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Greetings and welcome to the most recent updates in US politics. We begin with the report that a small number of state military forces has started protecting federal property in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Troop Information

An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on background basis in order to discuss operational details that have not been officially released.

The troops are in the city to secure 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 reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers 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 troops were armed.

Political Context

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 failing to protect Ice Officers!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"

Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the direction of the federal administration, despite objections from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.

Other Updates

• The president declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to end the fighting 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 awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
• During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
• All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the president on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
• Senate Republicans voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to oppose the administration's extraordinary use of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.