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Hello and welcome to the current developments in American political affairs. We start with the report that a limited contingent of state military forces has started protecting federal property in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Troop Information

An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal operational details that have not been made public.

The military personnel are in the city to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.

The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the military command and have been activated for two months. The official wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the troops were armed.

Political Context

It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

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

Additional Developments

• The president declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free captured individuals and detained persons.
• News of the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, 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 seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the core legal principle that mandates that the authorities provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the witnesses 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 partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
• GOP senators voted down a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to oppose the government's extraordinary use of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that large numbers of people have been killed by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The correct number of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.