Greetings and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We start with the report that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Troop Information
An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Greater Chicago region, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on background basis in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been made public.
The military personnel are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities 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, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the military command and have been activated for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the personnel were equipped.
Background Situation
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing 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.
"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. 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 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 captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was applauded by GOP legislators, who urged 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 'legal principle' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the government provide a public reason 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 identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The content producers cover liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more similar to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
