🔗 Share this article

Hello and welcome to the most recent updates in US politics. We start with the report that a limited contingent of state military forces has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Deployment Details

An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on background basis in order to reveal operational details that have not been made public.

The military personnel are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.

The troops, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the military command and have been activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the troops were armed.

Political Context

It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

"Chicago Mayor should be in prison for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"

Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the Trump administration, despite objections from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Additional Developments

• Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free captured individuals and detained persons.
• News of the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Palestinian Americans.
• During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the president on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers cover liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
• GOP senators voted down a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to counter the government's unprecedented deployment of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The correct number of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: one.