Don Jr tests positive, as his father dodges media questions

The Justice Department just released a joint statement with its Mexico counterpart announcing they have dropped charges against former Mexico defence general Cienfuegos Zepeda.

He was arrested in Los Angeles in October on charges of conspiracy to manufacture, import and distribute narcotics and money laundering.

Mexico also opened its own investigaiton, and the Justice Department said it sought dismissal of the US criminal charges “so that he may be investigated and, if appropriate, charged under Mexican law”.

The 87-year-old announced his positive diagnosis on Twitter, saying he will continue to quarantine and resume his normal schedule “soon”.

“I’m feeling good + will keep up on my work for the ppl of Iowa from home,” he said.

Story to follow.

The Independent’s Griffin Connolly has more on Guck Grassley catching Covid. The oldest Republican senator, Grassley missed his first vote in 27 years after announcing earlier on Tuesday that he was going into quarantine.

Donald Trump will not leave the White House for his usual Thanksgiving golf vacation in South Florida, an aide to First Lady Melania Trump said.

The first family plans to spend their final Turkey Day at the executive mansion, where he has been holed up –  other than a Veterans Day trip to Arlington National Cemetery – since Joe Biden was projected as the winner of the presidential election earlier this month.

The announcement inevitably will intensify speculation that Mr Trump will try to stay at the White House even after the president-elect is sworn in on 20 January. Mr Biden's camp has said he would not hesitate to give federal law enforcement the go-ahead to remove Mr Trump once he is the 46th president.

The Independent’s John T Bennett is following the story as it unfolds.

The county’s board of canvassers were deadlocked on certifying its election lines, with the decision split 2-2 along Democrat and Republican party lines.

The two GOP members voted against certification as state and federal lawsuits continue to contest the results, with Donald Trump still not conceding to the projected president-elect Joe Biden.

Chairwoman Monica Palmer voted against certification citing unexplained discrepancies between absentee ballots cast versus absentee ballots counted.  

"Based on what I saw and went through in poll books in this canvass, I believe that we do not have complete and accurate information in those poll books," she said, according to The Detroit Free Press.

Vice chair Jonathan Kinloch said Republicans were playing politics and that “mot of this is human error… it’s not based on fraud”.

If it fails to certify the results, the county must turn over its documents to the Secretary of State and Board of State Canvassers to complete the work and certify the resutls, according to the board’s canvassing manual reported by The Detroit News.

The president continued his Twitter sackings of top officials with Chris Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, fired for rejecting Trump’s claims the election was rigged.

Trump himself acknowledged the explicit reason for the firing in his tweets, saying Krebs’ statement on the security of the 2020 election was “highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud - including dead people voting, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, “glitches” in the voting machines which changed.”

Those comments referred to by Trump came in a joint statement last Thursday that said the 3 November election was the most secure in American history.

“There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised," the statement said.

The statement from the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), part of the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security, also included signatories from the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC) and Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council. They included:

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Assistant Director Bob Kolasky

U.S. Election Assistance Commission Chair Benjamin Hovland,  

National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) President Maggie Toulouse Oliver,  

National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) President Lori Augino, and  

Escambia County (Florida) Supervisor of Elections David Stafford – and the  

Members of the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council (SCC) – Chair Brian Hancock (Unisyn Voting Solutions), Vice Chair Sam Derheimer (Hart InterCivic), Chris Wlaschin (Election Systems & Software), Ericka Haas (Electronic Registration Information Center), and Maria Bianchi (Democracy Works).

Krebs responded late on Tuesday, saying they "did it right".

Gretchen Whitmer was stunned when she heard a call by White House Covid-19 adviser, Dr Scott Atlas, for people in Michigan to “rise up” against new rules to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

“It actually took my breath away, to tell you the truth,” Ms Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, said during an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

“We are in the midst of the worst weeks of this pandemic, we’ve been going through this for nine months, and right now the numbers are as bad as they’ve been at any given time, and so we have to take aggressive measures.”

At the weekend she announced a number of new rules to help curb the resurgence of coronavirus across Michigan.

The Independent’s Oliver O’Connell has more.

A university dean has resigned after calling president-elect Joe Biden’s supporters “ignorant, anti-American and anti-Christian.” Dr Paul Ewell quit as the dean of Virginia Wesleyan University days after making the incendiary posts on Facebook.

Mr Ewell’s comments even caught the attention of Donald Trump who retweeted a story on them with the caption “Progress!”

The academic’s post, which was made on a private page but then leaked, also told Mr Biden’s supporters to “unfriend” him and accused them of corrupting the election and “our youth..our country.”

The Independent’s Graeme Massie has the story.

Pressure mounts on Trump ally Lindsey Graham over controversial Georgia ballots phone call

DHS cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs breaks silence on Trump sacking