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Hello and welcome to the latest developments in American political affairs. We begin with the news that a limited contingent of state military forces has started protecting federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.

Deployment Details

An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on background basis in order to discuss 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 said online.

The troops, 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 500 troops are under the military command and have been activated for 60 days. The official wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the troops were armed.

Political Context

It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing 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.

"The city's mayor should be in prison for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments coincide with state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the direction of the federal administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.

Additional Developments

• The president announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
• Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
• During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect definition of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the authorities provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called political content creators. The influencers cover leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
• Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's ability to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to counter the administration'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 echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.