Hello and welcome to the most recent developments in US politics. We begin with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Troop Information
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Chicago area, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on background basis in order to reveal operational details that have not been made public.
The military personnel are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command said online.
The forces, 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 military command and have been activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois 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 Officers!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump announced that the conflicting parties have agreed to a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- News of the Gaza agreement was praised by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be given the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the authorities provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called political content creators. The content producers report on liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research 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 government's unprecedented deployment of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant echoed Trump's false claim that large numbers of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: one.
