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Greetings and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We start with the report that a small number of state military forces has started protecting federal property in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Deployment Details

An unit 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 made public.

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

The forces, 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 Northern Command and have been activated for two months. The official wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the troops were armed.

Political Context

It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment 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.

"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"

Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks come as state military forces have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the Trump administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.

Other Updates

• Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
• 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 appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and deferred to Kristi Noem. 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 witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
• GOP senators rejected a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration's extraordinary use of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The correct number of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.