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Greetings and welcome to the most recent updates in US politics. We start with the news that a limited contingent 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, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics 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 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 five hundred personnel are under the Northern Command and have been activated for two months. The official wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the troops were armed.

Political Context

It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.

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

Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments coincide with state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the direction of the federal administration, despite objections from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Additional Developments

• Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release captured individuals and detained persons.
• Reports about the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be given the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
• During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that requires that the authorities provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might more accurately described as partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
• GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to counter the government's extraordinary use of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.