Serena and Venus Williams were sensationally knocked out in the first round of the women’s doubles at the US Open on Friday night, blowing a 5-0 lead in the decisive 10-point tiebreaker. 

The legendary sisters accepted a wildcard into the women’s draw in New York at the eleventh hour after previously partnering up at the Cincinnati Open this summer on the heels of Serena’s return to competition. 

The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion had previously stepped back from competition four years ago, when she played for what tennis fans believed would be the last time on the US Open’s Arthur Ashe show court. 

Earlier in the summer, Serena accepted a singles wildcard to Wimbledon, but in a twist of fate was beaten in three competitive sets by Joint, her opponent once again in New York. 

Two months later, Serena was unable to get her revenge on the Australian world No. 72, who now holds a surprising 2-0 record against the serial champion, with the American favorites falling 3-6, 7-6(6), 6-7(7).

The Williams sisters received a hero’s welcome as they kicked off the night session, with the stadium fast to fill up with fans eager to see the blockbuster siblings back in action for the first time on Arthur Ashe since 2022. 

Serena and her sister were partnering at the US Open for the first time in four years on Friday

But they could not get the better of Australia’s Maya Joint (left) and Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching

While both sisters were laser-focused on their evening’s work ahead, Serena let her fashion do the talking, sporting a bomber jacket to walk onto court which listed the years she won singles and doubles titles at the US Open.  

And after complaints had been made all week about the noise during play on the over 23,000-capacity stadium, you might have been able to hear a proverbial pin drop as Joint prepared her first serve to kick-off the match. 

The Australian must have learned a lot from her match-up this year against Serena, after admitting that she had been ‘intimidated’ by the 44-year-old due to the iconic position she occupies within the sport. Joint was composed as she held serve, with both the 20-year-old and her partner Chan admirably calm under the lights of Arthur Ashe. 

The two pairs passed the opening games between one another, with the occasion perhaps top of mind for all four women on court.

But Serena and Venus had an explosive crowd on their side, who provided an enormous roar at the sight of the first real moment of Serena brilliance – a thunderous backhand which could only force an error. 

The Williams sisters indisputably have history, but Chan and Joint are a tested recent pair, in July reaching a final together in Memphis. Their partnership felt sharp and familiar, and it was no surprised when they pinched the early break. 

Under the gaze of New York Knicks hero Karl-Anthony Towns and his new wife Jordyn Woods, Williams Squared were full of fight, and strong net play.

A bullish break-back for 2-3 ensued, with the crowd firmly onside. They continued to fend off break points too as Chan and Joint grew into the game – but eventually succumbed at 5-3, with their opponents navigating a tricky service game to pull off the opening set. 

They would find the second set far thornier to deal with. Although their games on serve stretched, Venus and Serena were able to knuckle down and hold serve, keeping pace with Chan and Joint all the way to a 4-3 lead. 

The sisters blew a 5-0 lead in the 10-point tiebreaker before eventually losing 6-3, 6-7, 7-6

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Venus looked a far cry from the singles player who lost her 15th match in a row this week

Among the stars in attendance were newly married Jordyn Woods and Karl-Anthony Towns

Their run continued. 5-4 up, Serena’s excellent backhand down-the-line won the sisters the opening point. Joint’s serving, which was capable of causing a lot of problems for Serena and Williams, had to be pinpoint-accurate. 

But Joint and Chan tightened up, a fine return from Serena brought up deuce, and advantage – it was set point Williams. They had two, and were even assisted by a rare Joint double fault, but they could not convert, and somehow, their opponents clung on. 

A strong serving game from Serena, as expected, steadied the ship for 6-5, and after Joint and Chan did the same for a tiebreak. As the stakes rose, so did the Williamses levels, and it was the sibling duo who had the lead, handing Serena the opportunity to serve out the set. She double-faulted the first time, but as Joint hit wildly out into the stands, Serena and Venus took it to the decider. 

This was the last time that Serena and Venus would lead. A particularly strong bit of net play from Chan in the third game helped hand their opponents the early break.  But the Williams sisters broke back to make it 4-3 in the third and confirmed it with a confident hold that had Chan flinging her racquet on the court in frustration. 

In a third set filled with vintage shot making, Venus and Serena wrenched momentum from their rivals with the older Williams sister in particular looking a far cry from the singles player who lost her 15th match in a row at the beginning of this tournament. 

Another tiebreak beckoned. The result, however, looked a little different, with the sisters building a strong early lead, only for Joint and Chan to pull off an almighty comeback. 

All in, the match lasted just over three hours. Venus and Serena more than proved that they can be competitive against doubles players on the tour in 2026. But their wait for a win this year goes on.  

An Illinois mother accused of gruesomely murdering her two-year-old son before harming herself developed a disturbing fixation on the trial of Lindsay Clancy, prosecutors said.

Corie Walsh, 40, was charged with first-degree murder after her son, Barrett ‘Bear’ Walsh, was found hanged in the basement of their family home on Tuesday afternoon.

The harrowing case had already drawn parallels to murder-accused Clancy, before prosecutors outlined another chilling link in a petition filed to keep Walsh in custody pending trial.

The court documents detailed that Walsh had been ‘actively discussing the case via group text message with her friends’ up until just hours before her son’s horrific murder, NBC 5 Chicago reported.

Clancy’s trial over the killing of her three children was ongoing when the message was sent, but ended in a mistrial earlier on Friday. As with Clancy’s defense, Walsh’s lawyer said her client was suffering ‘psychotic episode.’

The filing also alleged Walsh told police she killed Bear as he was ‘the devil’ and ‘the antichrist.’

The document described how officers arrived to the Walsh home and found a neighbor in the front yard performing CPR on a toddler, later identified as Bear.

The neighbor told law enforcement that she found the youngster hanging from a basement rafter with a ligature around his neck.

 Walsh was discovered upstairs lying in a bathtub ‘fully dressed, surrounded by bloody water,’ after she had attempted to harm herself with a knife, according to court documents

A neighbor told law enforcement that, after she had discovered Bear, she lowered him to the ground and began to perform CPR but he was ‘cold’ with no pulse

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Bear was declared to have died from ‘asphyxia due to ligature compression of the neck,’ according to the documents. 

Walsh was discovered by the neighbor upstairs lying in a bathtub ‘fully dressed, surrounded by bloody water,’ prosecutors said in the petition. 

The neighbor held a towel on Walsh’s thigh after she had harmed herself with a knife in an alleged attempt to end her life, documents revealed.

Walsh’s husband was out of state at the time of the incident. Officers said they found another infant unharmed in the family home.

Two school-aged children also returned to the residence amid the chaos, according to the filing. 

Walsh was transported to hospital and allegedly admitted to killing her son, officials said. 

According to prosecutors, witnesses described how Walsh had recently become invested in the Clancy murder trial.

Clancy recently stood trial over the deaths of her three children, who she admitted to killing before attempting to end her own life, as her attorney argued that the mother had suffered from postpartum psychosis. 

Walsh allegedly told officers that she ‘did this to her baby because he was the ‘devil’ and the ‘anti-Christ’

The case collapsed in a mistrial after jurors were unable to reach a verdict following days of deliberations. 

Walsh’s lawyer Andrea Lyon told the Chicago Tribune  her client was experiencing a psychotic episode.

‘This is a tragedy for the Walsh family, all of whom are mourning the loss of this child,’ she said. 

‘It is also a tragedy in that Corie herself was experiencing a psychotic episode at the time this happened. It is our hope, through a thorough presentation and investigation of the facts, that all of us will come to see this heartbreak for what it is.’

Neighbors said earlier this week that they were stunned by the tragedy at the Walsh home, with resident Carolyn Pappas saying that the tragedy shared eerie similarities to the Clancy case. 

Pappas told NBC Chicago: ‘This is just absolutely devastating, that this could be another Lindsay Clancy situation in our neighborhood, in our community.

‘You never think it’s going to hit so close to home. That absolutely makes us think of that.

‘And again, just more people, I think, are struggling than we realize and so we just need to be there for one another.’

Walsh had allegedly become invested in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial and had been ‘actively discussing the case via group text message with her friends’ up until just hours before her son’s horrific murder, per court filings

Frankfort Police Chief Leanne Chelepis said: ‘Our thoughts and prayers are with the family, their loved ones, and everyone affected by this heartbreaking tragedy.’

The investigation into the incident remains ongoing. 

Walsh was booked into the Will County Adult Detention Facility on Friday afternoon on three counts of murder, online records show. She is expected to appear in court on Tuesday.

The Daily Mail reached out to Lyon, the Frankfort Police Department and the Will County Sheriff’s Office for comment. 

Some trains will be cancelled and other services will be delayed or revised

Cambridgeshire trains face cancellation after a person was hit by a train. Trains travelling towards London Kings Cross face “major disruption” on Friday (September 4) after a person was hit by a train near Hatfield.

This is causing some trains from Cambridge, Ely and Peterborough to be cancelled. A National Rail spokesperson said: “A person has been hit by a train between London Kings Cross and Stevenage.

“Whilst the emergency services carry out their work, all lines between these stations are closed. Trains may be cancelled, delayed by up to 60 minutes or revised. Major disruption is expected until 2.30pm.”

Great Northern and Thameslink trains are affected. Thameslink trains that normally run between Brighton and Cambridge will be cancelled.

Thameslink trains that run between Horsham and Peterborough will instead run non-stop between Stevenage and Finsbury Park. For Great Northern customers, trains that normally run between London Kings Cross and Kings Lynn and Ely will be cancelled.

Trains that run between London Kings Cross and Cambridge will run non-stop between Alexandra Palace and Stevenage.

Passengers are advised to check their journeys before they travel. Customers will also be able to use their tickets on other appropriate routes.

British Transport Police has been contacted for more information.

Fans had travelled from across the UK and the world to see the rapper, including Prince Dean Sithole, who hailed Jay-Z as one of his role models.

“I think he’s very impacting, especially for us black people because we don’t get a lot of recognition,” the 19-year-old from Leeds told BBC Newsbeat.

“Seeing him today shows that dreams are possible and you can be that person that you want to be.”

Jay-Z, real name Shawn Carter, broke through with his 1996 debut album, but it was his third record, Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life, in 1998 which landed him the top spot in the US charts for the first time and a best rap album Grammy.

He went on to establish himself as one of the most influential figures in hip-hop, releasing 13 solo studio albums and several collaboration records, which have secured him 25 Grammy Awards.

He was also the first rapper inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2017, as well being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2021.

Over the years, he has also become one of the most prominent music mogul’s in the world, with his company Roc Nation representing a host of top talent and, in recent years, it has been behind the Super Bowl half-time show.

In 2019, he was declared hip-hop’s first billionaire by Forbes, having built an empire based on music, property, fashion and investments alongside his wife Beyoncé.

The power couple have three children, daughter Blue Ivy, 14, and 9-year-old twins, Rumi and Sir.

I remember the first time I reported that cogs were turning on a fight between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury. It was a good while ago – almost 12 years, actually.

The date was December 2, 2014. I’d spoken that evening to Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, when both his guy and Fury were unbeaten and neither had fought for a world title.

Hearn, then and now, was bullish in spelling out his plan. ‘It is a fight I would love to make next summer,’ he told me. ‘People ask if AJ is ready to fight Fury but, to be honest, is Fury ready to fight AJ?’

It was a nice line for the back page and ultimately good for one thing alone – proving the timeless point that, in boxing, you should only believe it when you see it.

But here we are, trapped in a different version of the same dance all these years on. 

Because as of Friday, the fight was on and, according to Hearn, talks had been resurrected to take it to Wembley Stadium. A day earlier it was heading to New York’s Madison Square Garden on November 20 and Joshua’s team were floating the possibility of canning the whole thing in protest.

They were furious that a contract signed three months ago, stipulating a UK venue, was being broken so that Netflix could have a cosier fit with American viewing hours. The Saudi powerbrokers for the fight, led by Turki Alalshikh, were evidently happy to side with the broadcaster, to hell with the British audience for a British fight, and ostensibly that is what sent Hearn and Joshua into a spin.

Fury and Joshua are closer than ever to trading blows, with signatures on contracts, but they are still squabbling on the details

Time will tell if they get their way – Wembley conversations may have reopened, but it isn’t the only factor at play in this game of brinksmanship. Far from it.

I’ve had conversations this week with people around the deal and can flesh out a few of the details behind the chaos, which boils down to a boring three-letter word. Tax.

It’s something Hearn himself has alluded to in interviews this week – he mentioned that tax conditions in the US were unfavourable for Joshua. The information I’ve since received illustrates what that would look like in real language.

In short, it is my understanding that Joshua’s team have somewhere close to 10 million reasons not to want the fight in New York. Explained in a slightly longer form: if it is staged in London, the tax for a pair of non-UK residents would be around 20 per cent and in the US ‘withholding tax’ is around 30 per cent.

That is a significant jump with the purses involved – I’m told Joshua and Fury are in line to receive approximately $100m each (around £74m), so a $10m shortfall on the net amounts they would take back to Dubai and the Isle of Man respectively has not gone unnoticed.

As far as we can tell, Fury has not kicked up a fuss on the US tax. Publicly, anyway. But Joshua’s team viewed it as a hefty pay cut on what he signed, which fed into their wider anger that the fight was being shifted abroad.

Irrespective of which motivation weighed more, it seems that some level of sense might yet prevail – if the fight lands in the UK, that can only be a good thing. Hearn was very much in the right to paint it as a disgrace if it goes anywhere else.

But, again, we are in the realms of believing it when we see it. And especially in consideration of the individuals who hold true power behind this fight. That would be Netflix, who presumably still see greater value in the US, and the Saudi organisers, Sela, who have been steered on this fight by Alalshikh.

If fight is staged in the US, Joshua and Fury are set to pay millions more in tax. Fury and his promoter Frank Warren have not kicked up a fuss on issue – publicly at least

Turki Alalshikh (centre) claimed that he was trying to stage the fight in London back in July, though this may only have been lip service

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Alalshikh, you might note, has already performed a curious role in the London saga. It was early July when he began applying pressure to City Hall, flagging that curfews in the capital would need tweaking to enable a US-friendly start time. 

Writing on X, his favoured means of communication, he posted: ‘Hopefully a positive statement from the Mayor of London’s office about a later start time if Fury v Joshua is in London, as so far we have been told it is not possible.’

I might add here that the latter sentiment landed as something of a surprise to those on the receiving end – I’m told no request was made by Sela to mayor Sadiq Khan until mid-August. When those conversations did finally occur, sources tell me it was made clear by the mayor’s office that a late start wouldn’t be a hurdle. Khan has since gone public in saying he wants the fight in London.

A plausible theory, held by a few parties, is that the Sela overture was a gesture. A means of being able to claim: ‘We tried.’ Lip-service, in other words, and flapping lips in boxing tend to serve no one.

Hopefully this fight proves the exception to the rule. Hopefully it does go to London. Hopefully the pressure applied by Hearn and Joshua, for whatever reason they prioritised, is decisive. Anything else would be an utter sham and a betrayal of British sport.

But this is boxing. And for more than a decade, one excuse after another has been found to keep these two fighters apart – the threshold for tedium was breached long before any contract. If that extends indefinitely, the question of New York or London might be rendered slightly irrelevant.

The rumours have been swirling around for several months, and now they’ve been confirmed with a shiny new trailer: Marvel is re-releasing 2019’s Avengers: Endgame on September 25 2026 – three months before its epic Christmas showdown, Avengers: Doomsday.

On the one hand, the encore edition of Avengers: Endgame makes perfect sense. Endgame was the epic culmination of the first leg of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the Infinity Saga – a pioneering cinematic project of 23 interconnected films starting with 2008’s Iron Man.

Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr, saved Marvel from impending bankruptcy and catapulted it back into the cultural mainstream. In addition, Avengers: Endgame is the highest-grossing film of all time and the highest-rated Marvel film with a 94% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

On the other hand, as someone who researches superhero fandom, the encore edition speaks volumes about how Marvel sees the past seven years of its cinematic oeuvre.

Essentially, the most recent Multiverse Saga (2021-) that followed the Infinity Saga (2008-2019) held great promise. In it, the surviving characters (like Loki or Doctor Strange) are continuing their stories and new characters (like Moon Knight and Ironheart) are expanding upon them across the Multiverse.

The Multiverse Saga also promised a more immersive experience with not just films, but also television series, offering in-depth explorations of characters both niche and mainstream. Needless to say, all share the same continuity in line with Marvel’s decades-old storytelling approach.

Disappointed fans

But my ongoing work on Marvel fandom reveals a lukewarm perception of the Multiverse saga. As the first slate of television series started hitting Disney+ in 2021, keeping track of so many characters spread across so many intersecting plotlines across both films and TV series became overwhelming for most fans.

Indeed, in characterising the Multiverse Saga, many Marvel fans I interviewed described watching it as akin to “doing chores” or “doing homework”.

Crucially, many have changed their Marvel strategy. As such, it went from gradual, serial immersion for most to something much more focused. Now one or two favourite characters are followed closely while all the others are blatantly ignored or, in the best case, “checked out” on Wikipedia or internet forums. This problem traditionally plagues many serial narratives, but seemed to have escaped the Marvel Cinematic Universe in its Infinity Saga days.

This consumption dynamic is well-reflected in both media coverage and box-office performance. Here, media headlines such as, There is no getting back on this ride (The Aftermath) and How Marvel lost its way (TIME), are revealing.

With regards to box-office performance, the tide started turning with 2023’s The Marvels and has reverberated ever since. To date, several flagship Multiverse Saga releases barely made their money back (2021’s The Eternals, 2025’s Thunderbolts* and Captain America: Brave New World). And, some are significantly underperforming relative to expectations and Marvel’s track record (like 2025’s Fantastic Four).

This poor performance cannot be explained away as mere “superhero fatigue”, since Marvel is doing better than ever in both comics and video games, while Spider-Man: Brand New Day is currently breaking box-office records.

Quiet admission

In this context, the re-release of Avengers: Endgame may be interpreted as Marvel’s quiet admission of its Multiverse Saga failures and the desire to shift everyone’s attention to the “good ol’ days” of the Infinity Saga, where everything worked as intended.

Several more facts support this interpretation, such as the overwhelming nostalgia factor of the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, with Infinity Saga darlings Thor and Steve Rogers making a surprising comeback.

The encore edition will also feature new footage tying the events of Endgame directly to Doomsday (and thus bypassing some of the most recent developments). Not to mention the fact that Robert Downey Jr. – the legendary embodiment of the Infinity Saga’s Iron Man – is being wildly recast as Dr Doom, Doomsday’s main villain. Finally, many of the newly introduced Multiverse Saga characters (like Moon Knight, Echo, and Iron Heart) are conspicuously missing from the Doomsday roster.

To people familiar with superhero culture, the sudden break in continuity, immense nostalgia drive, and the discarding of the accumulated narrative is sad, but not surprising. Indeed, in the comic book days, both Marvel and DC (Batman, Superman) often resorted to a similar toolkit to give their franchises a fresh start or connect the “good parts” together while throwing out those that didn’t work out.

Perhaps the biggest example of that is the Crisis on Infinite Earths 1985-86 event in DC Comics, where the entire preceding DC Universe was abruptly scrapped and a new one was built in its place, with some heroes and villains dying off, some disappearing, and some starting brand new trajectories.

Whether Avengers: Doomsday will amount to a full reset of the Marvel Cinematic Universe remains to be seen. But the Avengers: Endgame encore edition suggests that Marvel is already reaching for a familiar solution – when an expanding universe becomes too difficult to navigate, return to the narrative moments, characters and relationships that once made it coherent, and ignore the rest.

In that sense, Marvel’s challenge into the post-Doomsday future is not simply to make good films (as it often does) but to make its sprawling media empire feel like a proper universe again. And that is one in which audiences understand how the pieces fit together, why those connections matter, and, crucially, why they should keep following them.

By ED HOLT

Published: 01:48 BST, 5 September 2026 | Updated: 02:06 BST, 5 September 2026

The Jamaican government has announced plans to file a petition on slavery reparations with the King during a visit to London.

The petition will ask Charles, as Jamaica’s head of state, to refer three questions about transatlantic chattel slavery to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which is the Caribbean island’s highest court of appeal.

Jamaica, which was a British colony until 1962, was a hub for the transatlantic slave trade with as many as one million Africans transported to the Caribbean island between the 1500s and the 1800s.

Now, Jamaica’s Culture Minister, Olivia Grange, is leading a delegation to London which will formally lodge a historic slavery reparation with the King.  

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The delegation said the filing of the petition on Monday would be the first time a Commonwealth State has used this particular legal route ‘for the cause of reparatory justice’.

The British monarch has authority under the Judicial Committee Act of 1833 to refer legal matters to the London-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for an advisory opinion. 

Jamaica has also indicated it will have a meeting with the British Museum to discuss ‘the repatriation of cultural artefacts taken from Jamaica’. 

In recent years, the UK has said it will not pay to make amends for slavery, while Caribbean leaders have called for a formal apology and various measures including debt cancellations.

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The petition will ask King Charles, as Jamaica’s head of state, to refer three questions about transatlantic chattel slavery to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which is the Caribbean island’s highest court of appeal

Jamaica’s Culture Minister, Olivia Grange (pictured), is leading a delegation to London which will formally lodge a historic slavery reparation with the King

An estimated 12.5 million Africans were forcibly taken by European nations from the 16th to the 19th century, and those who survived the trip across the Atlantic Ocean were enslaved on plantations in the Caribbean and elsewhere under brutal conditions.

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A programme of events has been organised to coincide with the petition filing, including an ecumenical church service ‘focused on remembrance, justice and repair’, at the New Park Road Baptist Church in south London on Sunday.

This will be followed by a political engagement event in Westminster on Monday and an event with the National Windrush Museum on Wednesday.

The delegation will be led by Olivia Grange MP, Jamaica’s minister of culture, gender, entertainment and sport.

Ms Grange said: ‘The petition filing will be a milestone moment in Jamaica’s history.

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‘As members of the Commonwealth, our citizens are exercising their right to petition the King to ask him to refer the issue of slavery reparations to the Privy Council.

‘We look forward to a positive programme of engagement around this issue.’

A group of Caribbean leaders met senior clergy from the Church of England in July, as the push for slavery reparations intensified.

Earlier this year, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage defended his party’s proposal to block visa requests from a British Overseas Territory if its government demands slavery reparations.

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Reform named Montserrat on a list of countries and territories from which the party would limit legal migration, if their leaders continued to ask London to compensate for its role in the transatlantic slave trade.

Cambridgeshire trains are disrupted as a result of the incident

A person has died after being hit by a train near a railway station. Cambridgeshire trains continue to be disrupted on Friday (September 4) after a person was hit by a train between London and Stevenage.

British Transport Police have confirmed the person has died. A BTP spokesperson said: “Officers were called to Welwyn North railway station at 8.23am today following reports of a casualty on the tracks.

“Paramedics also attended, however sadly a person was pronounced dead at the scene. The incident is not being treated as suspicious, and a file will be prepared for the coroner.”

Trains are expected to be disrupted until at least 2.30pm. Passengers travelling on Great Northern and Thameslink trains through Cambridgeshire may face cancellation or up to 60 minutes of delays.

Do you want more of the latest Cambridgeshire news as it comes in from across the county? Sign up to our dedicated newsletter to make sure you never miss a big story from Cambridge or anywhere else in the county. You can also sign up to our dedicated Traffic and Crime newsletters for the latest updates on the topics you are most interested in.

There is a saying, often bandied about in families, that the apple does not fall far from the tree. And certainly in the case of Tiphaine Auzière and her mother, France’s First Lady Brigitte Macron, the similarities are striking.

Intelligent and politically astute – Tiphaine has both campaigned for her stepfather Emmanuel Macron and stood for election herself – both are women who have carved their own paths in life.

No one would call Brigitte Macron, 73, a shrinking violet and the same could also be said of her youngest daughter, who at 42 is a seasoned lawyer and stalwart supporter of both her mother and stepfather, who is just six years her senior.

Physically, too, mother and daughter have the same blonde hair, youthful visage and slender build, along with that distinctive toothsome smile.

Just how alike they are, however, was thrown into sharp focus this week. History, it would seem, is repeating itself.

For as Brigitte is 24 years older than Emmanuel (he was a 15-year-old schoolboy when he met 40-year-old teacher Brigitte Trogneux and soon after they began dating), Tiphaine has tumbled headlong into a love affair with a kitesurfer 20 years her junior.

The identity of the young man following in presidential footsteps? Twenty-something Antoine Lecomte, who quite apart from being something of a high-flyer in the world of kitesurfing, studied at an elite business school and recently launched his own company manufacturing top-of-the-range kites for surfers from the desirable French seaside town of Le Touquet.

In Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, to give the fashionable resort its official name, Antoine, was – perhaps unsurprisingly – looking très content when the Daily Mail caught up with him this week after he returned to shore from an energetic five-hour training session on the water.

He is also a surfing instructor and insists their relationship is not merely a summer fling

Wearing a full wetsuit, covered in sand and brandishing a sail, the 22-year-old grinned as he admitted: ‘I can appreciate why people are interested because our relationship is very similar to that of her mother, Brigitte, and President Macron.’

But it was only after checking in with Tiphaine that he agreed to chat further, stressing: ‘It’s not a summer fling. It’s love, it’s serious. We have plans for the future.

‘I know a lot of people in Le Touquet and they are all happy for us,’ he added.

‘They say if we are happy then they are happy. Age means nothing when you are in love.

‘Tiphaine may be 20 years older but she is fun, exciting and full of joie de vivre.’

There was most definitely a distinct joie de vivre about the couple’s decision to go public with their blossoming romance on Instagram earlier this week.

They each shared the same video compilation, captioned with Gallic insouciance by Antoine ‘48h in ’Dam with Madam’.

The series of clips show Antoine, who is originally from Lille but moved to Le Touquet after spending summer holidays there as a child, and Tiphaine in the Dutch city of Amsterdam where they spent a loved-up long weekend last month.

The opening image is of the attractive couple cheek to cheek in a shopping centre, before the reel rolls through road-trip images in his white VW Campervan. Tiphaine reclines on the bed while Antoine is at the wheel.

Then they are seen checking into the exclusive Faralda Hotel, which is built into a 50-metre-high dockside crane.

Rooms start at £900 for the night and the three suites – named Free Spirit, Secret and Mystique – are available to book by ‘request and invitation only’. There was more cosy footage of the couple strolling around Amsterdam, visiting galleries.

If the age gap has raised any eyebrows, it’s not fazing either mother-of-two Tiphaine, who separated from former partner, gastroenterologist and hepatologist Antoine Choteau in January 2025, or Antoine, who tells the Daily Mail he has had two previous relationships.

The dashing young businessman (he was out testing sails for his fledgling company, Mission Kiteboarding, when the Daily Mail spoke to him), admits he didn’t actually know who Tiphaine was when she came to him for efoil surfing lessons at the beginning of the summer.

The couple seem loved up in the videos posted by Brigitte Macron’s daughter

Her relationship is similar to that of her mother with French president Emmanuel Macron

An efoil is an electrically powered hydrofoil surfboard that allows the surfer to glide smoothly across the top of the water and Antoine is manager of Le Touquet’s efoil surf school, a business he oversees from a kiosk overlooking an estuary where Tiphaine posted a photograph of herself in a wetsuit, unzipped to reveal her back, in June this year.

‘La future James Bond girl,’ quipped one follower. If the striking Tiphaine is a Bond girl, then Antoine is certainly channelling James Bond in video footage from last summer that shows him, in a suit, riding his board across the water to a nearby restaurant, carrying a silver platter of seafood to a waiting diner.

On the subject of his new amour, Antoine says: ‘She came for some efoil lessons at the beginning of the summer, we got on and she came back a few times and then we met up at a party I was invited to.

‘But I had no idea she was Brigitte Macron’s daughter until later; it doesn’t bother me, we get on really well and that is the most important thing, we make each other happy.’

Antoine confessed he has been ‘reading all about us’ since news of the relationship went public at the start of the week but insisted that discovering Tiphaine’s background didn’t ‘change anything between us’.

He added: ‘Like I said it’s very serious, it’s not a summer relationship we have a lot of plans together. We are going to Asia in a few weeks on business.

‘She [Tiphaine] is a lawyer, and I have to develop my factory in Sri Lanka so she will help me, and we will go together. I’m hoping the business will get stronger.’

He sounds like a young man who knows what he wants, a trait that makes him more than a little like his new girlfriend’s stepfather.

Emmanuel Macron first met his wife in 1992 when he was a teenage pupil at the Providence Catholic school in Amiens, north of Paris, where she taught drama.She was a married mother-of-three and he was in the same class as her eldest daughter Laurence – who is now a cardiologist. The pair went on to rewrite a play together, which they later admitted was the period when they fell in love. At the time, Emmanuel was just 16.

In an interview with Paris Match, Brigitte confided: ‘I could feel I was falling, he was too…’ before adding: ‘At 17, Emmanuel told me, “Whatever you do, I will marry you!” Love took everything in its passage and led me to divorce. It was impossible to resist him.’

She acknowledged how difficult the situation must have been for her children, saying: ‘You can imagine what they were hearing. But I didn’t want to miss out on my life.’

She did not divorce her first husband until 2006, marrying her former student a year later, by which time he was a civil servant in his late twenties.

He asked his soon-to-be stepchildren for their permission.

The location of the wedding? Le Touquet, at the same town hall where Brigitte married her first husband, Andre-Louis Auziere. She was 54; her groom, 29. A videotape of Macron’s speech at their wedding reception shows him paying tribute to Tiphaine and her siblings, brother Sebastien and sister Laurence.

‘I want to thank you for accepting us and loving us as we are. Especially I want to thank Brigitte’s children,’ he said. ‘If there’s anyone for whom this would not have been simple, it’s them.’

Curiously, Brigitte’s children do not appear to have been troubled by the relationship, indeed Tiphaine has long spoken of her admiration for her mother and stepfather, who have long had a holiday home in Le Touquet (they recently sold one and are thought to have bought another).

‘If I have to give a vision of love, it’s Emmanuel and Mummy,’ said Tiphaine, speaking in a 2018 documentary. ‘When they are together, it is almost as if the world doesn’t exist.’

She returned to the subject of her mother’s second marriage in 2024, saying: ‘A family break-up can be both a heartbreak and an opportunity. Mixing families together can be enriching.

‘I have an adored mother and stepfather.’ She’s campaigned for her stepfather, who she once described as ‘exceptional, brilliant. He’s someone with a long-term vision of society.’

Tiphaine, who works in Paris but lives near to Le Touquet, has also been fiercely protective of her mother amid the numerous barbs and attacks thrown her way, about her age, her relationship with her husband and even preposterous claims that she was born a man.

‘I find it abhorrent in France in the 21st century such attacks [happen], which would not be carried out against a male politician or a male companion of a female politician. There’s a lot of jealousy,’ said Tiphaine after a volley of abuse in 2017.

She was also her mother’s staunch defender when online conspiracy theorists faced a French court last year, telling the court: ‘She’s not elected, she has not sought anything, and she is permanently subjected to these attacks. I – as a daughter, a woman and a mother – would not wish her life on anyone.’

Antoine is understood to have already met Tiphaine’s daughters Élise, 12, and Aurèle, ten, and a meeting with Brigitte is rumoured to be on the cards.

Meanwhile, their fledgling relationship has the blessing of Antoine’s parents too.

French president Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte Macron, who is 25 years older than him

‘My parents know. They haven’t met Tiphaine yet but they are happy. We expect a lot of attention now but Tiphaine is not my first girlfriend, I’ve had two relationships before,’ says Antoine.

‘People are not bothered about us and the age gap, they treat us normally but we laugh a lot together and we help each other, and enjoy time together, she is in Paris now but we will see each other soon.’

It is only when we venture to ask him what in particular he finds so attractive about his blonde-haired older lover that Antoine demurs.

With a gentlemanly flourish, he smiles. ‘Now you are asking too much, I cannot tell you everything about us but I will tell you we are happy and in love.

‘I cannot say anything else because she asked me not to say too much.’

The supermarket is urging anyone who has purchased 120 gram packs of ‘Inspired to Cook by Sainsbury’s Pitted Black Olives’ not to consume the product

Sainsbury’s is recalling packets of pitted black olives over fears they may be contaminated with listeria.

The supermarket is urging anyone who has purchased 120 gram packs of ‘Inspired to Cook by Sainsbury’s Pitted Black Olives’ not to consume the product and to return it to the nearest store for a full refund.

In an alert the Food Standards Agency (FSA) said on its website the product was being recalled ‘because Listeria monocytogenes has been found in the product’.

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The FSA bulletin continued: “Symptoms caused by Listeria monocytogenes can be similar to flu and include high temperature, muscle ache or pain, chills, feeling or being sick and diarrhoea. However, in rare cases, the infection can be more severe, causing serious complications, such as meningitis.

“Some people are more vulnerable to Listeria infections, including those over 65 years of age, pregnant women and their unborn babies, babies less than one month old and people with weakened immune systems.”

The recall is for packs with ‘use by’ dates of 6, 7 and 10 September 2026.

Sainsbury’s said in its own alert: “Sainsbury’s are recalling the above product due to a possible presence of Listeria Monocytogenes. We are asking customers that have purchased the above product not to consume it and to return the product to their nearest Sainsbury’s store, where they will receive a full refund.”

Listeria is a bacteria which can cause listeriosis. The NHS website says: “It usually goes away on its own, but it can make some people seriously ill.