Hello and welcome to the latest developments in American political affairs. We start with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Troop Information
An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops 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 troops are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.
The forces, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had reached on 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 two months. The official wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the personnel were equipped.
Background Situation
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois 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 personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's remarks coincide with national guard troops have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the direction of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and free captured individuals and detained persons.
- News of the Gaza agreement was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that requires that the authorities provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the president on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers cover liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to oppose the administration's extraordinary use of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The correct number of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
