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Hello and welcome to the current developments in American political affairs. We start with the report that a small number of state military forces has started protecting federal property in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Deployment Details

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

The troops are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.

The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been activated for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the troops were armed.

Background Situation

It comes as 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 jail for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the federal administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Other Updates

• The president announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
• Reports about the Gaza agreement was applauded by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Palestinian Americans.
• During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the president on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might more accurately described as partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
• GOP senators voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's ability to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to counter the government's extraordinary use of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: one.