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Water-System Hacks Hit 7 States This Week, FBI Warns, As Trump Shoots Down Iran Theory

Cyberattacks on municipal water systems were reported in at least seven states this week, according to a joint public service announcement from the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency - and in some cases, the agencies say, the malicious activity actually degraded water operations. The feds declined to name the states.

A water tower in Plymouth, Minnesota, on Thursday after a cyberattack targeted the operating technology at more than 30 water systems across the state. (Ellen Schmidt/AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

The warning lands just days after we reported that a "coordinated cyberattack" struck more than 30 community water systems in Minnesota over July 26-27 - knocking the water plant in tiny Braham offline for a stretch, pushing Plymouth and South St. Paul onto manual operations, and prompting Maple Plain to declare a local state of emergency, according to Just The News.

The playbook, per federal officials, was crude but effective: attackers remotely accessed internet-facing operational technology, changed device IP addresses and passwords, and locked utility operators out of their own monitoring and control systems, NBC News reported. The PSA is now pleading with utilities to do the bare minimum - pull programmable logic controllers off the open internet and put them behind gateways and firewalls, use actual passwords, and restrict which devices are allowed to talk to one another.

(Yes - in the year 2026, a nontrivial share of the machines controlling America's drinking water are still sitting on the public internet, some with absurdly simple passwords.)

CISA followed Thursday with an advisory warning that Iranian-affiliated actors are going after U.S. critical infrastructure, water and wastewater systems included - an update to guidance the agency first pushed out in April, which we flagged in our earlier coverage. Some of the larger water-sector intrusions, the advisory notes, have produced boil-water notices and left plants grinding along in manual mode for extended stretches. CISA's top-line fix is the same one it has been repeating for years: cut direct internet access to control systems.

Except - Washington can't agree on who did it.

Multiple U.S. officials have told ABC News the Minnesota attacks may be linked to Iran, and investigators' preliminary assessment reportedly leans the same way - with the caveat that it could change. Meanwhile President Trump denied it. Speaking to reporters at Camp David on Friday, Trump dismissed the Iran theory - "Iran should be so lucky," he said - and instead pinned the blame on what he called Minnesota's grossly incompetent and corrupt leadership under Gov. Tim Walz, arguing Tehran has bigger problems than the Gopher State's pump stations.

Trump:

They like to say, "Ohh, it's Iran. Iran should be so lucky."

Iran's got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota. https://t.co/4FnVLLzSmY pic.twitter.com/9HMP4RTcii

— Adam Scott (@chefcascottccc) July 31, 2026

Cybersecurity veteran Morgan Wright, founder of the National Center for Open and Unsolved Cases, told The Hill that Iran is the likely culprit, pointing to the CISA advisory as one tell. The U.S. may dominate on land and at sea, Wright argued, but cyberspace is the one domain where Tehran gets to punch above its weight class. Federal officials, for their part, caution that attribution requires careful technical analysis alongside broader threat intelligence - because otherwise it looks like the same nakedly transparent propaganda we've been fed for decades (duh).

That said - there is precedent as we detailed in our Minnesota coverage, if we're to believe the official stories. In November 2023, the IRGC-linked CyberAv3ngers seized control of a device at the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. In early 2024, the Cyber Army of Russia Reborn claimed attacks on water facilities in the U.S. and Poland, including a breach in Muleshoe, Texas that dumped tens of thousands of gallons of water. In October 2024, American Water - the largest regulated water utility in the country, serving more than 14 million people across 14 states and 18 military installations - shut down computer systems after a cyberattack. Beijing's Volt Typhoon has spent years quietly pre-positioning inside U.S. critical-infrastructure networks, per CISA. And just weeks ago, the Iranian MOIS-linked Handala persona claimed to have compromised California Water Service - which serves roughly 2 million customers - leaking 5 gigabytes of data, then vowed via Tehran's Press TV to keep hitting U.S. industrial control systems.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 09:45

Observations from Saturday's Giants training camp practice.

As Page Six previously reported, the actor best known for his role as Salvatore “Big P--y” Bonpensiero in “The Sopranos," passed away on Saturday.

As Page Six previously reported, the actor best known for his role as Salvatore “Big P--y” Bonpensiero in “The Sopranos," passed away on Saturday.

The 24-year-old’s empire unraveled after heavy borrowing for massive AI stock bets, just days before his grand wedding.

Kelsey Plum is on the move.

Spain's Immigration Crisis: Ceuta & The Collapse Of Sánchez's Pro-Migration Experiment

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

The new migration crisis in Ceuta is not an isolated episode or a simple border emergency. It is the result of a deeply irresponsible and damaging political and economic model. Sánchez boasts about aggregate growth while destroying cohesion, productivity, net real income per capita, and institutions. Spain is not an example of growth, migrant integration, or cohesion. It is a statistical mirage juiced by population increase and a fiscal time bomb. It has taken a migration crisis for the European Union to wake up.

Illegal immigration is not a stroke of fate or a recipe for growth and for shoring up public finances; it is a strategy of control and demolition of the nation from within, with the aim of creating a dependent, captive underclass, buying votes by altering demographics and shifting onto future generations the enormous cost to the state of a population increase whose net contribution to public accounts is overwhelmingly negative.

Spain was presented by progressives as a model of migrant integration. It was never true, and now it has become a full‑blown crisis. The uncontrolled wave of illegal immigration is the direct result of the socialist government’s policies: mass regularizations, subsidies, and the constant message that illegal migration pays.

For years, Spain has attracted uncontrolled inflows with promises of regularization and public transfers, while Brussels looked the other way because headline GDP grew and the statistics looked “inclusive.” However, the cost is enormous and borne by Spanish workers and taxpayers and, increasingly, by the entire European Union. Its elite tolerated Spain’s destructive policies as long as aggregate GDP was fattened, even in the face of the clear warning sign that GDP per capita was stagnating and pressure on public services and social unrest were rising.

The Sánchez government and its coalition have imposed unprecedented regularization processes, presenting them as a model for Europe and explicitly linking them to GDP increases and the supposed sustainability of the welfare state. This was a major deception. Regularized illegal immigration does not make pensions more sustainable; quite the opposite, because its net contribution to public accounts is unquestionably negative, as all studies on the matter show. Meanwhile, the government inflates aggregate GDP, but GDP per capita, net real wages, productivity, and the real effective employment rate remain stagnant.

The Spanish government has presented itself to the world with an openly pro‑immigration stance, at odds with decisions taken by the European Union itself. However, the Commission and the EU remained silent in the face of the assault on institutions, corruption, and the disaster of migration policy. European institutions bear responsibility because they supported and amplified Sánchez’s destructive, extensive migration policy, presenting it as if it were inclusive. They ignored the evidence that Spain’s numbers are poor once you look beyond headline GDP.

Stagnant GDP per capita: the IMF’s own estimates show that Spain’s GDP per capita will grow by just 1% a year between 2018 and 2027, exactly the same as the euro area average.
Falling net real wages: under Sánchez they have fallen by almost 3%.
Real unemployment: 3.7 million real unemployed, including inactive workers registered with the SEPE and 792,341 inactive permanent‑intermittent workers. The number of effectively unemployed has barely improved since 2019.

Zero fiscal consolidation: the net debt of the public administrations under the Excessive Deficit Procedure has risen to a record 1.6 trillion, while the total liabilities of the public sector have increased by more than half a trillion to 2.2 trillion. Debt‑to‑GDP and the deficit only appear to improve because the denominator is being doped with immigration and inflation above the euro area average.
An unsustainable Social Security system: Sánchez has multiplied Social Security’s debt, and the system needs a bailout every year from a state that is already in deficit. Immigration is not going to reduce that enormous hole; it increases it, as its net contribution is mostly negative.

All the data on the Spanish economy show weakness, statistical illusions, and severe imbalances, but the European Union and the Commission preferred to remain silent, buy the official propaganda, and cling to a doped aggregate GDP. The same thing they did with Greece between 2004 and 2007.

The official narrative highlights headline GDP contributions and demographic arguments while remaining silent about the stagnation of GDP per capita, productivity, net real wages, and the fiscal and institutional strain of absorbing huge irregular inflows through emergency regularizations instead of orderly, skills‑based migration. The EU allowed it because Sánchez sold it as a model when the time bomb was already obvious.

The Spanish government’s strategy is clear: to create a gigantic underclass dependent on public subsidies and captive as a future electorate. The massive inflow of illegal immigrants is the consequence of years of mass regularization policies, subsidy announcements, basic income plans, and a sustained pull factor.

Ceuta is facing its worst migration crisis in years, with thousands of irregular entries in barely a week and reception facilities completely overwhelmed. Centers for adults and minors are overflowing, local authorities speak openly of a humanitarian and social emergency, and the daily pressure on the border shows just how far the state has lost its capacity for anticipation and deterrence. This is not just a migration crisis. It is also a crisis of authority, planning, and institutional credibility.

To understand what Sánchez calls “the rocket,” today in Ceuta “GDP goes up,” but people in Ceuta are poorer and worse off.

More migration pressure, overwhelmed public services, greater dependence on public money, more debt, and higher future taxes, while Sánchez boasts about the figures and abandons the border.

The government uses the 0.7% quarterly and 2.7% year‑on‑year GDP growth in the second quarter of 2026 as if it were proof of strength, but aggregate growth is not prosperity. Spain is not growing; it is swelling and getting deeper into debt. The government relies on demographic expansion, artificially propped‑up domestic demand, rising public spending, and jobs in low‑productivity sectors.

Spain is growing in volume and getting poorer in quality. Aggregate GDP increases, but the net real income of its citizens deteriorates. The economy is doped with population and spending while efficiency, competitiveness, and per-capita well-being worsen.

On top of this comes inflation. The flash estimate for July, at 3.5%, once again puts Spain above the euro area average, which had eased to around 2.8%. This gap is not irrelevant. It means loss of competitiveness, more pressure on costs, further erosion of purchasing power, and greater difficulty in turning growth into real prosperity. Spain not only grows with low productivity but also with relatively high inflation. It is the worst combination for selling a supposed durable economic success.

The Spanish economy shows no structural leap in productivity, no decisive improvement in productive investment, and no solid convergence in GDP per capita with the most advanced economies of the euro area, where it remains 8 points below the average of a European Union that itself is not doing well, according to Eurostat.

The Ceuta crisis is a symbol of the complete failure of this model. A massive, irregular inflow of people generates, in the short term, a higher volume of measured activity because it triggers emergency spending, more budget mobilization, and more administrative needs. Statistically, that “pushes up GDP.” However, socially and economically the balance is devastating: it makes citizens poorer, worsens security, increases pressure on housing, healthcare, and education, and the cost is borne by taxpayers who already shoulder high debt, rising taxes, and a loss of net real purchasing power.

This is what “sanchismo” calls success: the numbers grow, and reality deteriorates.

Spain is not suffering border chaos by accident. It is the consequence of Sánchez’s mass regularizations and years of pull‑factor policies, a message to the world that entering illegally pays off.

It is not a mistake; it is a power strategy. Sánchez seeks to create a captive underclass, dependent on subsidies and papers, that will vote for him in the future and shift the social consequences and the bill onto taxpayers. While the government sinks under corruption scandals and loses social support, it tries to cling to power by dismantling Spain and its institutions and importing the future voters it is losing today.

Sánchez is not governing Spain; he is dismantling it in an attempt to cling to power. That is the big lie of Sánchez’s “rocket,” bloating up instead of truly growing.

It seemed Elon Musk was on to Sánchez early on. After the prime minister defended his amnesty plan in April, Musk wrote on X, "Dirty Sánchez is guilty of high treason."

Dirty Sánchez is guilty of high treason

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2026

Sánchez responded cheekily at the time, "Mars can wait. Humanity can't." 

Mars can wait. Humanity can’t. https://t.co/Oc4qAYtd3f

— Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon) January 29, 2026

Call that humanity?

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 09:20

Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez believed the National Liberation Army rebel group were behind the attack.

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UK High Court Moves To Ban Display Of English And British Flags

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

A Liberal Democrat council has secured a High Court injunction that effectively bans the unauthorised display of the St George's Cross and Union Flag on lampposts and public highways across an entire English county.

What began as a grassroots campaign to raise the colours of the nation has been declared a threat to community safety, with the full force of the courts now deployed against it.

Oxfordshire County Council, run by the Liberal Democrats, won its landmark case after months of legal action against the Raise the Colours campaign.

High Court approves injunction to BAN Britons hanging Union and St George's flags on lampposts. https://t.co/jWvRfTdcjK

— GB News (@GBNEWS) August 1, 2026

Justice Dexter Dias granted the order prohibiting unidentified persons from attaching England or Union flags to highway infrastructure or painting flag imagery on roads. Breach carries the risk of imprisonment, unlimited fines, or asset seizure.

Council leader Tim Bearder celebrated the outcome, stating "This is a welcome judgement. We're very pleased with the result," adding "This sets a legal precedent and will hopefully deter people in not just Oxfordshire but around the country from partaking in this criminal activity."

He described those involved as "very challenging people, not patriots."

The council claims the flags created highway safety risks, trespass, and obstruction. It spent roughly £80,000 removing them and a further £40,000 on legal fees, costs it now intends to recover.

Staff tasked with taking the flags down reportedly faced hostility, to the point that some were instructed to wear face coverings and check their vehicles for tracking devices after one worker's home address was published.

The judge noted that maintenance teams had been "working in fear" and that people directed by the council had been obstructed "to the extent that at times they have simply given up on the removal." He concluded there was "little prospect absent an injunction that it will stop."

The new order does not prevent flags on private property, and the council insists it flies both the Union Flag and St George's Cross at County Hall.

This is the same Oxfordshire authority that earlier issued formal stop notices branding the widespread installation of national flags an "act of intimidation and division."

The pattern is now familiar. English councils have repeatedly treated the national flag as a problem to be managed rather than a symbol to be celebrated. FOI requests previously revealed at least £70,000 spent removing Union Jacks and St George's Crosses from lampposts, with some local politicians openly calling the expenditure "money well spent" to combat supposed far-right agitation.

In Essex, staff were offered emotional support if they felt "discomforted" by the mere sight of the national flag in their communities.

A leaked government social cohesion strategy went further still, describing how the "extreme right has tried to turn symbols of pride into tools of hate," framing the Union Flag itself as a potential instrument of exclusion and intimidation.

The phenomenon has a name: vexillophobia - the irrational fear of the flag. Britain has reached the point where flying the St George's Cross is treated as a form of aggression while other political symbols face no such institutional hostility.

During the recent World Cup, English people were warned not to fly flags, the reasoning being that it could intimidate migrants and non-English people.

The selective nature of the discomfort is hard to miss. When rows of Pride flags lined streets in such density that even a prominent television presenter described them as "oppressive," the institutional response was silence or defence. National colours, by contrast, trigger injunctions, safety briefings, and high court orders.

Raise the Colours began as a simple act of public expression - covering Britain in its own flags. In Oxfordshire it has now been met with the full machinery of the state.

The High Court has drawn a line: the English flag may be flown on private property, but the public highway is a neutral zone where the nation's colours are treated as a potential hazard.

The precedent is set. Other councils are watching. The message to ordinary people who simply want to see their country's flag in public spaces is clear. In 2026 Britain, that desire is something the authorities feel compelled to police.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 08:10

A heroic armed citizen tried to take out a gunman as he opened fire on an Idaho In-N-Out, according to heart-stopping video and witnesses.

Take a knee. Run out the clock. Admit it’s over. The only thing left for UCLA to do in its runaway disaster of a legal fight with the Rose Bowl is concede defeat and move on. UCLA’s lease with the Rose Bowl runs through the 2043 football season. Commit to staying at your longtime football...

To be free, or not to be free?

A Brain That Can Swap Bodies: Google DeepMind Aims To Be The 'Android' Of Robotics

Google DeepMind unveiled Gemini Robotics 2 on Wednesday, a suite of three AI models that gives humanoid and other robots whole-body control, sharper manipulation, and the ability to work together. The system can run locally on the robot itself and adapt to an entirely new machine body with a few hours of training data. DeepMind is pitching it as the "intelligence layer" for robots - the foundational operating system that every hardware maker builds on.

Rather than a single monolithic system, the company released three models across three access tiers:

• Gemini Robotics 2: A vision-language-action model that turns what a robot sees and is told into motor commands. It can drive a full humanoid from feet to fingertips, as well as standard two-armed systems.
• Gemini Robotics ER 2: An embodied-reasoning model that plans multi-step jobs over several minutes, recovers from failures, and lets multiple robots split a workflow between them.
• Gemini Robotics On-Device 2: A lightweight version that runs directly on the hardware, for industrial settings where cloud connectivity is unreliable or unavailable.

DeepMind demonstrated a single model checkpoint controlling three physically distinct robots: an Apptronik Apollo 2 fitted with two different sets of hands, and a separate two-armed rig with a gripper. One model ran hardware it was never designed for.

Unlike its 2025 system, which handled only a robot's upper body, this version controls movement from the torso down through the legs, letting a humanoid walk, crouch, bend, and reach at once. In one demonstration, an Apollo 2 walked to a watering can and placed it on a lower shelf.

Success has been hit-or-miss, wit robots hitting roughly 68% accuracy picking objects from a table and 76% from a shelf, but only 46% from the floor. Multi-finger dexterity is still an unsolved problem, and simple grippers continue to outperform elaborate robotic hands. Movement needs to be faster and more reliable. This is a research release with a waitlist; nobody is putting it to work on a warehouse floor next quarter.

DeepMind says Gemini ER 2 its safest robotics model yet, based on benchmarks for adhering to safety constraints and avoiding humans, and it included an evaluation of whether a robot will refuse an unsafe instruction and defer to a human for help. The vision-language-action and on-device models are gated to more than 100 trusted testers and a handful of early partners; the reasoning model is in a more open preview.

The Bigger Bet

Alphabet, Nvidia, and a wave of Chinese tech firms are all racing to own the "physical AI" stack rather than any single robot - the same bet that made mobile operating systems so valuable. If humanoid machines ever become as common as laptops, whoever supplies the universal brain that transfers cleanly from one body to the next will own a toll booth on the entire industry.

As for DeepMind - so far it hasn't kicked any Chinese kids in the head, so that's a start. 

A Unitree G1 humanoid robot just roundhouse kicked a child in China’s Xinjiang region, sparking urgent conversations about public safety.

The robot, which was executing a pre-programmed, 360-degree spinning roundhouse kick, delivered enough force to double the child over.

While…

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 9, 2026

 

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 07:35

The streets of Iran are near a breaking point over public executions, economic collapse and a war with no end in sight, anti-regime figures based in Tehran told The Post.