🔗 Share this article

Greetings and welcome to the latest developments in American political affairs. We begin with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Troop Information

An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Greater Chicago region, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been officially released.

The troops are in the city to protect 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 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 deployed for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the personnel were equipped.

Background Situation

It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing 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 wrote on Truth Social 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 Greater Chicago region at the direction of the federal administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.

Additional Developments

• Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
• News of the Gaza agreement was applauded by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
• During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle that requires that the government provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" organized by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called political content creators. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
• GOP senators voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that large numbers of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: one.