04-06 17:09 · AI,技术,HackerNews,AI
AI Singer Now Occupies Eleven Spots on iTunes Singles Chart
iTunes was really bamboozled on April Fools Day.
Dallas Little, content creator, unleashed four more songs by his AI creation, Eddie Dalton.
Now Little has ELEVEN spots on the iTunes top 100.
He also has the number three album on iTunes!
All by a singer named “Eddie Dalton,” who does not exist. He’s Little’s Artificial Intelligence creation. Little is writing songs, recording them with AI. He’s invented Eddie’s look and sound and videos.
Is Little gaming iTunes? And YouTube? Are people really buying Eddie Dalton’s music? Do they understand the situation?
Eddie Dalton is currently perched at numbers 3, 8, 15, 22, 42, 44, 51, 58, 60, 68, and 79 on the iTunes top 100.
At least three more songs have been released since then, all of which are aiming to hit the top 100 in a day or so.
Of course, Little can just keep churning them out now. There’s no recording time or musical process involved. He’s typing prompts and pushing buttons.
One of the songs, “Another Day Old,” has 1.2 million views on YouTube.
But the numbers don’t add up. So far there’s no airplay on radio, and no streaming. Luminate says “Eddie Dalton” has sold just 6,900 tracks since he was invented.
At the same time, iTunes is offering an album by Eddie Dalton with all these songs. It’s number 3!
If anyone can explain this. email me at showbiz411@gmail.com
I’m not showing anymore of his videos. He’s an insult to real musicians.
▸ 展开全文
04-06 17:09 · AI,技术,HackerNews,AI
France pulls last gold held in US for $15B gain
France pulls last gold held in US for $15B gain
The Bank of France (BdF) says it has pulled the remaining gold held in New York and replaced them with a similar amount of gold bars in its vaults in Paris.
The gold amounted to 129 tonnes — or about 5% of the bank’s total holdings, according to the bank’s press release issued last week.
France, one of the world’s leading gold holders, has been storing some of its bullion with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since the late 1920s.
However, an operation to repatriate its gold holdings began in the 1960s leading up to the US termination of the Bretton Woods system, which effectively stopped foreign governments from exchanging dollars for gold.
Despite that, France still held a small portion of its gold with the Reserve Bank of New York.
Gold reserve upgrade
Over the past 20 years , the BdF has also been replacing its “older” or “non‑standard” gold holdings — such as those in New York — with bars that meet modern international standards.
Under the recommendation of a 2024 internal audit, the bank went ahead to replace the US-held gold between July 2025 and January 2026. But instead of refining and transporting the gold, it opted to sell the bars and purchase new bullion in Europe.
BdF Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau said the decision to keep the new bars in Paris is “not politically motivated,” as the higher-standard gold bars it bought were traded on a European market.
Due to rising gold prices, the move helped the bank to generate a capital gain of 13 billion euros ($15 billion), bringing it to a net profit of 8.1 billion euros for the 2025 financial year after a net loss of 7.7 billion euros in 2024.
The overall size of France’s gold reserves still remained unchanged at roughly 2,437 tonnes, which are now entirely held at the BdF’s underground vault in La Souterraine.
The French central bank still has 134 tons of gold to bring up to standard, which it aims to do by 2028.
▸ 展开全文
04-06 17:09 · AI,技术,HackerNews,AI
Launch HN: Freestyle: Sandboxes for AI Coding Agents
1// Like Lovable, Bolt, V0
2import { freestyle, VmSpec } from "freestyle-sandboxes";
3import { VmBun } from "@freestyle-sh/with-bun";
4import { VmDevServer } from "@freestyle-sh/with-dev-server";
5
6// Create repo from template
7const { repoId } = await freestyle.git.repos.create({ ... });
8
9const { vm } = await freestyle.vms.create({
10 with: {
11 devServer: new VmDevServer({
12 devCommand: "bun run dev",
13 runtime: new VmBun(),
14 repo: repoId
15 }),
16 },
17});
1// Like Devin, Cursor Agent
2import { freestyle, VmSpec } from "freestyle-sandboxes";
3import { VmBun } from "@freestyle-sh/with-bun";
4
5const { vm } = await freestyle.vms.create({
6 git: {
7 repos: [
8 { repo: "https://github.com/user/repo.git" },
9 ]
10 }
11});
12
13const { forks } = await vm.fork({ count: 3 });
14
15await Promise.all([
16 ai(forks[0], "Build the API endpoints"),
17 ai(forks[1], "Build the frontend UI"),
18 ai(forks[2], "Write the test suite"),
19]);
1// Like Code Rabbit, Greptile
2import { freestyle } from "freestyle-sandboxes";
3import { VmBun } from "@freestyle-sh/with-bun";
4
5const { vm } = await freestyle.vms.create({
6 git: {
7 repos: [{ repo: repoUrl, rev: branchRev }],
8 },
9});
10
11const { stdout: lint } = await vm.exec("bun run lint");
12const { stdout: test } = await vm.exec("bun test");
13const review = await ai(vm, "Review the diff for bugs");
14
15await github.pulls.createReview({
16 body: review,
17 event: test.includes("FAIL") ? "REQUEST_CHANGES" : "APPROVE",
18});
1// Like OpenClaw, Claude, Cowork
2import { freestyle } from "freestyle-sandboxes";
3
4const { vm } = await freestyle.vms.create({
5 persistence: { type: "persistent" },
6 // Pauses after 60s idle — $0 cost, resumes on next exec
7 idleTimeoutSeconds: 60,
8});
9
10while (true) {
11 const userMessage = await getNextMessage();
12 const result = await ai(vm, userMessage);
13 await respond(result);
14}
Sandboxes made for running tens of thousands of agents
VMs provision in under 700ms from API request to ready machine.
Clone a running VM without pausing it — get full copies in milliseconds.
Hibernate VMs and resume exactly where you left off — pay nothing while paused.
Git repos for your agents.
Configure webhooks per repo, filter by branch, path, or event type.
Bidirectional sync between Freestyle and GitHub repositories.
Push to deploy with Freestyle Deployments or clone into a VM.
Not containers. Full Linux VMs with real root access.
Run VMs inside VMs, Docker, or any virtualization stack your agents need. Full KVM support.
Sealed Linux users, systemd services and groups; multi-user isolation inside every VM.
The full Linux networking stack with real root access.
▸ 展开全文
04-06 17:09 · AI,技术,HackerNews,大模型,AI
Show HN: I built a tiny LLM to demystify how language models work
A ~9M parameter LLM that talks like a small fish.
This project exists to show that training your own language model is not magic. No PhD required. No massive GPU cluster. One Colab notebook, 5 minutes, and you have a working LLM that you built from scratch — data generation, tokenizer, model architecture, training loop, and inference. If you can run a notebook, you can train a language model.
It won't produce a billion-parameter model that writes essays. But it will show you exactly how every piece works — from raw text to trained weights to generated output — so the big models stop feeling like black boxes.
You> hi guppy
Guppy> hi there. i just found a nice spot near the rock. the temperature feels nice.
You> are you hungry
Guppy> yes. always yes. i will swim to the top right now. i promise to eat all of it.
You> do you like bubbles
Guppy> i love bubbles. they make the water feel slightly different.
You> what is the meaning of life
Guppy> food. the answer is always food.
You> tell me a joke
Guppy> what did the fish say when it hit the wall. dam.
You> do you love me
Guppy> you're my favorite big shape. my mouth are happy when you're here.
You> goodnight guppy
Guppy> ok sleep time. i was following a bubble but now i'll stop. goodnight tank. goodnight water.
GuppyLM is a tiny language model that pretends to be a fish named Guppy. It speaks in short, lowercase sentences about water, food, light, and tank life. It doesn't understand human abstractions like money, phones, or politics — and it's not trying to.
It's trained from scratch on 60K synthetic conversations across 60 topics, runs on a single GPU in ~5 minutes, and produces a model small enough to run in a browser.
Vanilla transformer. No GQA, no RoPE, no SwiGLU, no early exit. As simple as it gets.
Guppy:
- Speaks in short, lowercase sentences
- Experiences the world through water, temperature, light, vibrations, and food
- Doesn't understand human abstractions
- Is friendly, curious, and a little dumb
- Thinks about food a lot
60 topics: greetings, feelings, temperature, food, light, water, tank, noise, night, loneliness, bubbles, glass, reflection, breathing, swimming, colors, taste, plants, filter, algae, snails, scared, excited, bored, curious, happy, tired, outside, cats, rain, seasons, music, visitors, children, meaning of life, time, memory, dreams, size, future, past, name, weather, sleep, friends, jokes, fear, love, age, intelligence, health, singing, TV, and more.
Downloads the pre-trained model from HuggingFace and lets you chat. Just run all cells.
- Set runtime to T4 GPU
- Run all cells — downloads dataset, trains tokenizer, trains model, tests it
- Upload to HuggingFace or download locally
pip install torch tokenizers
python -m guppylm chat
You> the cat is looking at you
Guppy> i hide behind the plant when the furry one comes.
You> it is raining outside
Guppy> i think rain is the best thing about outside.
arman-bd/guppylm-60k-generic on HuggingFace.
from datasets import load_dataset
ds = load_dataset("arman-bd/guppylm-60k-generic")
print(ds["train"][0])
# {'input': 'hi guppy', 'output': 'hello. the water is nice today.', 'category': 'greeting'}
guppylm/
├── config.py Hyperparameters (model + training)
├── model.py Vanilla transformer
├── dataset.py Data loading + batching
├── train.py Training loop (cosine LR, AMP)
├── generate_data.py Conversation data generator (60 topics)
├── eval_cases.py Held-out test cases
├── prepare_data.py Data prep + tokenizer training
└── inference.py Chat interface
tools/
├── make_colab.py Generates guppy_colab.ipynb
├── export_dataset.py Push dataset to HuggingFace
└── dataset_card.md HuggingFace dataset README
Why no system prompt? Every training sample had the same one. A 9M model can't conditionally follow instructions — the personality is baked into the weights. Removing it saves ~60 tokens per inference.
Why single-turn only? Multi-turn degraded at turn 3-4 due to the 128-token context window. A fish that forgets is on-brand, but garbled output isn't. Single-turn is reliable.
Why vanilla transformer? GQA, SwiGLU, RoPE, and early exit add complexity that doesn't help at 9M params. Standard attention + ReLU FFN + LayerNorm produces the same quality with simpler code.
Why synthetic data? A fish character with consistent personality needs consistent training data. Template composition with randomized components (30 tank objects, 17 food types, 25 activities) generates ~16K unique outputs from ~60 templates.
MIT
▸ 展开全文
04-06 17:08 · 中东,局势,AlJazeera,中东
Mediators Pakistan, Turkiye and Egypt are proposing a 45-day ceasefire plan. But Iran is reluctant.
United States President Donald Trump has threatened to blow up Iran’s bridges and power plants if Tehran does not agree to open up the Strait of Hormuz by early morning local time on Wednesday, in a profanity-laced post on his Truth Social platform.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!,” he wrote, before turning to abusive language.
This is just the latest in a series of deadlines that Trump has laid out – and then deferred – since March 21, when he first threatened to blow up Iran’s electricity plants and energy facilities. But on each occasion, he cited negotiations that he claimed were ongoing with Iran to seek either the opening of the strait – talks that Tehran has repeatedly denied were happening – to justify pushing back his announced deadlines.
On Sunday night, Trump issued a specific new deadline: 8pm ET on Tuesday (00:00 GMT, Wednesday), which works out to 3:30am local time in Iran on Wednesday.
With less than two days left, mediators, including Pakistan, Egypt and Turkiye, are attempting to secure at least a partial breakthrough to at least postpone, if not end, the risks of a further military escalation by Trump.
Already, the US-Israel war on Iran has killed more than 2,000 people in the country. Concurrently, close to 1,500 people have been killed in Israel’s war on Lebanon, as well as more than 100 in Iraq, 24 in Israel and 27 in the Gulf countries. The US has lost 13 service members and, on Sunday, carried out a high-risk rescue operation to pluck an officer out of Iran after his F-15 jet was brought down.
But what could a breakthrough between the US and Iran look like, and how likely is it that the mediators can seal a deal in time?
A 45-day ceasefire proposal
A source close to mediators has confirmed to Al Jazeera that a proposal for a 45-day ceasefire is on the table. The idea is to create a longer window within which Iran and the US can, directly or through mediators, discuss and negotiate the broader differences between them in a bid to arrive at a longer-term agreement to end the war.
But officially, Pakistan – the central mediator passing messages between the US and Iran – refused on Monday to confirm or deny the 45-day ceasefire plan. “There have been several reports of a 45-day ceasefire offer, or 15-point exchange,” Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Tahir Andrabi told Al Jazeera. “We do not comment on these individual, specific incidents. Our point is that the peace process is ongoing.”
Trump’s top envoy for talks with Iran, Steve Witkoff, has previously confirmed that Pakistan passed on a 15-point plan for peace shared by the US with Iran. Tehran had called the US demands under that plan “maximalist” and unacceptable.
US publication Axios has also reported the 45-day ceasefire proposal.
Officials said mediators were cautious about spelling out details of their communication between the US and Iran in part because of the sensitive nature of attempts at negotiations, and the fast-changing nature of the positions articulated by Washington, in particular.
A shorter ceasefire
Officials close to the mediation efforts told Al Jazeera a second proposal is also being considered: a shorter ceasefire. This would not allow for any comprehensive talks aimed at ending the war, but it could create a window for the US and Iran to take confidence-building measures that could, in turn, create momentum for a longer ceasefire.
On Monday, Reuters reported that mediators led by Pakistan had shared plans for a short-term pause in fighting, followed by a longer ceasefire, with the US and Iran.
The agency said Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, was leading the mediation efforts, and had been on the phone all of Sunday night with US Vice President JD Vance, Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
Under this proposal, Iran would agree to open the Strait of Hormuz – at present, it is only allowing ships from select countries through – pending a larger agreement aimed at ending the war.
What has Trump said about ceasefire plans?
The US president has continued to warn of a massive military escalation and the prospects of a pause in fighting at the same time.
On Sunday, Trump told Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst that he believed the US would be able to secure a deal with Iran on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz by Monday.
“I think there is a good chance tomorrow, they are negotiating now,” he said.
Reuters also reported that the mediator nations were pressing Iran and the US to agree to a deal by Monday.
What is Iran saying?
At a news conference on Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed that mediators were passing messages between Iran and the US, but did not confirm or deny specific proposals for a ceasefire.
“Whenever necessary, we will clearly inform you about its [the Iranian government’s] announcement” about its response to the medi
▸ 展开全文
04-06 17:08 · 中东,局势,AlJazeera,中东
US President Trump threatens to destroy power plants, bridges by 8pm Tuesday if Iran doesn’t open the Strait of Hormuz.
US President Donald Trump has issued a direct ultimatum to Iran: reopen the Strait of Hormuz by 8pm Eastern Time in the United States on Tuesday, April 7 (midnight GMT on April 8), or face the destruction of national power plants and bridges.
This echoes an earlier March 21 ultimatum in which he threatened to attack Iran’s power plants – “the biggest one first” – if the strait was not fully reopened within 48 hours.
President Trump has since extended that deadline several times, citing progress in negotiations he claims the US is having with Iran to end the ongoing war. Iran denies it is holding direct talks with the US.
While Trump has made grand statements such as “they’re going to lose every power plant and every other plant they have in the whole country”, he has not mentioned specific targets.
The US president has also threatened to destroy the country’s bridges. Over the weekend, a US-Israeli strike hit the B1 bridge in the city of Karaj, west of Tehran. The major highway link, described as the tallest bridge in the Middle East, had been scheduled to be inaugurated soon. It sustained significant damage in the strike.
Legal experts say that targeting civilian sites amounts to “collective punishment”, which is prohibited under the laws of war.
Where are Iran’s power plants?
Iran operates hundreds of power plants which, together, form one of the largest electricity systems in the Middle East, supplying energy to 92 million people.
Most of the country’s power plants are close to major population centres and industrial hubs. The majority of Iran’s population lives in the western half of the country, with Tehran, Mashhad and Isfahan the three largest cities.
Iran has a mixture of gas, coal, hydro, nuclear and oil-fired power plants, but most are gas-fired. In the north and centre of the country, clusters of gas-fired plants supply electricity to the country’s largest population centres, including Tehran, Karaj, Isfahan and Mashhad.
Another major concentration of power plants lies along the Gulf coast. These plants sit close to major gasfields and ports, allowing large thermal stations to run on abundant natural gas.
The coast is also home to the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Iran’s only nuclear power facility, which has a capacity of 1,000MW. The US and Israel have repeatedly hit this nuclear power plant, raising risks of radioactive contamination far beyond Iran’s borders, the state-run Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) has warned.
Iran also operates a handful of hydropower dams concentrated along the Karun River, the country’s most important source of hydroelectric generation.
Electricity generated from all these plants is fed into a national transmission network operated by Iran Grid Management Company, which distributes power to cities, industries and homes across the country.
The map below shows all of Iran’s power stations with a capacity of 100MW or more.
A 100MW power plant can typically supply electricity to roughly 75,000 to 100,000 homes, depending on consumption patterns.
Iran’s largest power plant by capacity is the Damavand Power Plant located in the Pakdasht area, roughly 50km (31 miles) southeast of Tehran, with a capacity of some 2,900MW, enough to power more than two million homes.
Which are Iran’s most important power plants?
Iran’s largest power plants include:
- Damavand (Pakdasht) Power Plant – Near Tehran.
Fuel: Natural gas (combined-cycle).
Capacity: 2,868MW. - Shahid Salimi Power Plant – Neka, along the Caspian Sea coast.
Fuel: Natural gas.
Capacity: 2,215MW. - Shahid Rajaee Power Plant – Near Qazvin.
Fuel: Natural gas.
Capacity: 2,043MW. - Karun-3 Dam – Khuzestan Province.
Fuel: Hydropower.
Capacity: 2,000MW. - Kerman Power Plant – Kerman.
Fuel: Natural gas.
Capacity: 1,912MW.
Other smaller but strategically important power plants include:
- Ramin Power Plant – Ahvaz, Khuzestan.
Fuel: Gas.
Capacity: 1,903MW. - Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant – On the Gulf.
Fuel: Nuclear.
Capacity: 1,000MW. - Bandar Abbas Power Plant – Near the Strait of Hormuz.
Fuel: Oil.
Capacity: 1,330MW.
How does Iran generate its electricity?
Iran’s electricity system relies heavily on large thermal power plants fuelled by natural gas. The country has one of the world’s largest natural gas reserves, and this fuel forms the backbone of its power system.
In 2025, 86 percent of Iran’s electricity came from natural gas.
Oil-fired plants provide a smaller share, generating roughly seven percent of electricity. Some power stations switch to diesel or fuel oil when natural gas supplies are tight, especially during winter demand peaks.
Hydropower accounts for about five percent of electricity. Large dams on rivers such as the Karun River generate power by using flowing water to spin turbines.
Nuclear energy contributes around two percent of the country’s electricity, mainly from the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Iran’s only operational nuclear reactor.
Renewables such as solar and wind play a very small role, togethe
▸ 展开全文
04-06 17:08 · 中东,局势,AlJazeera,中东
US president says Washington armed Kurdish Iranian opposition groups during the January demonstrations.
United States President Donald Trump says Washington had armed Iranian opposition groups and protesters during mass antigovernment demonstrations in December and January, in which thousands of people were killed during crackdowns by government forces.
Speaking with Trey Yingst on Fox News in a Sunday morning phone interview, the president said the US had been directly involved in efforts to destabilise and overthrow the Iranian government weeks before strikes were launched on February 28 by the US and Israel across Iran and as American negotiators were engaging with senior Iranian officials in Europe.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 items- list 1 of 4Trump says US armed Iranian dissidents via Kurds weeks before launching war
- list 2 of 4Trump threatens Iran in expletive-filled social media post
- list 3 of 4Israel continues deadly attacks on Gaza while striking Iran, Lebanon
- list 4 of 4Is war more profitable than peace? David Keen explains
As the US-Israel war on Iran entered its 38th day, at least 2,076 people have been killed in Iran and 26,000 injured.
“President Trump told me the United States sent guns to the Iranian protesters,” Yingst reported on the Fox News channel.
“He told me, ‘We sent them a lot of guns. We sent them to the Kurds.’ And the president says he thinks the Kurds kept them. He went on to say. ‘We sent guns to the protesters, a lot of them.’”
Trump has often framed the decision to strike Iran alongside Israel as partly inspired by his wanting to “free” Iranians from the rule of the Islamic Republic after it cracked down on those protests in January.
But his statements to Yingst could lend weight to Tehran’s own assertions that the protests were not organic and “foreign-backed terrorists” had instigated them. Still, analysts warned that Trump’s frequently shifting statements on Iran mean that it is hard to know with certainty the extent to which the US might have been involved in the protests.
Here’s what we know:
What happened during the protests?
Demonstrations started on December 28 among shopkeepers in downtown Tehran who were angry about a deepening economic crisis and the falling value of the Iranian rial.
Soon, they spread to big and small cities across the country, morphing into nationwide demonstrations as hundreds of thousands of people of all ages took to the streets. Some protesters by then had begun to call for a change in the government.
Rights groups said Iranian authorities cracked down on the protests, especially on January 8 and 9. Thousands of people, most of them young Iranians, were reportedly killed from gunshots and stab wounds, and tens of thousands of others were arrested.
Iranian authorities also cut off the internet “to conceal their crimes”, according to Amnesty International, throwing the country into an information blackout for days.
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Iran Mai Soto said at least 5,000 people were killed and the real death toll could be as high as 20,000.
At least four people have since been executed in connection with the protests, according to Amnesty, with several more people on death row.
The protests were the largest since the September 2022 women’s rights demonstrations that followed the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody. She had been arrested for not properly covering her hair. Amini’s death sparked nationwide demonstrations. Authorities were then also accused of firing at protesters and arresting and eventually executing some of them.
What did the Iranian government say?
Then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in a rare acknowledgement on January 17 that “several thousands” of people were killed in the protests after days of official hedging on casualty numbers as bodies piled up.
However, Khamenei blamed the deaths not on Iranian forces but on US- and Israel-backed groups that he said had hijacked the economic protests.
Khamenei accused Trump of being a “criminal” and of being personally involved in the instigation.
Tehran has long blamed its enemies, the US and Israel, for fomenting domestic crises, but alleged this time that the US involvement was deeper than usual.
“Those linked to Israel and the US caused massive damage and killed several thousands” during the protests that shook Iran for more than two weeks, Khamenei was quoted as saying by state media.
“The latest anti-Iran sedition was different in that the US president personally became involved,” he added.
Iranian officials later admitted the death toll was about 5,000, including at least 500 security personnel killed by “terrorists and armed rioters”.
An unnamed Iranian official told the Reuters news agency most of the violence and deaths occurred in Kurdish territory in northwestern Iran. That area has long been home to Kurdish separatists and has often recorded unrest.
What did the US government say about the protests?
About a week into the crisis, Trump warned Iran against targeting protesters.
“If Iran sho[o]ts and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is th
▸ 展开全文
04-06 17:08 · 中东,局势,AlJazeera,中东
President Trump says US service member whose fighter jet was shot down over Iran is rescued during two raids.
United States President Donald Trump has announced that the US military has rescued a missing American fighter jet crew member in Iran.
The Air Force officer went missing in a remote part of Iran after the downing of his F-15 jet on Friday. Its two crew members ejected from the plane. The pilot was quickly rescued by US forces, but a search had to be launched for the F-15’s weapons systems officer.
In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump wrote that the US had rescued the second “seriously wounded, and really brave” airman from “deep inside the mountains of Iran”. It was reported that a firefight between US and Iranian forces took place in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province before the rescue. Iran has not confirmed this, however.
Here is how the complicated rescue mission unfolded:
What has Trump said about the rescue?
While the identity of the rescued airman has not been made public, Trump referred to him as “a highly respected Colonel”.
He added that the type of rescue mission that recovered him “is seldom attempted because of the danger to ‘man and equipment'”.
Trump said two raids had taken place, and the pilot was rescued in “broad daylight” during the second raid. It is unclear when precisely the pilot was rescued. The US president wrote that the rescue was “unusual, spending seven hours over Iran”.
In his post, Trump said he would talk more about the rescue mission during a news conference with the US military in the Oval Office of the White House on Monday at 1pm (17:00 GMT).
Trump wrote on Truth Social: “This brave Warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour, but was never truly alone because his Commander in Chief, Secretary of War, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and fellow Warfighters were monitoring his location 24 hours a day, and diligently planning for his rescue.”
Trump added that he had ordered dozens of aircraft carrying “lethal weapons” to be sent to retrieve the airman, who had managed to evade Iranian forces for two days.
How did the search unfold?
On Friday morning, the US confirmed that an F-15E Strike Eagle had been shot down over southern Iran. The F-15 is a tactical fighter jet used by the US Air Force that first flew in 1972. Modern variants of the jet cost more than $90m each.
State media outlets in Iran showed photos of what they said was wreckage from the F-15 and what appeared to be an ejection seat with an attached parachute.
Trump suggested that the US knew the location of the plane’s second airman and was tracking him as the rescue mission unfolded.
Iran was also racing to locate the airman. Tehran called on the public to hand over the soldier to the authorities in what appeared to be an effort to secure an American prisoner of war.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed on Sunday that Iranian forces had also destroyed two C-130 aircraft and two Black Hawk helicopters during the operation to rescue the US airman in southern Isfahan province.
What do we know about the two C-130 planes that Iran says it destroyed?
The C-130 Hercules and the newer C-130J Super Hercules variant were developed by the US weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin. They are military transport aircraft primarily used for tactical airlifts, troop transport and medical evacuations.
The Wall Street Journal reported that each C-130 costs more than $100m.
The newspaper said in a report on Sunday that the US blew up the C-130 jets on the ground during the rescue operation, quoting an unnamed person familiar with the matter. This unnamed official did not explain how the jets were downed during the rescue operation but told the outlet that it was necessary to destroy them to ensure they did not fall into enemy hands.
Has the US lost other military assets or personnel?
Yes. This conflict has killed 13 US service members and wounded more than 300, the US military’s Central Command said, but no US soldiers have been taken prisoner by Iran.
Since the start of the war on February 28, the US has lost three F-15 fighter jets in what it said was a friendly fire incident over Kuwait. A US military refuelling aircraft also went down over Iraq last month, killing all six crew members.
According to the US military, the last US fighter jet to be shot down by enemy fire before the F-15 on Friday was an A-10 Thunderbolt II during the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
At least one Black Hawk helicopter was hit during the initial rescue operation, US officials said, but it managed to stay airborne.
An A-10 Warthog aircraft was also hit near the Strait of Hormuz a short time after the F-15E on Friday, but its pilot was able to eject before the plane crashed and was subsequently rescued. Iranian media reported this aircraft was hit by Iran’s defence systems.
Iran has not yet confirmed that a firefight took place before the F-15 airman’s rescue. Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said a firefight appeare
▸ 展开全文
04-06 17:08 · 中东,局势,AlJazeera,中东
Iran, while still reviewing the proposal, says it won’t reopen Hormuz as part of a temporary ceasefire.
Pakistan has proposed a two-stage plan to end the US-Israel war on Iran and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with both sides now mulling the framework, a source has told the Reuters news agency.
Esmaeil Baghaei, spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Monday acknowledged diplomatic efforts by Pakistan, which has shared a plan with Iran and the United States to end hostilities, according to Reuters.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 items- list 1 of 3Trump says US armed Iranian dissidents via Kurds weeks before launching war
- list 2 of 3Iran war: What is happening on day 38 of US-Israeli attacks?
- list 3 of 3Trump threatens ‘hell’ for Iran over Hormuz Strait as deadline approaches
Baghaei added that Iran is focused on its security amid the latest attacks from the US and Israel.
A top university in Tehran and the South Pars Petrochemical Plant in Asaluyeh were bombed on Monday, killing at least 34 people in Iran.
Axios first reported on Sunday that the US, Iran and regional mediators were discussing a potential 45-day ceasefire as part of a “two-phased deal” that could lead to a permanent end to the war, citing US, Israeli and regional sources.
The source told Reuters that Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has been in contact “all night long” with US Vice President JD Vance, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
“All elements need to be agreed today,” the source said, adding the initial understanding would be structured as a memorandum of understanding finalised electronically through Pakistan, the sole communication channel in the talks.
Under the proposal, a ceasefire would take effect immediately, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, with 15 to 20 days given to finalise a broader settlement.
The deal, tentatively dubbed the “Islamabad Accord”, would include a regional framework for the strait, with final in-person talks in the capital of Pakistan.
The final agreement is expected to include Iranian commitments not to pursue nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief and the release of frozen assets, the source said.
‘No reopening of Hormuz’
Tehran has responded by stating that it will not reopen the strait as part of a temporary ceasefire, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Monday, adding that it will not accept deadlines as it reviews the proposal. Washington also lacks the readiness for a permanent ceasefire, the official said.
The US has not yet responded to Pakistan’s plan.
“Pakistan officials tell me that Islamabad is involved in ‘frantic diplomacy’, as they put it,” said Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid.
“The problem they’re facing, as one official put it, is essentially that it’s a schoolboy brawl that they are dealing with. It is egos that they have to manage, and it is also a sea of distrust over which they have to build bridges.”
One source told Javaid that Pakistan is speaking to Iran’s clergy, diplomats, and military commanders, but the level of distrust is still high.
“You heard the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman mention that they have come under attack multiple times by the US and Israel. And then, if there is some sort of rapprochement, if there is some sort of agreement, what are the guarantees that their leaders are not going to be targeted?” said Javaid.
US’s 15-point plan ‘illogical’, says Tehran
Baghaei, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said on Monday that Tehran would never accept a 15-point plan put forward by the US last month. He stated that Tehran had finalised its demands amid recent proposals to end the war, but would reveal them only when appropriate.
He stressed that Iran would not bow to pressure, the IRNA news agency reported.
“A few days ago, they put forward proposals through intermediaries, and the 15-point US plan was reflected through Pakistan and some other friendly countries,” Baghaei said. “Such proposals are both extremely ambitious, unusual, and illogical.”
Baghaei underlined that Iran has its own framework.
“Based on our own interests, based on our own considerations, we codified the set of demands that we had and have,” he said.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman also rejected the idea that engaging with mediators signals weakness.
The latest diplomatic push by Pakistan comes amid escalating hostilities that have raised concerns over disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical artery for global fuel supplies. More than 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas passes through the waterway, which remains under a de facto Iranian blockade.
Trump, in an expletive-laden post on Sunday, threatened to rain “hell” on Tehran if it did not make a deal by the end of Tuesday that would reopen the strait.
More than 2,000 people have been killed in Iran since the war began on February 28, according to Iranian authorities.
Israel has also invaded southern Lebanon and struck Beirut, where Lebanese authorities say 1,461 people, including at least 124 children, have been killed. More than 1.2 million Leban
▸ 展开全文
04-06 17:08 · 中东,局势,AlJazeera,中东
If the chokepoint were shut, along with the Strait of Hormuz, a quarter of the world’s energy supply would be blocked.
A top adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has threatened that Iranian allies could shut the Bab al-Mandeb shipping route as Tehran has effectively done with the Strait of Hormuz.
The Bab-al-Mandeb connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and is a crucial waterway for global oil trade. Its importance has increased since Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz – through which 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas is shipped in peacetime.
Ali Akbar Velayati, a former Iranian foreign minister and veteran diplomat known for his influence within the establishment, warned on Sunday on X that “the unified command of the Resistance front views Bab al-Mandeb as it does Hormuz”.
“If the White House dares to repeat its foolish mistakes, it will soon realize that the flow of global energy and trade can be disrupted with a single move,” Velayati wrote. Iran’s state-owned Press TV subsequently confirmed his warning.
It follows US President Donald Trump’s threats to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges from Wednesday this week if Tehran does not agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has said that Hormuz is open to ships from countries that negotiate safe passage – apart from the US and Israel. Trump has previously threatened to bomb Iran’s desalination plants.
But if Bab al-Mandeb were closed, it would impact more than the ongoing war – it could compound the global energy supply crisis sparked by the conflict, deepening the economic turmoil being felt in factories, kitchens and at petrol stations around the world.
Where is the Bab al-Mandeb?
The strait is between Yemen to its northeast and Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa to the southwest.
It connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, which then extends into the Indian Ocean. It is 29km (18 miles) wide at its narrowest point, limiting traffic to two channels for inbound and outbound shipments and is effectively controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis.
The Yemen-based group is a central part of Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” – a coalition of groups ideologically or tactically aligned with Tehran which Velayati appears to have been referring to in his Sunday post on X.
Why is the Bab al-Mandeb important for the energy trade?
It is one of the world’s most important shipping routes.
The strait is a vital route through which Saudi Arabia sends its oil to Asia. When the Strait of Hormuz is open, it is also a crucial passageway for Gulf states besides Saudi Arabia to export their crude oil, gas and other fuel to Europe via the Suez Canal or the Sumed (Suez-Mediterranean) Pipeline on Egypt’s Red Sea coast.
In 2024, about 4.1 billion barrels of crude oil and refined petroleum products passed through the strait – that’s 5 percent of the global total.
If Bab al-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz were both shut, that would block 25 percent – or a quarter of the world’s oil and gas supply.
It’s not just oil: About 10 percent of global trade sails through the Bab al-Mandeb, including containers shipped from China, India and other Asian countries to Europe.
With the Strait of Hormuz shut, Bab al-Mandeb’s importance has only grown.
Saudi Arabia, which has traditionally also relied principally on the Hormuz strait to export its oil, has increasingly turned to its Red Sea port of Yanbu to ship crude out through the Bab al-Mandeb.
For this, it has turned to the East West Pipeline, running from the Abqaiq oil processing centre close to the Gulf to Yanbu. The 1,200km (745-mile) pipeline is operated by Saudi oil giant Aramco.
Where the East West Pipeline transferred an average of 770,000 bpd to the Red Sea coast in January and February, according to energy intelligence firm Kpler, Saudi Arabia cranked up its use in March, when Hormuz was shut. By the end of March, oil was flowing at the pipeline’s capacity of 7 million bpd – more than ever before.
How could Iran and its allies shut it?
The Houthis have already shown they can do it. During Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, they blocked the Bab al-Mandeb for what they described as ships associated with Israel or the US.
Because of frequent attacks on shipping, insurers refused to offer reducing traffic. In May 2025, the US and the Houthis agreed to a ceasefire and the Yemeni group has since opened up the Bab al-Mandeb again.
Recent days have shown how easy it would be for the Houthis to repeat the disruption during the war on Gaza.
Since late March, the Houthis have fired missiles and drones at Israel, pointing to their effective entry into the war – for now, against Israel, not the US.
But Nabeel Khoury, a former US diplomat, told Al Jazeera that the missile attacks launched by the Houthis against Israel amounted to “token participation, not full participation”.
“They have fired a couple of missiles as a warning because of all the talk of potential escalation. There are US troops on their way to the region. There’s been talk that if there is no agreement, there might be a full-scale attack on Iran as has not been se
▸ 展开全文