China's 2026 summer travel season is past its midpoint and has shown a late start followed by stronger late-stage demand. Prolonged high temperatures have pushed passengers toward naturally cooler destinations. Since July, searches for cooling getaways and night tours rose 238% MoM. Nearly half of the 20 routes with the biggest summer ticket booking gains are cooling routes: Wuhu–Guiyang bookings are up 5x; Zhengzhou–Mangshi and Guangzhou–Yanji are up over 3x; Huizhou–Taiyuan bookings are up 2.4

DownDetector shows user reports of issues at U.S. Netflix (NFLX.O).

Platinum-group metals have shown extreme divergence YTD: supply is tight across the board, but platinum and palladium have seen sharp swings and large pullbacks while iridium has rallied sharply, emerging as the standout in the precious-metals complex. Iridium crucibles remain indispensable for many ultra-high-temperature specialty crystals, limiting substitution; market contacts say domestic iridium is trading around 2,000 yuan/gram, well above gold. Data from major precious-metals reference platform Zhuangxin Wanfeng show iridium rose from $4,510.71 per troy ounce on Dec. 31 to $7,850/oz on Aug. 4, a gain of more than 70% YTD. Accelerating demand from AI and new-energy industries is cited as a new growth driver for iridium consumption.