US Central Command commander Brad Cooper said in a Sept. 19 video the main shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz have been cleared of sea mines and thousands of vessels have transited. He said Gulf partners have moved more than 1 bln barrels of crude through the strait. Over the past two weeks volumes of crude, cargo and LNG transiting the area hit a six‑month high. Cooper added that under a US-enforced blockade Iranian exports via those routes are zero.

Since ticket sales opened on Sept. 23 for the Mid‑Autumn and National Day holidays, China Railway’s 12306 platform has used big‑data and risk‑control technology to detect and curb malicious ticket‑grabbing. It targets registered accounts repeatedly buying on behalf of others, payment accounts repeatedly settling non‑owner orders, and terminal‑device spoofing that mimics user operations. Technical measures place suspicious 12306 accounts into a slow queue and refuse ticket issuance for flagged payment accounts; affected users see waiting prompts during booking or purchase‑failure at payment. Since sales began, 12306 has placed 7.117 million transactions into slow queues, refused ticketing for 1.023 million transactions and blocked issuance of 1.331 million tickets.

U.S. Energy Secretary Wright ordered the continued operation of two coal-fired power plants in Indiana, directing Nipsco, CenterPoint Energy and MISO to take action.