1/ The FBI arrested two people and charged them with conspiracy to attack the electrical substations around Baltimore and “completely destroy” the city. Sarah Clendaniel and Brandon Russell planned to use firearms to “inflict maximum harm on the power grid,” according to the FBI. The plot was reportedly driven by ethnically or racially motivated extremist beliefs. Russell is the founder of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen. Clendaniel and Russell met while incarcerated at separate prisons: Russell for possessing bombmaking materials and Clendaniel for robbing convenience stores with a machete. If convicted, they each face a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. (NPR / CNN / Washington Post / New York Times)

2/ The U.S. shot down the Chinese surveillance balloon off the Carolina coast Saturday, about a week after it was spotted crossing the U.S. The Navy and Coast Guard are trying to recover the surveillance equipment the balloon was carrying. The Chinese foreign ministry declared its “strong discontent and protest” at Biden’s decision to shoot down the balloon, claiming that it was a civilian aircraft that had accidentally blown into the U.S. The chair of the House Intelligence Committee, meanwhile, criticized the Biden administration for lacking a sense of “urgency” and that the ballon “never should have been allowed to complete its mission.” During the Trump administration, however, at least three suspected Chinese spy balloons flew over the continental U.S. undetected, which weren’t discovered until after the Trump administration had already left. (NBC News / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / CNN / Politico / New York Times)

3/ Jim Jordan issued subpoenas to the heads of the Justice Department, FBI, and Department of Education seeking documents related to local school board meetings. The House Judiciary chairman said the request is part of the committee’s investigation into whether a 2021 Justice Department memo addressing threats against school officials was used to label parents as domestic terrorists. The FBI has never charged a single parent in connection with the memo. Nevertheless, Jordan requested that Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to turn over all documents about how they “used federal counterterrorism resources against American parents” by March 1. (Politico / CNN /