Hello and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We start with the news that a small number of state military forces has started protecting federal property in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, as stated by a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on background basis in order to discuss operational details that have not been officially released.
The military personnel 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 military command and have been activated for two months. The official wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the personnel were equipped.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, accusing them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments coincide with national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the federal administration, despite objections from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump declared that the conflicting parties have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free captured individuals and detained persons.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was praised by Republican lawmakers, 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 seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the government provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" 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 akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's ability to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to counter the government's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness 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.
