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Greetings and welcome to the current developments in American political affairs. We begin with the report that a small number of state military forces has begun guarding federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.

Deployment Details

An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Greater Chicago region, as stated by a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to reveal operational details that have not been made public.

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 stated publicly.

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 military command and have been deployed for 60 days. The official wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the personnel were equipped.

Political Context

It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

"The city's mayor should be in prison for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's remarks coincide with state military forces have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Additional Developments

• Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
• News of the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be given the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
• During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle 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 administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
• GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the administration's extraordinary use of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.