Greetings and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We start with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Troop Information
An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to discuss operational details that have not been made public.
The troops are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.
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 immediately offer details about how the troops were armed.
Background Situation
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for 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) personnel.
"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments coincide with national guard troops have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.
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 Middle East deal was applauded by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" organized by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called political content creators. The influencers cover leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans voted down a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's authority to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to counter the government's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to eliminate vessels 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 political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.
