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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 begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.

Deployment Details

An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to discuss operational details 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 law enforcement personnel, 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 Northern 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 coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.

"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.

Additional Developments

• The president declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release captured individuals and detained persons.
• News of the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
• During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the government provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
• All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
• Senate Republicans voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.