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Hello and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We begin with the report that a limited contingent of state military forces has started protecting government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.

Deployment Details

An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Chicago area, according to a representative 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 troops are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.

The forces, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had arrived 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 deployed for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the troops were armed.

Background Situation

It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the state 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 posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments come as state military forces have started deployment in the Chicago area at the direction of the federal administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Additional Developments

• The president announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
• News of the Gaza agreement was praised by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
• During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect explanation of the core legal principle that mandates that the authorities provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
• All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" 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 partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
• GOP senators rejected a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the administration's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's inaccurate statement 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: one.