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Hello and welcome to the most recent developments in US politics. We start with the report that a small number of state military forces has started protecting federal property in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Deployment Details

An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on background basis in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been officially released.

The military personnel are in the city to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.

The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been activated for two months. The official wasn't able to quickly provide information 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 Illinois 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 Officers!" 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 objections from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.

Other Updates

• Donald Trump declared 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 GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
• During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the government 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 identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers cover leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
• GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The correct number of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.