Tennessee officials were surprised to learn that its state retirement system owned over 7,000 shares of stock in a real estate investment trust that provides capital for the medical marijuana industry. While the state sold those shares, citing “policy implications,” recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings show that Tennessee remains invested in other substances that, while legal, have major health policy implications.

An October 17, 1975 edition of the Central Intelligence Agency’s “Staff Notes” publication, formerly classified SECRET, offered regional specialists with the latest intelligence from Western Europe. While some of the topics covered warrant the hush-hush nature of the classification, some secrecy, like that around an attendance briefing at the 1975 Munich Oktoberfest, is less convincing.

A copy of the US Navy’s 1975 guide to “Christening, Launching, and Commissioning” ships uncovered in the Central Intelligence Agency’s archives offers a fascinating history of the surprisingly rich tradition of ruining a perfectly good bottle of champagne.

As we’ve written about before, working at the Central Intelligence Agency can be hazardous, even if you never left Langley. With classified office accidents fairly commonplace, it’s not surprising that the CIA made holiday safety a priority, as evidenced by memos dating back to the Agency’s founding.

For as long as it’s existed, the Central Intelligence Agency has used Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) in its hunt for information that could serve as fuel for its analysis. This often meant simply reading major foreign newspapers, and monitoring for trends. When it came to understanding foreign cultural movements, CIA took it a step further - they studied the political cartoons of foreign countries. Cartoons that were essentially memes.