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Same Game, Different Name: ‘Radioactive’ Arabella Advisors Announces Rebrand to ‘Sunflower Services’ as Prominent Donors Flee

Arabella Advisors, the shadowy for-profit consulting firm that managed a multibillion-dollar network of liberal dark money groups, is now Sunflower Services. The company announced Monday it has rebranded and sold off its fiscal sponsorship business to a new firm amid a series of high-profile investigations into its finances and billionaire Bill Gates’s decision to end a longstanding partnership with the organization.

Now, a public benefit corporation called Sunflower Services will manage fiscal sponsorships for the dark money network. It’s a new name, but the same players are involved. Allan Williams, who served as senior vice president for partner solutions at Arabella, will serve as CEO of the new entity. New Venture Fund, Windward Fund, and Hopewell Fund are the “founding owners” of Sunflower Services, the new firm said in a press release.

It’s unclear if the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the primary political arm of the Arabella network that raised $275 million in 2024, will work with Sunflower Services. The Sixteen Thirty Fund did not return a request for comment.

Arabella CEO Himesh Bhise posted on LinkedIn that the firm sold only its fiscal sponsorship business to Sunflower Services. Arabella also provided more traditional and uncontroversial nonprofit HR and accounting services, and will continue to do so under its new name, Vital Impact. Bhise will serve as Vital Impact’s CEO.

The move from Arabella indicates the firm felt the need to quarantine its fiscal sponsorship business amid the threats of investigations from President Donald Trump, who issued a memorandum in September directing several federal agencies to investigate nonprofit organizations allegedly involved in political violence and the “organized structures, networks, entities, organizations” and funding sources behind them.

Trump’s memo had a “chilling effect” on major liberal foundations across the country, the Free Press reported.

Arabella also received scrutiny from the left. In 2023, D.C. attorney general Brian Schwalb (D.) launched an investigation and issued subpoenas to Arabella Advisors following a series of Washington Free Beacon reports on the firm’s practices. Schwalb closed his investigation in 2024, saying it found no evidence of a legal violation.

Still, the scrutiny from both sides of the political aisle appears to have damaged its relationships with some of its major donors. In June, the Gates Foundation, the influential philanthropy of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, said it would cease using Arabella Advisors as a middleman to handle many of its grants. The foundation called it a “business decision that reflects our regular strategic assessments of partnerships and operating models.”

The Gates move, which the New York Times called a “significant blow” to Arabella’s operations, spooked other nonprofits that work with Arabella over concerns of friction with the Gates Foundation, which had donated $450 million to Arabella’s dark money network. Other Arabella clients have pulled back from a partnership with the organization out of fear that the Trump administration will go after them for working closely with the progressive group, the Times reported.

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What Are the Burma Scam Centers, How Much Have They Stolen from Americans, How Do They Affect the Revolution, and What Is the US Doing About It?

The Myanmar military junta continues to run extensive criminal enterprises that finance its war and atrocities, with cyber scam compounds at the center of its revenue stream. These scam centers are massive penal-colony-style compounds where trafficked workers conduct global cyber fraud operations, primarily “pig butchering” schemes that build trust with victims before stealing their life savings.

Between 2020 and 2024, victims worldwide lost roughly $75 billion to Southeast Asian cyber scams, with hundreds of thousands of trafficked individuals from multiple nationalities forced to work in compounds across Cambodia, Burma (Myanmar), and Laos.

These networks rely on U.S.-based social media, websites, and hosting services to lure Americans into cryptocurrency schemes before redirecting the funds into fake platforms and laundering the money overseas. Authorities noted that in some countries the scam industry is so large it accounts for nearly half of the national GDP, with Americans losing an estimated ten billion dollars per year.

Since the coup in 2021, Burma has become the regional epicenter of cyber scams, with more than thirty scam enclaves along the Thai border and nearly one hundred along the Chinese border. These operations are driven largely by Chinese transnational criminal networks that use front companies such as Trans Asia and Troth Star to finance, expand, and manage the compounds. Some of these same companies partnered with junta-aligned Border Guard Forces on major scam hubs such as Huanya and KK Park, both of which have repeatedly targeted American victims.

Scam centers operate openly because the Myanmar military and its Border Guard Forces protect and profit from them, allowing the compounds to avoid the airstrikes routinely inflicted on civilian and resistance areas. Multiple investigations confirm the junta’s central role in this transnational criminal ecosystem.

Phone geolocation data from 2024 shows frequent movement between Myawaddy scam compounds and government buildings in Naypyidaw, indicating a direct operational relationship between organized crime and the military regime. Junta-aligned armed groups are permitted to impose informal taxation on the scam industry in exchange for land, security, transportation, and logistical support.

Several of the most active scam sites are in Karen State, including the Tai Chang compound near Myawaddy, which sits on territory controlled by the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army. Another powerful Karen militia, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, plays a central role in sustaining the criminal economy. The DKBA provides security for multiple compounds and has been directly involved in abusing trafficked workers forced to run the scams.

Victims report beatings, electric shocks, being hung by their arms, and other violent treatment. Scam revenue funds DKBA activities, and the group collaborates with Chinese organized crime in drug trafficking, human trafficking, arms trafficking, wildlife trafficking, and money laundering.

The flow of scam revenue strengthens the junta’s allies and prolongs the war in Burma. The United Nations estimates that at least 120,000 people are trapped inside these compounds, facing forced labor, torture, and killings for failing to meet scamming quotas. Even as resistance organizations unite against the regime, the scam industry continues to thrive because it remains one of the junta’s most lucrative and protected sources of income.

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Cal State Schools Require Students To Take DEI Classes To Graduate. Options Include ‘Queer Crip Lit’ and ‘Decolonize Your Diet.’

The University of California system made news earlier this year when it eliminated mandatory diversity statements for new hires. But at California’s other public university system, DEI isn’t in retreat—it’s required.

Nearly every California State University campus requires students to pass at least one diversity and cultural competency class, according to graduation criteria identified by Do No Harm, a group that opposes identity politics in medicine. The exact requirements vary across schools, but they typically prescribe a specific course or allow students to pick from a list of classes that “explore the interrelatedness and intersection of race and ethnicity with class, gender and sexuality, and other forms of difference, hierarchy, and oppression.”

San Francisco State University has among the most demanding criteria, requiring students to take courses in “areas that the campus feels are important to graduates”: American ethnic and racial minorities, environmental sustainability and climate action, global perspectives, and social justice. Some classes cover several requirements, like “Queer Crip Lit,” which examines “connections between ableism and other forms of discrimination, such as racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and transphobia” in literary works. Another class that covers multiple requirements: “Decolonize Your Diet: Food Justice and Gendered Labor in Communities of Color” focuses on “food justice in communities of color addressing issues including sex/gender and food production, racism and attacks on traditional food systems.”

Some Cal State schools require students to take two DEI courses, one with a domestic focus and another centering on global issues. Students at the Humboldt campus can satisfy the domestic requirement with “Decolonizing Public Health,” which applies “decolonizing methodologies and anti-racism interventions to analysis of public health frameworks.” The options on the international side are more straightforward, though among the classes offered is “Sex, Class and Culture: Gender and Ethnic Issues in International Short Stories.”

Do No Harm senior director of programs Laura Morgan said the Cal State system “is all in on politicized propaganda.”

“These classes are based on concepts that have roots in critical race theory and promote ideology instead of sound learning principles,” Morgan told the Washington Free Beacon in a statement. “As a taxpayer-funded system, [Cal State] is obligated to prioritize education instead of operating a factory for politically indoctrinated activists.”

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Milk without cows? Inside the science of lab-grown milk shaking dairy world

Starting early next year, Israelis will find a new kind of milk on their supermarket shelves – one made without cows. Remilk, a food-tech startup, announced it will begin selling its lab-produced milk made from dairy proteins through a partnership with Gad Dairies from next year, according to a report by The Times of Israel. 

The company claims its “cow-free” milk tastes exactly like the dairy one. From January, two variants: a 3 per cent fat milk and a vanilla-flavoured version will be available under the label New Milk. Both are lactose-free, cholesterol-free, and made without antibiotics or hormones. 

A separate ‘Barista’ line, meant for cafés and restaurants, will appear within days, the report said. 

Remilk’s founders say prices will be similar to other milk alternatives like soy or almond milk but unlike them, this one is “real” dairy. The only difference being that no cows will be involved. 

Remilk may enter US market

The launch comes more than two years after Israel’s health ministry approved Remilk’s products for sale, clearing the path for one of the world’s first large-scale rollouts of lab-grown milk. The company is also in talks to enter the US market.

Remilk isn’t alone in lab-grown dairy farming. Food giant Strauss Group has also launched cow-free drinks and cream cheese made using similar precision fermentation technology through another Israeli startup, Imagindairy. It’s the beginning of what some call a “post-cow era”, a shift that could transform the global dairy industry. 

What is lab-grown milk?

Lab-grown milk, sometimes called ‘animal-free dairy’, is real dairy produced without cows. Unlike almond, oat, or soy milk, which are plant-based substitutes, lab-grown milk contains actual milk proteins (casein and whey), identical to those found in cow’s milk. 

There are two main production methods: 

  • Mammary cell cultures: Cow mammary cells are grown in bioreactors that naturally produce milk.
  • Precision fermentation: Scientists insert milk-producing genes into microbes like yeast, which secrete milk proteins when fed sugar. These proteins are then blended with fats and carbohydrates to make milk.

The result then is dairy that looks, tastes, and behaves like the real thing despite it being completely grown in a lab. You can froth it for coffee, make cheese, or churn it into ice cream but without the environmental costs or ethical concerns of traditional dairy farming.

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Congress Abandons Effort To Let VA Doctors Recommend Medical Marijuana On Veterans Day

Advocates are sharply criticizing congressional leaders for advancing a spending bill ahead of Veterans Day on Tuesday that omits bipartisan provisions allowing U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) doctors to recommend medical cannabis to patients in states where it’s legal—even though the policy was approved by the full Senate and House of Representatives earlier this year.

While there’s been significant focus on language in appropriations legislation that passed the Senate on Monday that would ban hemp products containing THC, another key setback for reform advocates is the lack of the medical marijuana provisions for veterans—different versions of which advanced through both chambers.

“The absence of this provision is incredibly disappointing, and makes no sense whatsoever,” Morgan Fox, political director of NORML, told Marijuana Moment. “It is uncontroversial, revenue-neutral, previously approved by both chambers, and long overdue in order to help veterans find relief.”

“The timing of the announcement—just days before a holiday to show our gratitude to service members—is quite insensitive,” he said, referring to the bill’s unveiling on Sunday, just two days before Veterans Day.

Here’s the text of the House-passed version: 

“None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the Department of Veterans Affairs in this Act may be used to enforce Veterans Health Directive 1315 as it relates to—

(1) the policy stating that ‘VHA providers are prohibited from completing forms or registering Veterans for participation in a State-approved marijuana program’;

(2) the directive for the ‘Deputy Under Secretary for Health for Operations and Management’ to ensure that ‘medical facility Directors are aware that it is VHA policy for providers to assess Veteran use of marijuana but providers are prohibited from recommending, making referrals to or completing paperwork for Veteran participation in State marijuana programs’; and

(3) the directive for the ‘VA Medical Facility Director’ to ensure that ‘VA facility staff are aware of the following’ ‘[t]he prohibition recommending, making referrals to or completing forms and registering Veterans for participation in State-approved marijuana programs’.”

The Senate-passed language reads:

“None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the Department of Veterans Affairs in this Act may be used in a manner that would—

(1) interfere with the ability of a veteran to participate in a medicinal marijuana program approved by a State;

(2) deny any services from the Department to a veteran who is participating in such a program; or

(3) limit or interfere with the ability of a health care provider of the Department to make appropriate recommendations, fill out forms, or take steps to comply with such a program.”

The negotiated bill contains no language on the issue at all.

“Denying our veterans access to a medicine that so many use to ease physical pain, or the trauma of PTSD, is straight cruelty,” Adam Smith, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), told Marijuana Moment.

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Pets Will ‘Suffer Needlessly’ If Federal Hemp Ban Takes Effect And Limits CBD Access, Veterinarian Says

The federal hemp ban that was included in a spending bill President Donald Trump signed last week could inadvertently hurt a patient demographic that isn’t usually associated with cannabis: Dogs, cats and other pets who’ve come to rely on cannabinoids as part of their veterinary medical care.

As certain GOP lawmakers in Congress pressed for a policy change to prevent the sale of consumable hemp products, the narrative often revolved around the idea that a strict ban would close a “loophole” in the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized the crop, leading to the expansion of an often unregulated market for intoxicating cannabinoids.

But while there’s broad consensus that gas station THC vapes and copycat hemp edibles appealing to youth should be addressed, stakeholders and advocates say that narrative paints an incomplete picture, as the language included in appropriations legislation that’s set to take effect next year threatens to upend legitimate enterprises as well—including those that provide access to CBD for pets.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) attempted to distance himself from that argument before Congress passed the bill with the hemp provisions. He said that the Farm Bill and hemp legalization provisions he championed were always meant to be about industrial uses, and CBD products would be spared even with a ban on intoxicating elements of the plant.

The way the law is written, however, will permit such limited concentrations of THC that most growers and manufacturers say the idea of a CBD carve-out is infeasible. And for companies marketing such non-intoxicating products, that could spell doom—or at least force them to take on the significant added cost of extracting CBD isolates so as not to run afoul of the law.

Tim Shu, founder and CEO of the company VetCBD, tells Marijuana Moment that the passage of the appropriations legislation is cause for concern for animal companions, many of which have found relief from conditions such as arthritis, epilepsy, pain and other health conditions with the help of CBD.

Just like the 0.3 percent THC by dry weight limit that currently defines hemp, the more restrictive THC limit prescribed under the newly enacted law is “arbitrary,” Shu said. He also stressed the importance of the “entourage effect” for cannabis that makes it so having the plant’s natural ingredients—THC, CBD, terpenes and other compounds—work together often enhances their therapeutic efficacy.

“If the rule stays unchanged, then essentially anyone that’s producing CBD products from hemp are going to have to use CBD isolate,” he said. “And the problem with that is that we know from increasing evidence that the entourage effect does have benefits—it does appear to be a real thing.”

“This is something that people tend to forget about. Everyone’s thinking about intoxicating hemp properties, right? The delta-9, delta-8 THC stuff that you can find at gas stations. But the reality is that there are a lot of people and animals that rely on full-spectrum CBD products from hemp to not suffer,” Shu said. “And as usual, the neediest suffer the most.”

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On the ‘Legitimate Authority to Kill’

“I don’t think we’re gonna necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. Okay? We’re gonna kill them. You know? They’re gonna be like dead. Okay.”- President Donald Trump, October 23, 2025

As of today, the Trump administration has launched missile strikes on at least nineteen boats in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, terminating the lives of more than seventy unnamed persons identified at the time of their deaths only as “narcoterrorists.” The administration has claimed that the homicides are legal because they are battling a DTO or “Designated Terrorist Organization” in a “non-international armed conflict,” labels which appear to have been applied for the sole purpose of rationalizing the use of deadly force beyond any declared war zone.

An increasing number of critics have expressed concern over what President Trump’s effective assertion of the right to kill anyone anywhere whom analysts in the twenty-first-century techno-death industry deem worthy of death. Truth be told, as unsavory as it may be, Trump is following a precedent set and solidified by his recent predecessors, one which has consistently been met with both popular and congressional assent.

The idea that leaders may summarily execute anyone anywhere whom they have been told by their advisers poses a threat to the state over which they govern was consciously and overtly embraced by Americans in the immediate aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001. Unfortunately, all presidents since then have assumed and expanded upon what has come to be the executive’s de facto license to kill with impunity. Neither the populace nor the congress has put up much resistance to the transformation of the “Commander in Chief” to “Executioner in Chief.” Fear and anger were factors in what transpired, but the politicians during this period were also opportunists concerned to retain their elected offices.

Recall that President George W. Bush referred to himself as “The Decider,” able to wield deadly force against the people of Iraq, and the Middle East more generally, “at a time of his choosing.” This came about, regrettably, because the congress had relinquished its right and responsibility to assess the need for war and rein in the reigning executive. That body politic declined to have a say in what Bush would do, most plausibly under the assumption that they would be able to take credit for the victory, if the mission went well, and shirk responsibility, if it did not.

Following the precedent set by President Bush, President Barack Obama acted on his alleged right to kill anyone anywhere deemed by his targeted-killing czar, John Brennan, to be a danger to the United States. The Obama administration commenced from the premise that the Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs) granted to Bush made Obama, too, through executive inheritance, “The Decider.” Obama authorized the killing of thousands of human beings through the use of missiles launched by remote control from drones in several different countries. To the dismay of a few staunch defenders of the United States Constitution, some among the targeted victims were even U.S. citizens, denied the most fundamental of rights articulated in that document, above all, the right to stand trial and be convicted of a capital offense in a court of law, by a jury of their peers, before being executed by the state.

As though that were not bad enough, in 2011, Obama authorized a systematic bombing campaign against Libya, which removed Moammar Gaddaffi from power in a regime change as striking as Bush’s removal from power of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Rather than rest the president’s case for war on the clearly irrelevant Bush-era AUMFs, Obama’s legal team creatively argued that executive authority sufficed in the case of Libya no less, because the mission was not really a “war,” since no ground troops were being deployed. Obama’s attack on Libya, which killed many people and left the country in shambles, had no more of a congressional authorization than does Trump’s series of assaults on the people of Latin America today.

It is refreshing to see, at long last, a few more people (beyond the usual antiwar critics) awakening to the absurdity of supposing that because a political leader was elected by a group of human beings to govern their land, he thereby possesses a divine right to kill anyone anywhere whom he labels as dangerous, by any criterion asserted by himself to suffice. President Trump maintains that Venezuela is worthy of attack because of the drug overdose epidemic in the United States, a connection every bit as flimsy as the Bush administration’s ersatz linkage of Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda. Operating in a fact-free zone akin to that of Bush, Trump persists in insisting that the drugs allegedly being transported by the small boats being blown up near Venezuela are somehow causally responsible for the crisis in the United States, even though the government itself has never before identified Venezuela as a source of fentanyl. In truth, Trump has followed a longstanding tradition among U.S. presidents to devise a plausible or persuasive pretext to get the bombing underway, and then modify it as needed, once war has been waged.

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Behind Israel’s Wars Lies a Global Spy Machine

In the aftermath of the devastating Twelve-Day War in June 2025, Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmaeil Khatib made a striking claim that captured international attention: more than fifty foreign intelligence services had provided direct support to Israel during the conflict. Speaking during an official visit to Iran’s southwestern Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province in October 2025, Khatib characterized this coalition as an “intelligence NATO” that coordinated efforts to destabilize Iran through hybrid warfare encompassing military attacks, psychological operations, cyber warfare, and media campaigns.

His statement came against the backdrop of the Twelve Day War that began on June 13, 2025, when Israel launched surprise attacks on Iranian military and nuclear facilities, killing over 1,000 Iranians. Iran responded with “Operation True Promise 3,” involving twenty-two waves of missile strikes and over 550 ballistic missiles targeting Israeli territory. The United States intervened on June 22 with B-2 bomber strikes on Iranian nuclear sites before a ceasefire was brokered on June 24.

Khatib’s claims, while potentially inflated, align remarkably well with patterns this author previously documented in “The Illusion of Israeli Self-Sufficiency in Intelligence,” which exposed how Israel’s most celebrated operations relied on cooperation with the CIA, NSA cyberwarfare expertise, European intelligence networks, and covert collaboration with Arab regimes. As that analysis demonstrated, Israel’s intelligence empire survives not through independence but through reliance on Western logistics, intelligence sharing, and political approval.

The foundation of this multinational intelligence cooperation traces back decades. According to research covered by Israeli investigative journalists, the Berne Club—a secret European intelligence alliance founded in 1969—provided crucial support for Israel’s assassination campaign following the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. Through an encrypted communication system called “Kilowatt,” thousands of cables were exchanged among eighteen Western intelligence services, functioning as a secret clearinghouse for raw intelligence containing the locations of safe houses, vehicle registrations, the movements of high-value targets, and analytical assessments.

The core of Israel’s intelligence support network begins with the United States and extends through the Five Eyes alliance. The CIA-Mossad relationship dates to the early 1950s, with leaked documents revealing that the NSA shares intelligence with Israel’s Unit 8200 through a formal agreement. Following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, “US intelligence dispatched a special unit to assist the IDF in the war in Gaza and established intelligence-sharing channels with Israel to help locate top Hamas commanders,” according to a report by The Conversation. During Israel’s June 2025 strikes on Iran, the United States joined the operation directly with B-2 bomber strikes.

The United Kingdom maintains similarly close cooperation. GCHQ documents reveal Britain “cooperating very closely with Israel.’ DeClassified UK reported that between 2023-2024, “the RAF conducted 518 surveillance flights over Gaza from Cyprus’s RAF Akrotiri, supplying real-time intelligence to Israeli forces.”

European nations have provided extensive intelligence infrastructure supporting Israeli operations. Germany announced this past summer plans to strengthen cooperation on cyber defense, with Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt outlining a five-point plan for establishing a “Cyber Dome” including “establishing a joint German-Israel cyber research center.”

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States Are Already Rebelling Against Trump’s New Hemp THC Ban

Last week, High Times broke down how Congress ended the longest government shutdown in U.S. history and, in the process, scheduled the recriminalization of most hemp-derived products. The deal President Donald Trump signed caps legal hemp at 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container, bans synthetic or chemically converted cannabinoids and gives the industry one year before most hemp products (including drinks, gummies and vapes) are treated as Schedule I marijuana.

On paper, the ban is national and absolute. In reality, it’s already turning into a state-by-state fight over who actually controls cannabis policy.

Paper Law vs. Real-World Enforcement

Technically, cannabis has been federally illegal the whole time, yet a $32 billion marijuana industry operates in dozens of states. Now, a $28.3 billion hemp sector is being shoved into the same contradiction.

Law professor Jonathan Adler told MJBizDaily: “While marijuana is illegal for purposes of federal law, the federal government doesn’t have the resources, doesn’t have the personnel to go after individual retailers, individual buyers, let alone individual users.” If that is true for state-licensed cannabis, it is even more true for hemp seltzers in grocery stores.

In Ohio, for instance, this tension is already out in the open. Governor Mike DeWine issued an executive order to ban hemp-derived THC at the state level, but a judge put the order on hold. Now, lawmakers are talking about pulling hemp THC into the state’s cannabis regime instead of treating it as pure contraband. According to ABC-5, House Speaker Matt Huffman, who supports stricter rules, still asked: “Now, are we going to go around and start cuffing 17-year-old clerks at gas stations? No, but we’ve got to get this thing in shape.”

Texas and Kentucky Push Back

Texas now sits in direct conflict with the new federal definition. Economist Robin Goldstein writes in the Houston Chronicle that the state’s “THC hemp business” represents “a $4.5 billion industry that supports thousands of businesses, most of them small and independent.” He credits Governor Greg Abbott with taking “courageous action to save Texas hemp” by vetoing a state ban and issuing an executive order that kept intoxicating hemp products legal under HB 1325.

Under Abbott’s order and HB 1325, Goldstein notes: “THC hemp products have already been explicitly legalized under Texas law.” Now the shutdown deal makes those products illegal again at the federal level, but state law “is therefore now in conflict with U.S. federal law.” In his words, “recreational intoxicating hemp is just as legal in Texas as recreational intoxicating cannabis is in California,” and “Texas and its THC industry simply join the conflicts-with-federal law club.” His bottom line: “I see no more reason that THC hemp businesses should stop operating in Texas than that THC cannabis businesses should stop operating in California.”

In Kentucky, the governor is sending a similar signal, albeit in softer tones. When asked about the federal hemp language, Governor Andy Beshear said at a press briefing that “hemp is an important industry in Kentucky,” and that “we should have appropriate safety regulations around it, but we should make those regulations here in Kentucky —talking to the industry and making sure that we get that balance right.”

The Governor added: “I think that we can protect our kids. I think that we can do the right thing to protect all of our people while not handicapping an industry that supports a lot of people.” Meanwhile, Senator Rand Paul tried to strip the hemp ban from the bill and warned leadership it would devastate the hemp sector, while Senator Mitch McConnell, who pushed hemp legalization in 2018, led the effort to close the so-called loophole.

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Incoming: Millions of Water Refugees from Iran

Tehran is at risk of becoming uninhabitable due to a severe drought that has led to a severe water shortage. The drought has been the catalyst to expose decades of government mismanagement that caused Iran’s water supply to run dry. Now, the government is prepared to issue a city-wide evacuation notice in Tehran if the situation worsens.

Rain will not be sufficient to fill the dry reservoir, which was brought about by government mismanagement—farmers protested against the government in 2018 when water levels were low. Protests erupted in 2021 in the southern Khuzestan province as the people blamed the government for water mismanagement. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) controls construction over the main, poorly planned dam, which has resulted in dry rivers and wetlands. Salinity of the water supply has led to a loss of fertile agricultural land. For example, the Govtvand Damn on the Karun River caused saltwater to destroy nearby land over a decade ago, and the situation has not been resolved.

Over 75% of Iran’s land is experiencing groundwater depletion. IRGC-controlled industries receive water as a first priority, and this is used for everything from agriculture to crypto mining. Rural areas are the last to receive water, as it is carefully regulated and rationed by the government. The government has built several new dams with no concern for the ecological implications of diverting water. It is well-known that the nation uses outdated agricultural practices that often require a vast amount of water.

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