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Greetings and welcome to the most recent updates in US politics. We start with the news 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, as confirmed by authorities.

Deployment Details

An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating 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 operational details that have not been officially released.

The military personnel are in the city 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 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 deployed for 60 days. The official wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the personnel were equipped.

Political Context

It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, accusing them of failing to protect 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. "Governor Pritzker also!"

Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments coincide with state military forces have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the federal administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Other Updates

• The president announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release captured individuals and detained persons.
• Reports about the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
• During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect explanation of the core legal principle that requires that the government provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
• All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called political content creators. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more akin to political investigation than neutral journalism.
• Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to counter the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been killed by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.