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Hello and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We begin with the news that a small number of state military forces has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Deployment Details

An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Chicago area, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been officially released.

The military personnel are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.

The troops, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the military command and have been deployed for two months. The official wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the personnel were equipped.

Political Context

It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment 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 failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

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

Other Updates

• Donald Trump declared that the conflicting parties have agreed to a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
• News of the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Palestinian Americans.
• During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers cover leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
• Senate Republicans rejected a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to counter the government'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 echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.