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Hello and welcome to the most recent updates in US politics. We begin with the report that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Deployment Details

An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Greater Chicago region, as stated by a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been made public.

The troops are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.

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 Northern Command and have been activated for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the personnel were equipped.

Political Context

It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.

"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

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

Other Updates

• Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release captured individuals and detained persons.
• Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
• During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary 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 provided statements at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers cover leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more akin to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
• Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's ability to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the administration's extraordinary use of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers 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.