How to group a dataframe and then put two columns into one json like column in Python

Question

The data i have is something similar to this:

country	population	area	city	city_population
USA	331893745	9833520	New York	8804190
USA	331893745	9833520	Los Angeles	3898747
USA	331893745	9833520	Chicago	2746388
UK	243610	66366000	London	7556900
UK	243610	66366000	Birmingham	984333
Canada	9984670	38532853	Toronto	2600000
Canada	9984670	38532853	Montreal	1600000
Canada	9984670	38532853	Calgary	1019942

I am looking for output like this:

country	population	area	cities
USA	331893745	9833520	{'New York' : 8804190, 'Los Angeles' : 3898747, 'Chicago' : 2746388}
UK	243610	66366000	{'London' : 7556900, 'Birmingham' : 984333}
Canada	9984670	38532853	{'Toronto' : 2600000, 'Montreal' : 1600000, 'Calgary' : 1019942}

So basically I want to group by the country column and then put city and city_population into a JSON-like column while keeping the other columns.

Any help is appreciated.