Hello and welcome to the most recent updates in US politics. We start with the report that a small number of state military forces has begun guarding federal property in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Chicago area, as stated by a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been made public.
The troops are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command said online.
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 two months. The official wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the troops were armed.
Background Situation
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) personnel.
"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's remarks coincide with national guard troops have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite objections from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- The president announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- News of the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be given the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, 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 mandates that the authorities provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the administration's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to eliminate vessels 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 killed by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
