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Hello and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We start with the report that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities 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 operating in the Chicago area, as stated by a spokesperson 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 military personnel are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and police officers, 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 military command and have been deployed for two months. The official wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the troops were armed.

Background Situation

It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.

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

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

Additional Developments

• The president announced that the conflicting parties have agreed to a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
• News of the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be given the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
• During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect definition of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called political content creators. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
• GOP senators rejected 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 extraordinary use of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.