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Hello and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We begin with the news that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.

Troop Information

An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Chicago area, as stated by a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on background basis in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been made public.

The military personnel are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.

The forces, along with about 300 from Illinois, 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 Northern Command and have been deployed for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the personnel were equipped.

Political Context

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

"The city's mayor should be in jail 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 comments come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the federal administration, despite objections from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Additional Developments

• Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
• News of the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
• During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the authorities provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers cover liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
• Senate Republicans voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's false claim that large numbers of people have been killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.