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Greetings and welcome to the most recent developments in American political affairs. We start with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Troop Information

An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss operational details that have not been officially released.

The troops are in the city to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.

The troops, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the military command and have been deployed for 60 days. The official wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the troops were armed.

Political Context

It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

"The city's mayor should be in prison for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"

Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's remarks coincide with state military forces have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Other Updates

• Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
• News of the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
• During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
• Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's authority to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.