La pomme, it seems, doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Brigitte Macron’s daughter, Tiphaine Auziere, appears to be drawing comparisons to the French first lady’s own headline-making love story, as she is reportedly dating a man two decades her junior — with one notable twist: he was her instructor, at least in a sporting sense.

Auziere, 42, shared an Instagram photo of herself alongside 22-year-old Antoine Lecomte while the couple were vacationing in Amsterdam.

According to reports, the two first crossed paths in Le Touquet, the chic coastal town in northwestern France, where Lecomte was working as a kitesurfing instructor.

“It was immediately obvious between them,” a close friend of Auziere told Gala.

“They have a lot in common: a love of Le Touquet and thrills, but also travel and entrepreneurship,” the friend added.

Brigitte is said to be “delighted” that her daughter has found love, just months after breaking up with right-wing French TV host Cyril Hanouna.

“She reacted just like any mother would. All that matters to her is her daughter’s happiness, so she’s very happy to see her thriving,” the source told Gala.

“She’ll be delighted to meet Antoine,” they added.

Antoine has reportedly already met Tiphaine’s two children, Aurele, 10, and Elise, 12.

The two-decade age gap is five years smaller than that of her 73-year-old mother and her second husband, French President Emmanuel Macron, 48.

Macron was a 15-year-old student when he first met his future wife, who at the time was a married mom of three and a teacher at his private school in Amiens.

Tiphaine was just 9 when the affair began. Macron’s parents took him out of the school when it came to light.

The French president tied the knot when he was 29 and Brigitte was 54, and has no biological children of his own.

President Donald Trump on Monday labeled Iran a “Failed Nation,” arguing that the country has been weakened economically and militarily as renewed conflict with the U.S. intensifies scrutiny of Tehran’s remaining leverage.

“Iran is officially a Failed Nation. IT IS DEAD!” Trump wrote Monday morning on Truth Social. “They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, they have no currency, they are not paying their soldiers or police.”

Trump further asserted that inflation in Iran had climbed to 300% and accused the country’s leaders of being “in total disarray and incapable of properly representing the country.”

The remarks come as Iran faces mounting strain from multiple fronts, including renewed U.S. military action, tougher sanctions and a sharp decline in oil exports. Together, those pressures are fueling new questions about how much economic hardship Tehran can withstand while continuing to challenge Washington.

Official Iranian data cited by Reuters put annual inflation at 66% in July, while the IMF projects average consumer-price inflation of 68.9% in 2026.

Trump’s post came amid the sharpest U.S.-Iran military escalation in weeks. U.S. forces struck two Iranian launchers on Larak Island Sunday after Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces were observed preparing to launch rockets with sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz, according to a U.S. official. Iran retaliated by launching ballistic missiles toward U.S. bases in Jordan, while Jordan said it intercepted eight missiles that entered its airspace.

The renewed confrontation comes as Washington ratchets up economic pressure.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Reuters Sunday that the administration expects to roll out additional secondary sanctions as frequently as every week, initially focusing on banks and potentially cutting financial institutions that continue facilitating Iranian transactions out of the U.S. dollar-based financial system.

Iran’s own leaders are acknowledging growing economic strain.

President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran’s exports and imports have fallen nearly 35% because of U.S. sanctions and the naval blockade, while annual inflation reached 66% in July, Reuters reported Aug. 29. The IMF projects Iran’s economy will contract 5.4% this year.

Miad Maleki, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who previously served as associate director of Treasury’s Office of Global Targeting at the Office of Foreign Assets Control, told News Media that the Islamic Republic may be nearing an economic breaking point. FDD says Maleki previously helped oversee U.S. sanctions programs and served as chief and senior sanctions coordinator for Iran and the Middle East.

“I think where we stand today, it’s very clear — we see very clear signs, indications of what I would call an economy that is on the verge of collapse, if it hasn’t already collapsed yet,” Maleki said.

Maleki argued that the critical pressure point is Iran’s ability to turn oil exports into usable revenue.

He estimates Tehran needs roughly 1 million barrels of oil exports per day to sustain itself, about 1.5 million to avoid hyperinflation and approximately 2 million to support development. Maleki said Iranian exports have fallen dramatically and Tehran is increasingly struggling to repatriate revenue from the oil it can sell.

Kpler data cited by Reuters showed Chinese imports of Iranian crude falling from an average 1.4 million barrels per day in 2025 to a provisional 534,000 barrels per day so far in August.

Maleki said Tehran is increasingly relying on money creation rather than cutting politically sensitive salaries and pensions. But there are limits.

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“They can keep printing money, but they can’t really print the type of commodities that they need, such as gasoline, such as wheat,” he said.

The pressure, however, may create a dangerous paradox.

Iran analyst Danny Citrinowicz, a fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, told News Media that the maritime blockade, wartime losses and wider economic pressure are hurting Tehran, but argued Washington should not assume economic pain will lead to capitulation.

Citrinowicz said continued pressure could instead increase Tehran’s incentive to escalate if Iranian leaders conclude the status quo is worse than renewed confrontation. He said Iran could attempt to target “U.S. economic assets in the Gulf,” ports or U.S. vessels involved in enforcing the blockade, even as its missile-production capabilities have been degraded.

Maleki agreed Iran would likely attempt to escalate, but questioned how much leverage Tehran still possesses.

“They’re going to try to escalate,” Maleki said, pointing to the attacks of the last 24 hours. But he argued that further escalation would increasingly affect Gulf states Iran has relied upon for trade, sanctions evasion and diplomacy — potentially bringing even greater economic and diplomatic pressure.

Asked whether Iran was losing its leverage, Maleki responded: “Absolutely.”

He argued Tehran has emerged weakened from internal unrest and the external war and is increasingly isolated domestically and internationally.

What Maleki is watching next is not necessarily missed government payrolls, but shortages that could trigger another wave of domestic unrest.

“What I’m looking for is shortages of items such as gasoline,” Maleki said. “Right now they’re fighting a war inside Iran that is way more challenging to the regime than it is from external forces that they’re facing.”

Commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remained severely disrupted Monday, while Brent crude climbed more than 2% to above $90 as markets reacted to the renewed U.S.-Iran exchanges. Reuters reported Aug. 31 that Gulf oil flows have recovered from their wartime lows but remain below pre-war levels.

Maleki said he expects Iranians to return to the streets and argued Western governments should prepare now to help them communicate and organize if Tehran again shuts down internet access.

“What we need to do is to contain this regime, cut off this economic lifeline, empower the Iranian people, be prepared next time Iranians are back on the street [and] take actions to stop this regime from slaughtering Iranians,” Maleki said.

“Those are the right policies — put the pressure on, be prepared to push back on the Iranian regime every time it escalates,” he added. “At this point, they are the weakest they’ve been since 1979. Every time they try to escalate, they become weaker.”

Reuters contributed to this story.

Sick and disoriented sea lions are turning up on beaches across California, prompting officials to issue a stark warning: keep your distance. Experts say the poisoned animals may behave unpredictably and could become aggressive if approached.

Specialists with The Marine Mammal Center say the sea lions appear to be suffering neurological damage linked to domoic acid, a powerful neurotoxin. It is the same condition blamed for last year’s reports of unusually “demonic” behavior and attacks involving affected marine mammals.

Domoic acid can build up in the ocean during harmful algal blooms, then move through the food chain when small fish such as sardines and anchovies become contaminated. Sea lions that feed on those fish can experience damage to areas of the brain tied to memory, navigation and behavior.

During the final week of August, dozens of sea lions were spotted along beaches near the San Francisco Bay Area showing alarming symptoms, including seizures, twitching, unusual movements, lethargy and apparent confusion.

Some of the affected sea lions have died from domoic acid poisoning. The toxin can also pose a risk to humans who consume contaminated shellfish or certain types of seafood.

Michael Milstein, a spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said: ‘It is a very insidious and brutal disease that occurs both during cold water years due to strong upwelling in offshore wind here along the California coast, as well as during warmer water years.’

Wildlife officials have not reported any incidents where the disoriented sea lions attacked beachgoers this year, which became a common occurrence during cases of domoic acid poisoning in 2025.

Concerningly, experts could not fully explain why incidents were spiking so late in summer, leading to more than 100 cases of sick sea lions washing up on US beaches in 2026 so far, compared to just 70 to 90 in an average year.

The Marine Mammal Center, an animal hospital based in the Bay Area, has urged the public to stay at least 150 feet away from any sea lions that appear on shore.

‘All wildlife can be unpredictable, but sick animals are particularly stressed and disoriented,’ the group said in a statement.

The hospital added that its hotline for reporting marine animals in distress has been flooded with hundreds of calls due to wildlife being affected by toxic algae blooms in the Pacific.

‘Our Dispatch team receives more than 350 calls to our hotline on their busiest days. If left untreated, domoic acid can cause marine mammals to have seizures and heart failure,’ the center revealed.

The current hotspot has been at the Monterey Peninsula and nearby Central California Coast, near Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.

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Flare-ups of the toxin began to appear earlier in the summer, but Marine Mammal Center spokesperson Giancarlo Rulli said cases are now strangely picking back up near the end of the season.

‘The fact that we are about to turn the page on August into September and just the unknowns right now of how these flare-ups have kind of popped up, surged, dissipated, and then popped back up again is a real concern,’ Rulli told SFGATE.

One potential cause for the late-season sicknesses and deaths is the emergence of a record-setting El Niño, which meteorologists have confirmed is making sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific hotter than at any other point in recorded history.

NOAA has said that strong winds off California push surface water aside and pull cold, nutrient-rich water up from the deep ocean in a process called upwelling.

Those nutrients help algae grow quickly in the sunlight. This year’s warmer El Niño water then helps certain algae, including an organism called Pseudo-nitzschia, multiply into large blooms that release the toxin domoic acid.

The toxin can poison fish, shellfish, sea lions that eat them and people who eat contaminated seafood.

Although sea lions have been documented attacking people while suffering from the brain-destroying illness, being bitten by a sea lion is not a common way for humans to be infected with the toxin. Touching a sea lion also does not lead to infections.

A case of amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP) is the likeliest way someone would become infected, mainly through eating contaminated mussels, clams, oysters, scallops, crab guts and sardines or anchovies.

Cooking or freezing seafood does not destroy the toxin and the California Department of Public Health has warned that infections can be fatal for people who consume high amounts of domoic acid.

The California coast is now home to approximately 250,000 sea lions, compared to just 1,500 in the 1920s.

Videos taken by beachgoers earlier in July captured at least one incident where multiple sea lions chased dozens of people along the shore in San Diego, but it is not known if the animals were suffering from domoic acid contamination.

‘The toxin will naturally flush from an animal’s system over time, but sea lions repeatedly exposed to the toxin will suffer longer-lasting and more serious effects,’ the Marine Mammal Center said.