🔗 Share this article

Hello and welcome to the latest developments in US politics. We start with the report that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has started protecting federal property in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Deployment Details

An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, as stated by a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal operational details that have not been made public.

The troops are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and police officers, 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 military command and have been deployed for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide 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 city leader, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.

"Chicago Mayor should be in prison for failing to protect Ice Officers!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments coincide with national guard troops have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the federal administration, despite objections from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Additional Developments

• The president announced that the conflicting parties have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
• Reports about the Gaza agreement was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
• During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle that requires that the authorities provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
• Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's authority to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to counter the administration's extraordinary use of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.