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Greetings and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We start with the news that a small number of state military forces has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.

Deployment Details

An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Greater Chicago region, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity 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) facilities and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.

The troops, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the military command and have been deployed for two months. The official wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the troops were armed.

Background Situation

It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.

"The city's mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

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

Additional Developments

• The president announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and release captured individuals 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 Palestinian Americans.
• During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the authorities provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
• All of the participants who contributed testimony 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 report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
• GOP senators voted down a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to destroy boats 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 killed by left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The correct number of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.