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Greetings and welcome to the latest developments in American political affairs. We begin with the report that a limited contingent of state military forces has begun guarding federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Deployment Details

An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, as stated by a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been made public.

The troops are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command said online.

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 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the troops were armed.

Political Context

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

"The city's mayor should be in jail for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

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

Additional Developments

• The president announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
• Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
• During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle that requires that the authorities provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" organized by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might more accurately described as political content creators. The content producers cover leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to political investigation than neutral journalism.
• Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration's extraordinary use of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The correct number of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.