U.S. Central Command says another wave of strikes against Iran completed

The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Sunday that U.S. forces completed a new wave of offensive strikes against Iran, hitting dozens of targets at multiple locations with precision munitions to degrade Iran's ability to "continue attacking international shipping" flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.

CENTCOM forces struck Iranian military air-defense systems, coastal radar sites, missile and drone capabilities, and small boats using U.S. fighter aircraft, naval vessels, one-way attack aerial drones, and one-way attack sea drones for the first time.

Multiple explosions were heard early Monday in Iran's Hormozgan province in the south, Khuzestan province in the southwest and Sistan and Baluchestan province in the southeast, according to Iranian media reports.

Officials in Khuzestan province said that an agricultural water pumping station was hit by the U.S. attack, resulting in one death and four injuries.

According to U.S. media reports, the U.S. military launched several strikes against Iranian missiles and air defense systems on Sunday evening. The U.S. forces also took action against small vessels of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps at several locations around the Strait of Hormuz.

At 17:00 ET Sunday, U.S. Central Command forces began launching more strikes against Iran to continue "degrading their ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships freely transiting the Strait of Hormuz," said the command in a post on social media platform X.

This is the fourth U.S. strike on Iran in the past few days, prompting Iran to retaliate by launching large-scale drone and missile attacks from different parts within the country on U.S. military targets in the Gulf region in the early hours of Monday local time.

Regional tensions have escalated in recent days amid an exchange of attacks between U.S. and Iranian forces despite a memorandum of understanding signed by the two countries in mid-June.

U.S. Central Command says another wave of strikes against Iran completed

A record number of passenger trips were made across China in the first half of 2026, with more than 2.3 billion recorded, up 5 percent from the previous year, according to data released by the national railway operator Monday.

An average of 11,468 passenger trains were operated daily during the six-month period, representing a 5.8 percent year-on-year rise, figures from the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. (China Railway) showed.

During this period, the national railway system efficiently managed peak travel surges during the Qingming Festival, May Day, and Duanwu Festival holidays, handling record-breaking passenger volumes on multiple occasions.

On May 1 alone, daily passenger volume reached 24.844 million trips nationwide, setting a new all-time high.

Cross-border rail travel has continued to grow in the first half of the year, with the China-Laos Railway carrying 188,000 trips, up 25.9 percent from a year earlier, while the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong high-speed railway handled 16.96 million cross-border trips, an increase of 13.8 percent year on year, China Railway said.

Adapting to the passenger flow growth brought by the country's transit visa-free policy, China's railway network has facilitated increased travel for foreign passengers, recording over 12.31 million foreign passenger trips in the first half, a surge of 33.6 percent year on year.

China's railway passenger trips top 2.3 bln in H1