Hello and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We start with the news that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to discuss operational details that have not been made public.
The troops are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command said online.
The troops, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the military command and have been deployed for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the personnel were equipped.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as state military forces have started deployment in the Chicago area at the order of the federal administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- The president announced that the conflicting parties have accepted a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
- During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the authorities provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration's extraordinary use of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The correct number of killings by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.
