🔗 Share this article

Greetings and welcome to the latest developments in US politics. We start with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Deployment Details

An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Chicago area, as stated by a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on background basis in order to reveal operational details that have not been officially released.

The troops are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.

The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, had arrived 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 spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the troops were armed.

Background Situation

It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

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

Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments come as state military forces have started deployment in the Chicago area at the direction of the Trump administration, despite objections 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 captured individuals 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 received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
• During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the government provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
• All of the participants 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 cover liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more similar to opposition research than neutral journalism.
• Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's ability to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to counter the government's extraordinary use of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The correct number of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.