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Hello and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We start with the news that a limited contingent of state military forces has begun guarding federal property in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.

Deployment Details

An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on background basis in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been officially released.

The troops are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command said online.

The troops, 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 spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the troops were armed.

Political Context

It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, 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 not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks coincide with state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the direction of the federal administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Additional Developments

• Donald Trump announced that the conflicting parties have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
• Reports about the Gaza agreement was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be given the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
• During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called political content creators. The influencers cover leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to political investigation than neutral journalism.
• GOP senators voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to counter the government's extraordinary use of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.