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Greetings and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We begin with the report that a small number of state military forces has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Deployment Details

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

The troops 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 troops, 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 five hundred personnel are under the military command and have been activated for 60 days. The official wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the troops were armed.

Political Context

It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging 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 his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's comments coincide with state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the direction of the Trump administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.

Additional Developments

• Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
• News of 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 Palestinian Americans.
• During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the authorities provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
• All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might more accurately described as partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers cover leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research 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 Democrats tried to counter the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's false claim that large numbers of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The correct number of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: one.