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Greetings and welcome to the current updates in American political affairs. We start with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities 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 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 troops are in the city to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command said online.

The forces, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, 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 60 days. The official wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the personnel were equipped.

Political Context

It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.

"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"

Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks coincide with national guard troops have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the federal 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 GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
• During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the core legal principle that mandates that the authorities 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 partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers cover liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than neutral journalism.
• Senate Republicans rejected a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's ability to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.