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Hello and welcome to the current developments in US politics. We begin with the news that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has started protecting federal property in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Troop Information

An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been made public.

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 forces, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been deployed for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the personnel were equipped.

Political Context

It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment 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.

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

Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the direction 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 provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and release captured individuals and detained persons.
• Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be awarded the peace award 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 wildly inaccurate explanation 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 "political discussion" hosted by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called political content creators. 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 limited Trump's ability to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.