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Greetings and welcome to the current developments in US politics. We start with the report that a small number of National Guard troops 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 two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Chicago area, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been officially released.

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

Political Context

It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

"The city's mayor should be in jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"

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

Additional Developments

• Donald Trump announced that the conflicting parties have agreed to a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
• News of the Middle East deal was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be given the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
• During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that requires that the authorities provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" organized by the president on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The content producers cover liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more similar to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
• Senate Republicans voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to counter the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.