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Greetings and welcome to the latest updates in American political affairs. We begin with the news that a limited contingent of state military forces 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 spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been officially released.

The military personnel are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.

The troops, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the Northern Command and have been deployed for two months. The official wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the troops were armed.

Political Context

It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing 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 prison for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"

Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Additional Developments

• The president announced that the conflicting parties have agreed to a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
• News of the Middle East deal was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
• During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle 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 "political discussion" hosted 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 highly political manner, more similar to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
• GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the government's unprecedented deployment of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.