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Hello and welcome to the latest developments in American political affairs. We begin with the news that a limited contingent of state military forces has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.

Troop Information

An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Chicago area, as stated by a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on background basis in order to discuss mission specifics 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 three hundred Illinois personnel, had reached on 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 60 days. The official wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the troops were armed.

Political Context

It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.

"The city's mayor should be in prison for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.

Additional Developments

• Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
• Reports about the Middle East deal was applauded by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
• During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the government provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more akin to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
• GOP senators voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to counter the government's extraordinary use of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.