Gen Xers fret over the future of Social Security. “I will likely be working in retirement.”

August 24, 2026 / 3:48 PM EDT / CBS News

Retirement is biting Generation X. Its oldest members will turn 62 next year, the earliest age at which people can claim Social Security benefits, with many Americans having too little saved to stop working even as the program faces its own funding crisis.

Chris Branaman, 53, jokes that his retirement will be spent as a Walmart greeter.

“That’s my funny way of saying I will likely be working in retirement,” said Branaman of Bay City, Michigan, who works in IT and says he has about $100,000 saved in his 401(k) plan. He doesn’t expect that will be enough to fund his retirement, even if he’s able to put more money away over the next decade.

Branaman is hardly alone. Gen Xers, who are now 46 to 61 years old, entered the workforce in the 1980s and 1990s, just as employers were shifting away from pensions in favor of 401(k)s.

In the 1970s, about half of all private-sector workers had pensions, which are employer-funded and guarantee a payout at retirement. Today, only about 14% of private-sector workers have pensions, a major transformation in the retirement landscape that experts cite as one reason many Americans are woefully short on savings.

The fundamental shift toward 401(k)s places the onus on employees to decide how much to save and to plot out their investment strategy. As a result, many Gen Xers are now realizing that Social Security may end up serving as their primary — or even only — source of retirement income. The 401(k) system hasn’t worked for them, several workers in the cohort told CBS News.

Compounding their concerns is a projected Social Security funding shortfall in 2032, which could trigger benefit cuts just as many Gen Xers are set to retire.

Gen Xers cited headwinds ranging from structural issues — automatic enrollment wasn’t available when they started working, while some didn’t always have access to retirement plans at times in their careers — to economic and personal crises, with job losses and divorce causing some to dip into their retirement savings to get by.

“Maybe we didn’t think about it as much early on, just because we were so used to seeing previous generations taken care of by their employers,” Branaman said. The 401(k), he added wryly, “was perfect for our generation: Figure it out.”

Social Security “warning”

About 41% of U.S. workers over 55 expect Social Security to be their primary source of income in retirement, up from 25% last year, according to a recent survey from financial services firm NFP. That far outpaces the 26% in the same age group who believe their retirements will be mostly funded by 401(k)s, IRAs and other retirement accounts, the poll found.

This data “is a warning light,” Jessica Espinoza, NFP managing director and national practice leader for retirement, told CBS News. “Those that are about to hit retirement, that’s really the first tranche of individuals that have had to rely on their own savings.”

She added, “They didn’t have pension plans, and it’s really Social Security and whatever else they’ve been able to accumulate that’s going to drive whether they can retire on their own terms or not, and that’s really daunting for that population.”

Two-legged stool

Social Security was designed to provide one leg of retirement’s so-called three-legged stool, with personal savings, such as a 401(k), and pensions serving as the other two legs. Under that design, Social Security should replace about 40% of a person’s income in retirement, according to the National Council on Aging.

About 14% of Gen Xers still have pensions, such as teachers and government workers, according to the National Institute on Retirement Security. That means most of those born between 1964 and 1980 will rely on what is effectively a two-legged stool — 401(k)s and Social Security — to fund their retirement.

Yet most Gen Xers haven’t saved nearly enough for retirement, with a median of $107,000 in savings. At the same time, Gen Xers think they’ll need roughly $700,000 in savings to adequately fund their golden years, according to a 2025 study from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies.

“It’s scary”

The Gen Xers interviewed by CBS News expressed frustration with the retirement system, with many saying they’ll have no choice but to continue working in old age.

Some have also had to tap their 401(k) plans to cope with financial shocks, like a 61-year-old who is currently drawing down her $100,000 retirement fund after losing her job in December. She said she hasn’t yet found a new job, which she speculated could be due to ageism. She spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitive financial information she shared.

“It’s scary,” she told CBS News. “I honestly don’t know how one navigates through one’s elder years.”

Her plan is now to continue working after claiming Social Security, which she will draw based on her ex-husband’s earnings. She estimates she’ll receive about $4,000 a month in Social Security benefits, an amount she said will be insufficient to cover her day-to-day expenses in the Los Angeles area.

“I don’t know how a person in Southern California lives on $4,000 a month with nothing saved,” the woman added.

Gen Xers also spoke to CBS News about the difficulty of saving for retirement while coping with the financial pressures of helping their kids, who are teens or in their early 20s, and the rising cost of living.

“We were buying groceries for $120 a week,” said Joshua, a 54-year-old from Tennessee who has less than $100,000 saved in his 401(k) and asked that his last name be withheld due to privacy concerns. “Now if you go into the grocery store, it’s $250.”

He added, “The entire tide has risen, but wages haven’t risen to keep up with it.”

Unlike other Gen Xers, he expects to receive a pension from his job as an IT administrator at a public college in Tennessee. This benefit should allow him to retire if he remains financially prudent, he said.

Hard to catch up

Some Gen Xers are aiming to help their children with college expenses, like J. Ashley Renfroe, 51, whose 17-year-old daughter will be a high school senior this fall. Renfroe said helping her pay for college will likely curtail his budget over the next several years, but that the financial decision is important to him.

“I’d rather she not start out with the burden of student loans, like I did, or my wife,” he said.

Renfroe, who works as a 401(k) plan administrator, noted that people over 50 are often urged to use catch-up contributions to bolster their retirement savings. Under IRS tax law, the savings limit for all workers is $24,500 in 2026, although people over 50 can contribute an extra $8,000 a year.

In his experience working in the retirement industry, he said, few can take advantage of that.

“The only people doing catch-up contributions are owners and shareholders in those businesses. The only other ones are very high earners,” Renfroe said, adding that his own pay isn’t enough for him to do so.

He added, “Everything in my industry is tone deaf. People don’t make enough to cover their cost of living or fully realize the benefit of saving into a 401(k).”

Social Security in crisis

Unlike other Gen Xers interviewed by CBS News, Renfroe doesn’t believe Social Security will exist by the time he retires. He said he expects to work until he dies.

“We’ve been telling people not to rely on Social Security. I’ve taken that to heart,” he said.

To be sure, Social Security’s trust fund is six years away from becoming insolvent, at which point the 70 million people who receive monthly benefits could see a 22% cut to their payments. Yet most retirement experts believe Social Security will continue to exist and that, given the potential political fallout, Congress is likely to shore up the program to avoid slashing benefits.

Barring a remedy, however, millions of Gen Xers could reach retirement age just as their Social Security benefits face a major hit.

If Social Security becomes insolvent, Branaman said, “Then it becomes: Am I living in a house, an apartment, a van down by the river? You really have to keep all options on the table and be open to adapting to that moment.”

In the meantime, the Gen Xers who spoke with CBS News noted that they’re talking to their children, who are in their teens and early 20s, about the importance of saving for retirement starting at an early age.

“No one talked to me about saving, budgeting, looking to the future,” said the 61-year-old in Los Angeles. “I came from a single-mother household, lower economic range, and she didn’t know.”

“So fortunately I’ve been able to educate my daughter, who is already light years ahead,” she added.

Some Gen Xers who spoke with CBS News expressed their generation’s trademark cynicism about retirement, stressing that they entered the workforce at a time when it was assumed that workers would know exactly how and when to save.

In recent years, legislation like the 2022 SECURE 2.0 Act has bolstered the retirement system by adding features such as automatic 401(k) enrollment and automatic escalation, which increase workers’ contribution rates over time. The Gen Xers felt like trying to catch up with their retirement savings in their 50s and early 60s would be difficult, if not impossible.

“I’m going to have to figure this thing out on my own, which is a very Gen X thing,” said Joshua, the IT administrator in Tennessee. “When you get to my age, and you don’t have a $1 million 401(k), you feel like a failure. There are more people closer to my situation than those with a $1 million 401(k).”

Edited by Alain Sherter

Is a massive data center hub heating up a town outside London?

2026-08-24T12:38:12-0400 / CBS News

By Emmet Lyons Reporter
Emmet Lyons is a news reporter at the CBS News London bureau, reporting and producing stories for all CBS News platforms. Prior to joining CBS News, Emmet worked as a producer at CNN for four years.

Read Full Bio

August 24, 2026 / 12:38 PM EDT / CBS News

Slough, England — Residents of the small industrial town of Slough, just west of London, told CBS News the soaring temperatures have been difficult to bear this year as Britain records its hottest summer ever. But emerging research suggests Slough may have had it particularly rough, as it sits next to the second largest data center hub on the planet.

“Slough is very hot. Every year we think this is the hottest, and then the next year it gets hotter than the last,” Nabeel Nawaz, who runs a restaurant in the center of the town, told CBS News as he sweltered through a July heatwave with temperatures in the 90s.

The low hum of cooling units on Slough’s massive data center hub, less than two miles from the heart of the town, provides a non-stop soundtrack for the surrounding area.

Vents are seen on a data center in Slough, England, July 29, 2026. Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty

The coolers regulate the temperature of the hundreds of computer servers inside the cavernous buildings, of which there are about 40 in Slough, transferring excess heat from the machines into water or air and then venting or evaporating the heat into the atmosphere outside.

Many of the data centers around the world work this way, and all that excess heat could be creating a “heat island effect,” increasing local temperatures by an average of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, with extreme localized temperature spikes of up to 16 degrees, according to research published by scientists at the University of Cambridge earlier this year.

“We tried to work at scale. We started to look at data centers we could identify around the world and we found around 11,000 locations,” Andrea Marinoni, a co-author of the research paper, told CBS News. “The temperature increase that we found was consistent in different areas of the world.”

A crane works on an Equinix data center under construction, center, in Slough, England, July 29, 2026. Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty

While the research by Marinoni and his colleagues did not include Slough’s data center hub, he told CBS News the sheer scale of the facility raises even bigger questions about the potential impact of a heat island effect for residents in the densely populated area.

“There are more and more situations where these data centers are concentrated in one single plot of land,” he said. “So, this is an experiment, in the sense that the compound effect of all of these different facilities very close to each other has not been studied yet.”

CBS News compared local weather station data on daily temperatures in and around the data center campus in July to two other nearby towns, Windsor and Uxbridge, and found Slough was just over one degree warmer on average over the course of the month.

A Google Maps satellite image shows Slough, west of London, England, where a large cluster of lighter colored roofs, on data centers and other industrial buildings, can be seen just west of the center of the town.

“It’s really hot. I cannot sit down without a fan here, whereas normally in the morning, 9 a.m., 10 a.m., it should be fine without a fan, so maybe it’s to do with that,” Khadija, who lives in a neighborhood right next to the data center complex, told CBS News. She declined to give her full name.

A spokesperson for Digital Realty, a real estate company that maintains some of the data centers in Slough and provides services to U.S. tech giants including Amazon and Microsoft, told CBS News that “any large development, whether it’s a warehouse, a mall, a parking lot, can contribute to localized warming by replacing natural land cover with pavement and buildings.”

“We keep heat output low by operating our facilities efficiently, using light-colored roofing and paving that reflect rather than absorb solar energy, maximizing green space and tree cover, and minimizing paved surface area,” the spokesperson said. “The result is a smaller heat footprint than you might expect and significantly better than the industry average.”

One of the world’s largest concentrations of data centers is seen in Loudon County, Virginia, with more than 53 million square feet of data centers in operation or under development. CBS News

Experts who spoke with CBS News agree that any concrete structure can increase local temperatures, but some say the infrastructure associated with data centres like the ones in Slough could amplify that effect significantly.

“The part where data centers are a little bit different is they are often a giant block, so as far as built environments go, it’s the worst you can imagine for the urban heat island effect,” Ladd Keith, an Associate Professor of Planning at the University of Arizona, told CBS News Thursday.

“As we see more data centers of this scale being built around the world, we need more evidence on how much waste heat is being emitted by them in different geographies and different climates,” he said. “I think one other really important question is, is this a bubble for data center building, or will it be sustained and continue for a longer time?”

Clarence Thomas scorches racial litmus tests policing thought: ‘Stay Black and die’

2026-08-24T14:55:22-04:00 / Fox News

The Supreme Court justice likened restrictions on conservative viewpoints to segregation at the Savannah Public Library

By Robert Schmad Fox News

Published August 24, 2026 2:55pm EDT

Clarence Thomas rejects idea that race determines politics

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas recently joined Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to discuss race and politics in a rare interview. (Credit: Verdict with Ted Cruz via Youtube)

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas rejected the idea that Black Americans should be expected to hold particular political views because of their race during a rare interview with Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

“We had this saying [that there are] only two things I have to do: stay Black and die,” Thomas told Cruz, responding to a comment about the conservative justice having an individualist streak. “That was a retort to people who had these sort of requirements for us, these these mandates for us because of our skin color … But at any rate, they think that here’s the way you’re supposed to think. Again, here’s your skin color. There’s this kind of deterministic view that you’re supposed to think this because we say so.”

“And I, of course, declined that invitation. And so now that means that something, that I’m a walking contradiction because I’ve deviated from their perception of what I should think,” the justice added while speaking on the “Verdict with Ted Cruz” podcast.

DEMOCRAT LAWMAKER CALLS CLARENCE THOMAS AN ‘UNCLE TOM’ AND ‘LYNCHMAN’ AFTER SUPREME COURT REDISTRICTING RULING

Clarence Thomas is an associate justice of the Supreme Court.

Thomas, who is Black, grew up poor in segregated Georgia, initially living in his parents’ wooden shack in Pin Point and later in Savannah with his grandparents. As a child, Thomas was raised speaking Gullah, a creole language derived from English spoken by the descendants of African slaves.

At the College of the Holy Cross, he initially embraced left-wing Black nationalism, admired Malcolm X and helped establish the school’s Black Student Union. Thomas began moving right after participating in a violent 1970 protest in Cambridge, Massachusetts, later saying his shame over the episode prompted him to reject left-wing activism and reconsider the self-reliance preached by his grandfather.

CLARENCE THOMAS WARNS AMERICA: LIBERTY DIES WHEN WE CHOOSE COMFORT OVER COURAGE

Supreme Court Associate Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas waited to leave the stage at the conclusion of inauguration ceremonies in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C.(Chip Somodevilla/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

To further explain his point, Thomas compared efforts to dictate which ideas Black Americans should embrace to the restrictions of racial segregation.

“Here’s what I’ve asked people. I said, ‘When I was a kid, the Savannah Public Library was segregated.’ I said, ‘Do you think it was right that the Savannah Public Library was segregated?’ Oh, no. You should have been able to go in,” Thomas stated. “I said, ‘What if they allowed me in but said I couldn’t go to certain floors? That would be wrong.’ I said, “What about if they said you couldn’t go to certain stacks?’ Well, that would be wrong. ‘What if they had certain books marked that were off limits to me?’ That would be wrong.”

BLACK GOP CONGRESSMAN SHUTS DOWN RACE QUESTION FOLLOWING SUPREME COURT REDISTRICTING RULING

Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas spoke at the University of Texas at Austin on April 15, 2026, in Austin, Texas.(Eric Gay/AP Photo)

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“Then my question is, why is it then that you have a problem with me embracing certain ideas in certain books? What’s the difference?’ Thomas went on.

Iran-linked hackers blamed for taking down U.K. power plant for first time, reports say

2026-08-24T13:30:00-0400 / CBS News

By Ramy Inocencio

Ramy Inocencio is a CBS News foreign correspondent based in London, covering Europe and the Middle East. He joined the Network in 2019 as CBS News’ Asia correspondent, based in Beijing and reporting across the Asia-Pacific, bringing two decades of experience working and traveling between Asia and the United States.

London — Iranian-affiliated hackers successfully but temporarily took a power plant offline in the United Kingdom, according to multiple British media outlets.

The Telegraph and Financial Times reported the attack, which they say happened in July but is only now being reported, is believed to be the first time Iranian-linked hackers managed to shut down such a facility in the country.

Of further concern, the breach also happened the same month Iranian-linked hackers are believed to have targeted the water systems of a dozen states including New Jersey, Minnesota, Georgia and South Dakota, locking out operators and causing pressure loss and flooding.

CBS News reached out to the U.K.’s cybersecurity agency, the National Cyber Security Centre, but it neither confirmed nor denied any hacking had occurred.

In both attacks, computers called “programmable logic controllers” were targeted, according to U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter in the U.K. Also known as PLCs, these are the brains of automated industrial systems found around the world that in large part span energy, water and manufacturing. But they are also used ubiquitously in hospitals to help supply power in blackouts, in chemical plants to control temperature and pressure to avoid explosions and in elevators and trains to control speed. PLCs are also employed to control prison security gates, in the timing of traffic light systems and in the activation of fire suppression systems.

Industry estimates on how many PLCs are in use worldwide vary widely, from roughly 12 million to more than 70 million, according to market research firms. The first model was manufactured in the late 1960s — and many older units still in use today were never designed with 21st century cybersecurity challenges in mind.

Yet, security researchers say the methods hackers use to breach PLCs are not sophisticated.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has reported Iranian-linked actors are using simple techniques that include scanning for exposed devices and exploiting default credentials — default passwords that have not been changed — rather than deploying sophisticated exploits of holes that companies may not know exist. The strategy is more akin to looking for unlocked doors versus high-tech hacking.

CISA has also said the responsibility for securing this equipment has largely fallen on individual plant operators – often small utilities with few to no dedicated cybersecurity staff – for devices that were never built with security as a priority in the first place. One 2024 scan by cybersecurity researchers found thousands of PLCs sitting exposed and searchable on the open internet.

In the attack on the British power plant, that system was offline for four days as employees worked to restore control, reports said. British officials and industrial executives have not disclosed which plant was hit, but it is understood the attack targeted a small-scale facility and did not impact the U.K.’s overall power supply. No organization has claimed responsibility, but security experts say it is possible these attacks may be proof-of-concept attempts — testing how to navigate the systems of more vulnerable targets before attempting to reach more sensitive, high-value ones in the future.

For years, the U.K. has warned of Iranian-linked cyber activity. In 2022, officials condemned Iran for a cyberattack that crippled Albania’s government services. But the warnings sharply intensified early this year, triggered by the U.S.-Israel war against Iran and the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In June, the head of the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre, Dr. Richard Horne, disclosed it had “managed” more than 200 cyberattacks against UK critical infrastructure in the past year, with roughly 75% of the attacks linked to hostile states including Russia, China and Iran.

Trump can’t stop rocking the economy — and causing more political problems for the GOP

2026-08-24T18:12:33.375Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/24/politics/trump-economy-midterms-blame-biden

The Republican Party’s response to questions about the continued economic pain ahead of the 2026 midterm elections is now essentially: A noun, a verb and “Joe Biden.”

But President Donald Trump can’t stop undermining this blame-Biden strategy — and giving his party major new headaches.

He’s made several economy-shaking moves that not only risk the GOP’s 2026 hopes, but also link the state of the economy directly to him and his party.

In recent days, Trump has doubled down on an all-out “economic D-Day” against Iran that could drag into the closing weeks of the election, announced a major intervention into the beef market that could harm the domestic industry and now launched what appears to be a real trade war with Canada.

All three appear to be giving at least some in his party heartburn about what they could mean for the 2026 election.

And the latter moves could cause the GOP problems in some key states with crucial Senate races.

The big question with the Iran strategy: Is it actually a good strategy or is it just the strategy that the administration has left, after military strikes failed to force Iran to capitulate?

Regardless, it’s a strategy that likely brings the war and its domestic harm to the US economy (read: $4 per gallon gasoline) dangerously close to when Americans will be voting. The election is just 71 days away, and it will take time to figure out whether all-out economic pressure on Iran will pay dividends.

And this is a war that the administration predicted would last four to six weeks when it began in late February. The whole thing has led to increased grumbling and uncertainty among Republicans about a prolonged war endangering their House and Senate majorities.

Adding to that political anxiety are two other recent economic moves by Trump, which could play significantly in some important states.

First came Trump’s decision to try to alleviate high beef prices by temporarily pausing tariffs on imported beef, and allowing up to 300,000 metric tons of ground beef to be imported tariff-free for the next 90 days.

The move has been pretty roundly lambasted by US cattle producers. It’s also been criticized by GOP senators in some top cattle-producing states, whose industries could suffer. And some of them feature key Senate races.

The two top cattle-producing states are Nebraska and Texas, which are both hosting significant Senate races in 2026. Nebraska GOP Sen. Pete Ricketts, who faces independent Dan Osborn in November, posted on X: “Flooding the market with lower quality beef compromises Nebraska farmers and ranchers.”

Iowa is in the top 10 in that category and also has a competitive open Senate race this year. There, GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley said he was “concerned for the cattle markets” and cited the recent closure of a Tyson beef plant just across the Iowa-Illinois border in Joslin, Illinois. And Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP candidate in the state’s open Senate race, added: “I want to lower prices but this is a bad idea.”

And perhaps the most unwelcome new Trump move is his ramped-up 50% tariffs on Canadian goods. This risks a pitched trade war with the US’ northern neighbor that could raise prices at a very bad time for the GOP.

It could also raise prices more in some states Republicans particularly want to keep happy — i.e. more key Senate races in states that border Canada and trade extensively in it. In fact, four of the six states rated as toss-ups by the Cook Political Report border Canada: Alaska, Maine, Michigan and Ohio.

Maine’s Susan Collins, the only GOP senator up for reelection in a state Trump lost in 2024 and therefore a top Democratic target, said Saturday tariffs “will increase costs for Maine families” and that the whiplash of trade negotiations is causing “higher costs, risk, and uncertainty for Maine businesses.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said last month when asked about the potential 50% Canada tariffs that he was “not a huge fan of tariffs as a general rule” and said he had not seen a “rationale” for them.

But even beyond the impact on specific states, the moves jeopardize the GOP’s broader economic message — trying to pass the buck onto Biden.

It’s become abundantly clear that the stock GOP talking point on questions about persistent inflation and poor jobs numbers is to cite the Biden administration and the lingering effects of its purported economic mismanagement. Inflation peaked even higher back during Biden’s term (and that was also the case throughout the world amid the Covid-19 pandemic).

The administration’s strategy of blaming economic ills on the former president dates back to last year. But it has become much more conspicuous both in the frequency of its usage and because of the large amount of time elapsed since Biden was actually president (now more than 19 months).

But Trump already undercut that message by launching his global tariffs early in his second term and then the Iran war back in February — two major actions that made it very simple for people to connect whatever happened with the economy and inflation specifically to him.

What’s more, Trump already accepted ownership of the economy. He told NBC News early this year that it was now the “Trump economy.” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in September 2025 that the “economy that Donald Trump owns starts at the end of this year” — i.e. when the calendar turned to 2026.

And voters seem to agree. A Reuters-Ipsos poll in February showed that majorities of Americans said Trump would be more responsible for major economic problems, while very few said Biden would be more responsible.

Now Trump is doubling down on the same types of major economic interventions that led people to those conclusions, with just more than two months until the midterms.

This story has been updated with additional context.

Iran-linked hackers suspected in UK power-plant shutdown after alleged Minnesota water attack

2026-08-24 1:15pm EDT / Fox News

The incident follows cyberattacks on more than 30 community water systems in Minnesota that US intelligence linked to Iran

By Morgan Phillips Fox News

Steve Bucci warns of growing cyber threat to US water infrastructure

Former top Pentagon official and Heritage Foundation visiting fellow Steve Bucci joins ‘Fox & Friends First’ to analyze the surge of cyberattacks on U.S. water infrastructure. Bucci warns that state-sponsored actors, including Iran-backed hackers, are exploiting vulnerable digital systems in municipal utilities. He emphasizes the urgent need for local governments to isolate critical controls from the public internet.

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Iran-linked hackers are suspected of forcing a small British power generator offline for four days last month, the latest sign that Tehran-linked cyber activity may be moving from probing vulnerable systems to causing disruptions U.S. officials have long warned about.

Iran-linked hackers were behind the outage, according to British security officials who spoke with multiple news outlets.

“To be clear: there was no threat to the wider grid and nobody lost power. We have one of the most resilient energy systems in the world,” UK Energy Minister Michael Shanks said in a statement.

He described the generator as “tiny” but said his department had briefed CEOs following the intrusion on “steps they should take to stay secure.”

WATER CYBERATTACK HITS AT LEAST 7 STATES

British security officials believe Iran-linked hackers were behind the power outage.(AP Photo)

The British shutdown came weeks after hackers struck more than 30 community water systems in Minnesota, accessing technology used to remotely monitor and control pumps and other equipment. Minnesota officials have not publicly attributed the attacks. Several news outlets, citing U.S. officials and a leaked industry threat-sharing memo, reported that Iran was the likely culprit. President Donald Trump has publicly rejected that assessment, saying he did not believe Iran was to blame.

Together, the incidents are putting civilian infrastructure at the center of another front in the conflict between the U.S. and Iran. As the military confrontation stretches into its sixth month, relatively small and often lightly defended water and energy facilities offer hackers a way to cause physical disruption without penetrating a major power grid or striking a military target.

Those facilities can be especially vulnerable because many rely on internet-connected industrial control systems that allow operators to monitor and manage physical equipment remotely. Once inside, hackers can interrupt operations, lock out operators or manipulate controls for pumps and other machinery.

In a July alert, the FBI and Environmental Protection Agency said malicious actors had targeted water and wastewater utilities in at least seven states by accessing exposed programmable logic controllers and changing their internet addresses and passwords. Some incidents disrupted water operations, causing reported pressure loss and flooding.

Federal agencies have also warned that Iranian-affiliated actors have targeted similar industrial devices across water, energy and government sectors, seeking access to the software used to control them. That activity has already caused operational disruptions and financial losses.

IRAN’S PROXY WAR HAS CROSSED OCEANS AND IS NOW KNOCKING ON AMERICA’S DOOR

Hackers targeted computerized controls at more than 30 Minnesota water systems, forcing some utilities to use manual operations and backup procedures.(Tony Webster/Wikimedia Commons)

Iranian hackers have pursued U.S. infrastructure before.

The threat extends beyond industrial systems. On Aug. 18, the Justice Department charged 17 members of an Iran-based company with carrying out a sweeping cyber theft campaign targeting hundreds of universities, private companies and government agencies. Prosecutors said many of the intrusions were conducted on behalf of the IRGC and other Iranian entities and resulted in the theft of more than 31 terabytes of academic data and intellectual property.

In 2016, the Justice Department charged an Iranian hacker with gaining access to the control system for a dam in Rye, New York. The dam’s sluice gate had been disconnected for maintenance at the time, preventing him from manipulating water levels and flow rates.

More recently, U.S. agencies linked an IRGC-affiliated campaign known as CyberAv3ngers to compromises of Israeli-made industrial controllers at dozens of U.S. facilities in late 2023 and early 2024, including water and wastewater systems, energy companies, food manufacturers and healthcare organizations. The campaign exploited devices exposed to the public internet that were still using default passwords.

On Aug. 18, the Justice Department charged 17 members of an Iran-based company with carrying out a sweeping cyber theft campaign targeting hundreds of universities, private companies and government agencies.(Cyberguy.com)

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The more recent attacks underscore how little access may be required to produce a physical effect. In Minnesota, compromised controllers affected systems used to track water levels, pressure, pump operations and equipment alarms; in some communities, equipment was temporarily taken offline while operators restored systems.

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Whether Tehran intends a wider campaign against Western infrastructure remains unclear. But the four-day shutdown in Britain illustrates what hackers can do once they gain access to a small industrial system: disrupt physical operations without breaching a major grid operator or triggering a blackout large enough to invite an immediate military response.

Trump’s approval holds at record low as US support for Iran war falls, Reuters Ipsos poll finds

August 24, 2026 7:06 PM UTC / Reuters

By Jason Lange

August 24, 2026 7:06 PM UTC Updated 25 mins ago

U.S. President Donald Trump reacts during a campaign rally for U.S. Senator Darline Graham (R-SC) at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, U.S., August 21, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

• Summary

• Support for US military action against Iran falls to 31%, Reuters/Ipsos poll shows
• Trump job approval stays at 33% for second straight survey, matching record low
• Poll finds 83% of Americans expect war to continue for ​an extended period

WASHINGTON, Aug 24 (Reuters) – U.S. ‌public approval of the war with Iran fell to its lowest level since the conflict’s early days, helping to hold President Donald Trump’s popularity at a record low, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Monday.

The four-day poll showed just 31% of ​Americans support U.S. military action against Iran, down from 37% in a March Reuters/Ipsos poll and ​34% earlier this month. The decline was driven by fewer self-identified Republicans backing the ⁠conflict. Some 69% of Republican respondents support the war, compared with 77% in March.

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The war has been ​dragging on Trump’s public standing this year, and for the second survey in a row just 33% of respondents ​said they approved of the Republican’s performance in the White House, the lowest level in Reuters/Ipsos polls in Trump’s first or second term.

Trump has told Americans that the war – which started with U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28 – is necessary ​to keep Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. The conflict has cooled in recent months but Iran has ​kept in place a de facto blockade of oil exports from the region, which has pushed U.S. gasoline prices near ‌record highs.

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Trump ⁠has vowed to ramp up economic pressure on Iran and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday announced a possible expansion of sanctions on countries doing business with the country, but stopped short of actually imposing penalties, a sign of how thorny the conflict has become for the administration.

FEARS OF A LONG WAR

Some 83% of ​the country thinks the war ​will go on “for an ⁠extended period of time,” the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll found, up from 80% earlier this month.

Trump campaigned ahead of the 2024 presidential election on promises to control inflation ​and avoid lengthy military conflicts. Six months into the war with Iran, U.S. ​gasoline prices are ⁠more than a dollar higher per gallon than they were before the war. That is weighing on Trump’s Republican allies who will be defending narrow congressional majorities in the November 3 midterm elections.

Independent voters in the poll ⁠favored Democrats ​over Republicans – 33% to 19% – when asked who they would vote ​for in congressional elections if the election were held today.

The poll surveyed 1,215 U.S. adults nationwide and had a margin of error ​of 3 percentage points in either direction.

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Reporting by Jason Lange in Washington; editing by Scott Malone and Deepa Babington

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Fentanyl investigations and seizures dropped during Trump’s immigration crackdown, federal watchdog says

2026-08-24T17:46:41.231Z / CNN

By Priscilla Alvarez

2 hr ago

PUBLISHED Aug 24, 2026, 1:46 PM ET

Prescription drugs Immigration Federal agencies Donald Trump

Agents from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit during a traffic stop near the White House in Washington, DC, in August 2025.

Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The Department of Homeland Security’s decision last year to pull additional federal agents for immigration enforcement resulted in a dramatic drop in fentanyl investigations and seizures by the department’s investigations division, according to a federal watchdog report.

The sudden change in approach toward ongoing fentanyl-related efforts stemmed from President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown, which required federal agents across the government to be pulled in for immigration arrests. That included agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations, the body charged with combatting cartels and criminal organizations.

Under tremendous pressure to meet White House-imposed quotas, HSI pivoted much of its work in fiscal year 2025 to immigration arrests, pulling it away from some of its ongoing work into fentanyl. One office reported that around “99 percent” of its work was dedicated to immigration, leaving almost no room for fentanyl investigations, according to the DHS inspector general report released last week.

“In FY 2025, Department priorities shifted toward immigration enforcement. Accordingly, HSI prioritized immigration enforcement over fentanyl-related criminal investigations,” the report found.

The report reviewed HSI’s role in disrupting the supply of fentanyl, ranging from the agency’s technologies, coordination with other federal agencies, and shifting priorities. The audit was conducted from March 2025 through May 2026.

Between fiscal years 2022 and 2024, agents had increasingly dedicated time to fentanyl investigations, but in fiscal year 2025, the hours spent on those investigations declined by around 31% compared to the previous fiscal year, the report found.

“At the same time, immigration enforcement saw the largest increase across all investigative categories, rising more than 1.7 million hours (over 800 percent),” the report continued.

That also led to a reduction in fentanyl investigations and seizures. In fiscal year 2025, the number of investigations initiated by HSI dropped by 24% compared to the previous year. At one field office, the number of investigations initiated declined from 30 to 13 from fiscal year 2024 to fiscal year 2025, according to the report.

“HSI’s fentanyl seizures also decreased by 39 percent in FY 2025 despite the DEA reporting several record-breaking fentanyl seizures in 2025,” the report said.

In a statement to CNN, a Homeland Security spokesperson said HSI “is working closely with the Department to track metrics and execute goals to assess how well ICE-HSI is combating fentanyl. In FY26, an action plan was launched as an Agency Priority Goal, which set key milestones for combating fentanyl.”

Agents across HSI offices nationwide reported an all-hands approach to the administration’s immigration push in interviews with the inspector general’s office. For example, one drug investigation team of seven agents was reduced to “two to three” because people were reassigned to immigration cases, the report states.

The audit identified other issues that hamstrung HSI’s efforts to combat fentanyl, including technical limitations, lack of necessary funds, and inconsistent referrals from other federal agencies, like US Customs and Border Protection.

The inspector general shared four recommendations with ICE, which concurred with all of them. That included conducting a review of staffing levels “to ensure an appropriate level of coverage commensurate with the relative priority of fentanyl investigations.” ICE HSI agreed to review staffing and determine next steps, setting an estimated completion date of June 30, 2027.

CNN’s Michael Williams and Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.

Bessent announces campaign to create “economic onslaught” against Iran and its partners

2026-08-24T12:06:00-0400 / CBS News

By Richard Escobedo

Updated on: August 24, 2026 / 3:18 PM EDT / CBS News

Washington— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday announced Operation Economic Outcast, the Trump administration’s ramped-up push to use economic tools to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war with Iran.

“Today, at President Trump’s direction, the United States Treasury has begun Operation Economic Outcast, an unprecedented campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its enablers,” Bessent said. “In the Second World War, D-Day marked the historic beginning of a campaign with our allies to target and drive the enemy from its positions, including those in third countries. Today, in that same spirit, we are launching an economic onslaught against Iran’s financial connections around the globe.”

The operation expands the categories for secondary sanctions on entities and countries that transact with Tehran and also introduces new sanctions across a variety of vital sectors, including digital assets, gold, aviation, technology and shipping.

Bessent said any entity that facilitates money laundering on behalf of Iran “will be removed from the U.S. dollar system. The clock just started ticking.”

Many of the secondary sanctions, he said, won’t be immediate.

“We are giving everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behavior,” Bessent said. “Why would I want to blow up the global financial system? We believe that it is important to level set and give people a cure period, but they should know that that will move very quickly and that we are serious.”

The treasury secretary did say he expects an announcement of a major financial institution being sanctioned by the end of this week.

Bessent said the president is making phone calls to world leaders to cease their interactions with the Iranian regime. Bessent declined to name any names when asked by CBS News, and didn’t get into the timeline.

“We do not have infinite patience here,” he told CBS News.

Bessent said this economic pressure campaign “will not end until this regime stands alone.”

Asked whether Chinese banks that finance Iranian oil imports would be among those hit with the punishing financial measures, Bessent said that “no one is above the reach of U.S. sanctions.”

He also criticized countries that engage in trade with Iran — which includes U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf like the United Arab Emirates — as guilty of “appeasement.”

Last week, UAE said it has suspended financial and economic transactions with Iran, potentially threatening Tehran’s access to a major source of imports and a financial back door to the world.

Bessent also said that Iran’s Bank Melli, which has branches across the Gulf “must be shuttered and dark.”

But not all think that these actions will cause as much harm as the touted by Bessent and the administration.

“This was not economic D-Day,” said Brett Erickson, a Washington-based sanctions expert who runs Obsidian Risk Advisors. “It was something in the middle.The core constraint facing the United States in the Iran War is the global economic timeline. If the United States is unwilling to meaningfully target China, can Washington reasonably justify damaging our international relations and global standing, for a strategy with only a farfetched likelihood of achieving victory?”

The move is part of the Trump administration’s effort to apply economic tools to pressure Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and eventually end the war that the administration originally said would last four to six weeks. That war is now in its sixth month.

After months of military operations and failed negotiations, Bessent plans to outline the “single greatest financial offensive ever marshaled against an adversary.”

“President Trump has dismantled Iran’s military capabilities, destroyed nearly 100 percent of its military factories, and buried its nuclear program,” Bessent wrote in the Financial Times on Sunday. “We are now entering the endgame. At dawn begins an economic D-Day — the single greatest financial offensive ever marshaled against an adversary.”

“IRAN IS COMPLETELY COLLAPSING!!!” Mr. Trump wrote Monday morning on Truth Social. The president has been insisting Iran has fallen for months.

This will be the latest round of Treasury action that targets Iran’s economy. On Aug. 7, the department levied sanctions against a number of companies and individuals that it alleged laundered hundreds of millions of dollars. It was the eighth such action since the start of the second Trump administration.

“Every facilitator that keeps the regime afloat is putting a target on its own back,” Bessent said in a statement at the time. “Treasury will continue to expose these networks and cut them off from the U.S. financial system.”

Specifically, the department designated Shahr Bank and two Dubai-based exchange houses, Titan Exchange and Alps International, that it says helped Shahr Bank retrieve oil revenue for major Iranian exporters, including the National Iranian Oil Company and Naftiran Intertrade Co.

Several Iranian nationals were also designated, including Shahr Bank employee Saeed Ghasempour, who allegedly coordinated currency conversions with Russia’s VTB Bank, and staff members of Iran-based Farab Soroush Afagh Qeshm, who allegedly managed invoices and payments for the scheme. A cluster of shell companies in Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai — accused of funneling payments through intermediary accounts — was also designated.

Separately, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned former Fly Baghdad CEO Basheer Abdulkadhim Alwan al-Shabbani for allegedly helping the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force move fighters, weapons, and money to militia groups in the region. Earlier this week, however, OFAC removed Fly Baghdad from its sanctions list.

The U.S. has been imposing sanctions on Iran for decades, although Tehran has often found ways to evade sanctions.

Analysis: Treasury threatens new sanctions on nations tied to Iran

2026-08-24 18:29:33 UTC / CNN

Analysis: Treasury threatens new sanctions on nations tied to Iran

The US Treasury Department threatened damaging new sanctions on countries that refuse to cut economic ties with Iran — but stopped short of actually imposing big new penalties. Professor of Economics at University of Michigan Justin Wolfers and CNN Military Analyst Col. Cedric Leighton join CNN News Central to discuss the announcement.

6:31 • Source: CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/24/politics/video/cncpm-treasury-sanctions-iran-analysis-wolfers-leighton