The FBI has cut staffing in an office focused on domestic terrorism and has scrapped a tool used to track such investigations, in a shift that could undermine law enforcement’s ability to counter white supremacists and anti-government extremists, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The moves, sources said, are an indication that domestic terrorism investigations, which in recent years have largely involved violence fueled by right-wing ideologies, may be less of a priority under FBI Director Kash Patel, a prominent critic of the effort...

An armed takeover of a federal wildlife refuge. Over 100 straight days of racial justice protests that turned downtown Portland into a battleground. A violent breach of the state Capitol. Clashes between gun-toting right-wingers and leftist militants.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it appears someone is attacking the electrical power grid of the Seattle area, which comes after a series of similar incidents elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest as well as in Florida. And the FBI never caught the guy who attacked the electrical grid down in North Carolina earlier this month. Shooting up a power substation is apparently the latest fad.

An admitted neo-Nazi and a Maryland woman were arrested and charged with plotting to attack several electrical substations in the Baltimore area, federal authorities announced Monday.

Prosecutors said the admitted neo-Nazi, Brandon Clint Russell, 27, and 34-year-old Sarah Beth Clendaniel conspired to commit the attacks “in furtherance of Russell’s racially or ethnically motivated extremist beliefs.”

On the evening of December 3, the lights went out in Moore County.

For tens of thousands of central North Carolina residents among the Piedmont hills west of Fayetteville, electric heaters became useless against the cold, the internet went dead, and refrigerator fans spun to a halt. Traffic lights went dark at intersections and cell phone batteries began to dwindle. Local authorities declared a state of emergency and, fearful of potential unrest, enforced a curfew.

Most people ignore the electrical grid, until it stops working. When that happens, the disruption can be total, but most often is a matter of inconvenience—the lights go out, the internet goes down, there is no place to recharge a cell phone.

Whoever shot the small steel ball through the front window of the Brewmaster’s Taproom in Renton, Wash., this month wasn’t taking chances. The person wore a mask and removed the front and rear license plates of a silver Chevrolet Cruze. The police still have no leads.

The bar’s owner, Marley Rall, thought the motivation seemed clear: The attack followed social media posts from conservatives angry about the bar’s Drag Queen Storytime and Bingo, slated for the following weekend.

Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, took the stand in his own defense on Friday in the most significant trial yet over the Jan. 6 insurrection. Suffice it to say he did not back down from spreading deranged conspiracies about the 2020 election that helped fuel deadly violence—though he appeared to stumble along the way.

“I’m good to go,” Rhodes said in D.C. federal court, before launching into his personal history and his decision to start the far-right militia group.

The voting was over and almost all ballots were counted. News outlets on Nov. 7, 2020, had called the presidential race for Democrat Joe Biden. But the leader of the Oath Keepers extremist group was just beginning to fight.

Convinced the White House had been stolen from Republican Donald Trump, Stewart Rhodes exhorted his followers to action, suggesting they emulate a popular uprising that brought down Yugoslavia’s president two decades earlier. He published a version of his appeal online, headlined, “What We The People Must Do.”

President Biden will host a summit at the White House Thursday on combating hate-fueled violence.