National Guard Troops Now Protecting Federal Facilities in Greater Chicago Region, Authority Says

Greetings and welcome to the current developments in US politics. We start with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Troop Information

An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Greater Chicago region, 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 city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.

The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been deployed for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the troops were armed.

Background Situation

It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

"The city's mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"

Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the direction of the federal administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Additional Developments

• The president declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
• News of the Middle East deal was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Palestinian Americans.
• During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle that requires that the government provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
• All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more akin to political investigation than neutral journalism.
• GOP senators rejected a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to counter the administration's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's false claim that large numbers of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.