🇮🇱⚡️ — All clear for the UAV/rocket alert areas in northern Israel.

🗳 🇳🇮 🛠 Nicaraguan Congress Passes Ortega-Backed Reform Excluding Opposition From Elections

Nicaragua's Congress on Tuesday passed a ⁠constitutional ⁠reform that bans opposition ⁠parties from participating in elections and extends the presidential term from ​six to seven years, an initiative that had previously drawn criticism from the United States ‌and other countries in the ‌region.

The reform, backed by co-presidents Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, cleared ⁠its first ⁠vote in National Assembly. Murillo announced on Monday that the amendment ​will be ratified in a second vote starting January 18, as Nicaraguan law requires constitutional changes to be approved by two separate legislative sessions before taking effect.

The reform also extends the ​terms of co-presidents and other elected officials, as well as the heads of ⁠the army ⁠and police, from six ⁠to seven ​years.

On July 19, Ortega publicly stated that "there won't be any more elections" in Nicaragua ​to prevent the opposition ⁠from "seizing the government" again.

Several Central American countries, as well as Bolivia, Brazil and Chile, criticized Ortega's announcement, considering it a new democratic setback, while the United States urged the international community to isolate the Nicaraguan government and Panama withdrew its ambassador from ⁠Managua.

Ortega, a former leftist guerrilla, assumed his fourth consecutive term in January 2022, after winning a controversial election the previous November. Approaching his 81st birthday, Ortega helped overthrow the Somoza family in the late 1970s and, with nearly two decades in power, ⁠is the longest-serving leader in the Americas.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-09-01/nicaraguan-congress-passes-ortega-backed-reform-excluding-opposition-from-elections

🇺🇸🇮🇱⚡️ — MAGA influencer Nick Sortar, citing two U.S. officials, reports that former IDF volunteer and Rep. Brian Mast is on the shortlist to become the next U.S. Secretary of the Army following Dan Driscoll’s resignation.

Mast has controversially worn an IDF uniform on Capitol Hill in the past.

🇩🇪🅰️ The homemade rockets used in the Brandenburg attack were equipped with copper wires designed to entangle in overhead lines and cause a short circuit, and were to be detonated via analog timers, according to confidential operation reports obtained by WELT.

Officers found ten IEDs at the site, a term authorities use when they cannot classify items such as the homemade explosive-laden rockets. There were concerns about more sabotage attacks at similar substations, including one in Bad Lauchstädt in Saxony-Anhalt -WELT

Sources warn against blaming Russia too quickly, noting left-wing extremists have targeted Jänschwalde infrastructure before. Both politically motivated groups and foreign agents remain possible. -WELT

🔗 Faytuks Network

🇺🇸🏭 American factory construction continued declining in official data released today as CHIPS Act projects finish, IRA projects get cancelled, and tariffs weigh on nearly all industries

Total US factory construction is down 33% from its 2024 highs and 20% over the last year alone

🔗 Joey Politano

🇺🇸⚓️🇯🇵🇰🇷🇹🇷 Japanese, South Korean, Turkish Warships Under Consideration for New U.S. Frigate Competition

The White House and U.S. Navy are considering frigate designs from South Korea, Japan and Turkey for a new class of warships, USNI News has learned.

An international warship competition could include building up to two of the ships in foreign shipyards before transitioning to domestic yards as part of the Trump administration’s push to rapidly expand the fleet, three industry sources familiar with the deliberations confirmed to USNI News this week. The move would break with more than a century of U.S. domestic naval construction.

Potentially buying frigates abroad follows an August White House memo that opened the door for the Pentagon to consider foreign designs by invoking a “national security interest” waiver to bypass a U.S. law prohibiting foreign-built warships from entering naval service.

After the White House issued the memo, Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao directed the office of the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition William Mahan to oversee a study of international combatants, roll-on, roll-off cargo vessels and consolidated cargo replenishment at sea (CONSOL) tankers for Military Sealift Command, according to memo language reviewed by USNI News. That assessment is due Nov. 12, 2026.

Three sources told USNI News that the international designs under consideration include the export version of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ FFM Mogami-class guided-missile frigate and the Chungnam-class guided-missile frigate built by a variety of South Korean shipbuilders. The Istanbul-class guided-missile frigate built by several Turkish shipyards is also in the mix after a conversation between Turkish leadership and President Donald Trump on the sidelines of July’s NATO summit, two sources told USNI News.

The frigate deal could push for the so-called “Finland model” approach in which construction would likely start in a foreign yard for up to the first two hulls ahead of a foreign investment into U.S. facilities and shipbuilding infrastructure. The concept follows the U.S. Coast Guard approach to the Arctic Security Cutter in which the Finnish shipyards are building the initial hulls based on Canadian designs and then transitioning construction to a U.S. shipyard.

The frigate fits a current capability gap in the Navy’s surface force. Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, designed for high-end naval warfare, are often used for basic missions that less sophisticated platforms like a frigate could accomplish, service leaders have said.

Late last year, then-Secretary of the Navy John Phelan cancelled the Constellation-class (FFG-62) guided-missile frigate program and instead pushed the FFX program to create a patrol frigate based on the Coast Guard’s National Security Cutter. The Constellation-class was slated to fulfill the Navy’s surface-based anti-submarine warfare capability. HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding has started preproduction work for the first FFX frigate but has not been awarded a contract.

📝 Sal Mercogliano: So, our choice for frigates is Turkey; or two countries within the missile envelope of China and don't build warships at a scale that the U.S. needs.

🔗 https://news.usni.org/2026/09/01/japanese-south-korean-turkish-warships-under-consideration-for-new-u-s-frigate-competition