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Hello and welcome to the latest developments in American political affairs. We start with the news that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.

Troop Information

An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson 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 federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command said online.

The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, 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 activated for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the troops were armed.

Political Context

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

"The city's mayor should be in prison for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"

Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's remarks coincide with national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the federal administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Additional Developments

• Donald Trump announced that the conflicting parties have accepted a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
• Reports about the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be awarded 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 Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect explanation of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the authorities provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
• All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the president on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to political investigation than neutral journalism.
• GOP senators voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers 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 "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: one.