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Hello and welcome to the most recent updates in American political affairs. We start with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding federal property in the Greater Chicago region 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 officially released.

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

The forces, 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 Northern Command and have been activated for 60 days. The official wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the troops were armed.

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) personnel.

"Chicago Mayor should be in prison for not protecting 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 Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.

Additional Developments

• Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
• News of the Gaza agreement was praised by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
• During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle 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 self-described independent journalists who might better be called political content creators. The content producers cover leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than neutral journalism.
• GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's ability to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to oppose the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.