🔗 Share this article

Greetings and welcome to the most recent updates in American political affairs. We begin with the news that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has begun guarding federal property in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.

Deployment Details

An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on background basis in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been made public.

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

The forces, 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 official wasn't able to immediately offer information 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 state governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.

"The city's mayor should be in jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"

Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's remarks come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the federal administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Additional Developments

• The president declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
• Reports about the Middle East deal was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
• During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called political content creators. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
• Senate Republicans rejected a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.