Hello and welcome to the latest developments in US politics. We begin with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating 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 mission specifics that have not been made public.
The military personnel are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties 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, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the military command and have been deployed for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the personnel were equipped.
Background Situation
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded 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 jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" 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 remarks come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump announced that the conflicting parties have agreed to a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release captured individuals and detained persons.
- News of the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the government provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" organized by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The influencers cover liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- GOP senators voted down a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
