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Hello and welcome to the latest developments in US politics. We start with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.

Deployment Details

An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Greater Chicago region, as stated by a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been officially released.

The military personnel are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command said online.

The forces, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the personnel were equipped.

Political Context

It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, accusing them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.

"The city's mayor should be in jail for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"

Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the federal administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.

Other Updates

• The president declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
• News of the Middle East deal was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
• During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the government provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
• All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
• GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the administration's extraordinary use of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: one.