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Hello and welcome to the most recent updates in US politics. We start with the report that a limited contingent of state military forces has begun guarding federal property in the Chicago area 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, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been made public.

The military personnel are in the city to protect 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 arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the military command and have been activated for two months. 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 state governor, charging them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

"The city's mayor should be in prison for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"

Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the direction of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Other Updates

• Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
• Reports about the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
• During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
• All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more akin to political investigation than neutral journalism.
• GOP senators voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's ability to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
• 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 Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.