• Two unconnected cases of variant identified in South Carolina
• US economy shrank by 3.5% in 2020, worst year since second world war
• Biden to reopen Obamacare markets for special Covid coverage
• US death toll predicted to hit 500,000 by February
  
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5.13pm GMT

South Carolina state health officials said Thursday that two cases of the coronavirus variant identified in South Africa had been detected in the state- the first time the variant has been found in the US.

South Carolina’s department of health and environmental control said the two cases don’t appear to be connected and the two people affected did not have a history of recent travel. One was detected by the state’s public health lab and the other by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

4.55pm GMT

Survivors of the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, asked congressional Republicans to publicly censure Marjorie Taylor Greene for suggesting the school shooting was a “false flag” and for harassing a teenage survivor on Capitol Hill in 2019.

House Republicans this week announced that Greene, a newly elected Georgia congresswoman, had been appointed to the House Education and Labor Committee.

House EdLabor committee chair @BobbyScott on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s appointment to the committee:

“House Republicans have appointed someone to this Committee who claimed that the killing of 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook... was a hoax” pic.twitter.com/VoPgJ3tSLF

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