bought it. That gun was later found by a man collecting recyclables. He's the one who turned it over to law enforcement. Prosecutors also intend to use parts of Hunter's own memoir as evidence, as well as Hunter's
own text messages related to his drug use. But to be clear, Hunter has been very open, including in his memoir about his addiction to crack cocaine, alcohol. But this trial looks like it's going to put that struggle and the toll that it took on the Biden family, very much in the national spotlight. All right, now how will Hunter Biden's attorneys plan a counter in the government's case? Well, they think they can challenge some of the evidence.
There has been, though, it has to be said a lot of legal wrangling in the lead up to this trial. Hunter's attorneys have tried to get this case dismissed on a bunch of different grounds. The judge has denied those. But this time last year, it looked like Hunter was going to be able to avoid trial entirely. He had a tentative deal to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax charges and to avoid prosecution entirely on the gun charges. But that deal fell apart dramatically in court.
Weeks later, Vice was appointed special counsel. He then indicted Hunter on these gun charges, a few months after that, Vice separately brought tax charges against Hunter in California. That case is scheduled to go to trial in September. Now, Hunter's attorney Abby Lowell has argued that these gun offenses are usually not charged. And he's argued that the special counsel has folded essentially to Republican pressure on the Hill and that this whole prosecution is politically
motivated. There is quite the political backdrop for this trial. The son of a president going on trial as his father runs for reelection. I mean, could this possibly hurt President Biden? Well, look, it comes at a tricky time for the president. Politically, of course, we're just what, five months out from the election. Republicans have certainly in the past tried to play a Hunter's legal troubles, his international business dealings in an effort to muddy his father.
And there's every reason to believe that they're going to try to do that with this trial again. But Hunter, of course, is the one on trial, not President Biden. Hunter is not running for president. And of course, the man who is running against Biden for the presidency former President Trump was just found guilty by a jury in New York of falsifying business records to cover up hush money
payments to an adult film star. But Trump is still leading Biden in many polls. So it's hard to say what the political impact if any Hunter's legal troubles will have on his father's political fortunes. We're going to have to wait and see. Hunter's trial that opens today with jury selection. And this trial could last up to two weeks. MPR Justice Correspondent, Ryan Lucas, Ryan Thanks. Thank you. Okay, here's the sound of history being made in Mexico City.
For the first time in 200 years, the women who came to the presidency of the president. President of the candidate Claudia Shainbaum says women have reached the presidency of the Mexican Republic for the first time in 200 years. She said Las Mujeres got there. Women, plural, now the election results show that Shainbaum herself is heading for a landslide victory. MPR's Ador Pedalta joins us now from Mexico City. Ador Shainbaum has been the favorite for months.
So the results aren't necessarily a surprise, but tell us what it was like to describe that moment. Well, look, the electoral commission took unusually long to announce its results. But just before midnight, the commissioners came on TV and said that according to preliminary results, Claudia Shainbaum had achieved an irreversible lead. I was at the Socalo, which is Mexico City's main square, where many of her supporters had gathered. And it was an emotional moment. There were little girls
with their moms, older women with their adult daughters. And it's hard to overstate what this moment meant for them. It has been just over 70 years since women were allowed to vote here. And now they were welcoming a woman president elect. Let me play you a little bit of what it sounded like. And here at the Socalo, it is being celebrated as a woman breaking the highest of last ceilings. And all of this is happening in a country that is notoriously machista. But now, Claudia Shainbaum
fought a 61-year-old environmental engineer, the former mayor of Mexico City. She will become the first woman to own the most powerful office in this country. It sounds like a party, Ador. So what about the women at the square? Everyone they tell you? You know, I saw women cry. I saw women dancing. I saw women hugging the Mexican flag and holding little dolls of Claudia Shainbaum. I found 69-year-old Rosa María García just staring at the presidential palace in front
of her. And she told me that she has always felt that like this was a dream because she felt the power structures in Mexico had been in place too long. And she thought that maybe Mexicans could never break free of them. But today, she says they did. I'm emotional, she says. I feel complete seeing that a fellow woman will be in charge of the Mexican people. And, you know, before today, I had heard skepticism. Many women had told me that having a woman in the presidency didn't
necessarily mean that she would be a feminist or that their lives would improve. And today, I heard none of that. I heard women who were proud of their country and who were simply enjoying the moment. All right. So the inauguration would be in October. Tell us about Mexico's president-elect and her policies. Claudia Shainbaum is a protégé of the current president of Mexico. So she has huge very closely to his policies. And so she's very likely to retain or even
expand the welfare state that has made President Andrés Manuel López Obrador very popular. But also, early results seem to show that Shainbaum's party might have achieved a super majority in Congress. And Shainbaum and her party say that they want to amend the Constitution to reform the Judiciary, the Electoral Commission, and to put at least some police forces under military control. If this super majority holds, we can safely say that President Shainbaum will usher
in huge changes to Mexico. That's MPR's Eterpedalda in Mexico City. Thanks a lot. Thank you, A And that's up first for Monday, June 3rd. I'm E martínas. And I'm Steve Insgate. Your next listen can be consider this from NPR News as they consider the artifacts in some museums. A Nashville Museum is acknowledging its past and returning
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