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Hello and welcome to the latest developments in American political affairs. We begin with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding federal property in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement 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 mission specifics that have not been officially released.

The military personnel 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 forces, along with about 300 from Illinois, 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 troops were armed.

Background Situation

It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

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

Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's remarks coincide with national guard troops have started deployment in the Chicago area at the direction of the Trump administration, despite objections from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Additional Developments

• The president announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
• News of the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
• During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize 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 provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized 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 highly political manner, more similar to opposition research than neutral journalism.
• 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 Sea.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated 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 self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.