diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index e52d0c6d50..beb431bf47 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+8.0.0-dev.641 | 2025-07-11 12:13:45 -0700
+
+  * Add NEWS entry about C++ 20 [nomail] [skip ci] (Tim Wojtulewicz, Corelight)
+
 8.0.0-dev.639 | 2025-07-11 12:58:06 -0400
 
   * crash fixes for constructs that expect add/delete expressions to return values (Vern Paxson, Corelight)
diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index fc4a8c98b9..584a957f82 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -12,6 +12,11 @@ release.
 Breaking Changes
 ----------------
 
+- Zeek and all of its associated submodules now require C++20-capable compilers to
+  build. This will let us move forward in using more modern C++ features and replace some
+  workarounds that we have been carrying. Minimum recommended versions of compilers are
+  GCC 10, Clang 8, and Visual Studio 2022.
+
 - The code base underwent a big cleanup of #include usage, across almost all of the
   files. We tested builds of all of the existing third-party packages and only noticed one
   or two failures, but there is a possibility for breakage related to this cleanup.
diff --git a/VERSION b/VERSION
index 57c89008e6..0412dec28c 100644
--- a/VERSION
+++ b/VERSION
@@ -1 +1 @@
-8.0.0-dev.639
+8.0.0-dev.641