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Greetings and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We begin with the news that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.

Deployment Details

An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Chicago area, according to a representative 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 made public.

The military personnel are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command said online.

The forces, 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 activated for two months. The official wasn't able to quickly provide information 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 not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's remarks coincide with national guard troops 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

• Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
• News of the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
• During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the government provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
• All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the president on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The content producers report on liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
• GOP senators voted down a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to counter the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant echoed Trump's false claim that significant amounts 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: a single incident.