🔗 Share this article

Hello and welcome to the most recent developments in US politics. We begin with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Deployment Details

An element 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 condition of anonymity in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been made public.

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

The troops, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles 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 immediately offer details 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, accusing them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.

"The city's mayor should be in jail for not protecting 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 state military forces have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the federal administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.

Additional Developments

• Donald Trump announced 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 praised by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
• During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect explanation of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the authorities provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called 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 voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to counter the administration's extraordinary use of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.