Hello and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We begin with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding federal property in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Greater Chicago region, as stated by a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to 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) buildings and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.
The forces, 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 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been activated for 60 days. The official wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the personnel were equipped.
Background Situation
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker 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 order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- The president announced that the conflicting parties have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was applauded by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that requires that the authorities provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to counter the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that large numbers of people have been murdered by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
