Greetings and welcome to the latest updates 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.
Deployment Details
An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Greater Chicago region, as stated by a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss operational details that have not been officially released.
The troops are in the city to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.
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 500 troops are under the military command and have been activated for 60 days. The official wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the troops were armed.
Background Situation
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing 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 prison for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the federal administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump 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 Middle East deal was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be given the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the president 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 highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's ability to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to counter the government's extraordinary use of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's false claim that large numbers of people have been murdered by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
