Greetings and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We start with the report that a limited contingent of state military forces has started protecting federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Troop Information
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, as stated by a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on background basis in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been officially released.
The troops are in the city to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.
The forces, 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 Northern Command and have been deployed 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, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's comments coincide with state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite objections from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- The president announced that the conflicting parties have accepted a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- News of the Middle East deal was applauded by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be given 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, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers cover liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's authority to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to counter the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness 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.
