Potential Russian Cyber-Retaliation | ‘Alarming’ Chip Shortages | Idaho & Cobalt, and more

Far-Right Extremists Look to Bring Vaccination Opponents into Their Fold  (Will Carless, USA Today)
Far-right extremist influencers and leaders have increasingly jumped onto the anti-vaccination bandwagon since COVID-19 took a deadly grip on the U.S. in the past two years. From anti-immigration livestreamer Nick Fuentes, to onetime Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio, to conspiracy theory champion Alex Jones, they post memes, breathy disinformation videos and false statistics about vaccines daily on social media. They call the public health crisis a “scamdemic” and spread lies vilifying prominent scientists such as Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser. On Sunday, thousands of protesters descended on the nation’s capital in near-freezing temperatures for a “Defeat the Mandates” rally, listening to right-wing standard-bearers hawk their philosophies. A few young men wore Proud Boys insignias, and many in the crowd donned MAGA shirts and carried flags emblazoned with messages against Biden.

British White Supremacist, Initially Sentenced to Read Austen and Dickens, Imprisoned for Two Years  (Washington Post)
Ben John, a British man described by police as an extremist with neo-Nazi sympathies, has completed a journey from the classics to the clink. After he was handed a suspended sentence last year for collecting antisemitic, white supremacist and extremist documents on hard drives, he received an unusual order from a judge: Read works of great literature by Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens, instead. Among the materials in his possession: an updated version of the Anarchist Cookbook, a widely available text that includes various bomb “recipes,” once common reading among anti-government radicals. Possession of such books is allowed in the United States. “He has by the skin of his teeth avoided imprisonment,” Judge Timothy Spencer told the Leicester Crown Court in August. But this week the sentencing was overturned by an appeals court, which found that the original sentence was too lenient and put in place punishment of two years in prison and a third year on supervised release. “We are satisfied that there must be a sentence of immediate imprisonment,” Timothy Holroyde, a lord justice on the appeals court, said Wednesday.

U.S. Threatens Use of Novel Export Control to Damage Russia’s Strategic Industries If Moscow Invades Ukraine  (Ellen Nakashima and Jeanne Whalen, Washington Post)
The Biden administration is threatening to use a novel export control to damage strategic Russian industries, from artificial intelligence and quantum computing to civilian aerospace, if Moscow invades Ukraine, administration officials say.
The administration may also decide to apply the control more broadly in a way that would potentially deprive Russian citizens of some smartphones, tablets and video game consoles, said the officials.

Idaho Is Sitting on One of the Most Important Elements on Earth  (Michael Holtz, The Atlantic)
The clean-energy revolution is unleashing a rush on cobalt, reviving old mines—and old questions—in a remote forest.