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Hello and welcome to the latest developments in American political affairs. We begin with the report that a limited contingent 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.

Deployment Details

An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Chicago area, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on background basis in order to discuss operational details that have not been officially released.

The military personnel 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 300 from Illinois, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer 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) officers.

"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"

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

Additional Developments

• Donald Trump declared that the conflicting parties have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release captured individuals and detained persons.
• News of the Middle East deal was praised by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
• During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect definition of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the authorities provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
• All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers cover liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
• Senate Republicans voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to counter the administration's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The correct number of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.