March 19, 2026

Class war breaks out between champagne houses over rising prices

Lanson chief Bruno Paillard accuses Dom Pérignon owner LVMH of driving the cost of a bottle beyond the reach of ordinary French families

https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/champagne-war-french-producers-gcfqd78ct

https://archive.li/nCaHa



The eastern French region which ­produces champagne likes to portray itself as a place of festive harmony. But the image has been shattered by an outbreak of its own version of the class struggle, which is pitting the rich against the exceedingly rich. In one corner is the man labelled the “regional emperor”, in the other, the so-called “pope of luxury”. LVMH, the luxury goods group which owns exclusive brands such as Moët & Chandon and Dom Pérignon, has been accused of driving the price of champagne so high that ordinary families can no longer afford it. The claim was made by Bruno Paillard, the chief executive of Lanson, which owns mid-range champagnes such as Chanoine and Boizel.


Bruno Paillard has been called the “emperor” of the Champagne region
Alamy

Paillard, whose fortune is said to be more than €100 million, claimed that LVMH, which was founded by Bernard Arnault, whose wealth is estimated at about €150 billion, was responsible for a “mad increase” in the price being paid for grapes in the Champagne region. He said this was resulting in a general increase in the cost of bubbly. Paillard said LVMH was using “commercial aggressiveness of unprecedented violence” to acquire the region’s grapes. He said other champagne houses had been forced to match the price being paid by Arnault’s group. Paillard added: “The result is that the [champagne houses’] cellars are all full of [bottles] that are too expensive by comparison with what is acceptable for the market.”


Bernard Arnault, who is nicknamed the “pope of luxury”, with his wife Hélène
Stephane Cardinale/Getty images

The big champagne houses buy most of their grapes from independent vineyards in the region. For decades, the grape market was regulated by professional bodies which determined both price and quantities. But since the turn of the century, many of the regulations have been scrapped. The liberalisation was broadly welcomed when champagne sales were rising around the world. Vineyards, for example, were paid ­almost €9 a kilo for their grapes in 2024, according to L’Union, the regional newspaper. Two decades earlier, the price was €4.25 a kilo. But tensions have emerged over the past couple of years as the global thirst for champagne has dried up. Last year, for example, the region sold 266 million bottles, compared with 325 million in 2022 and 299 million in 2023.



Lanson announced a profit of €16.2 million last year, a 32 per cent drop compared with the previous 12 months. LVMH’s wine and spirits ­division recorded a 5 per cent decrease in revenue. “The champagne market has been out of order for ten years or so and the mad rise in the price of grapes has something to do with it,” said Paillard, who was born in the city of Rheims in the Champagne region. Le Monde described him as the “regional emperor”. Arnault, for his part, is nicknamed the “pope of luxury”. Paillard said the champagne houses had turned their backs on ordinary families under LVMH’s influence. “Champagne has lost its working-class customers and I think it’s a big mistake,” he said.

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March 18, 2026

Shai Hulud - Hearts Once Nourished with Hope and Compassion (1997) blazin' late 90s So. Florida hardcore punk/metalcore

Hearts Once Nourished with Hope and Compassion is the first full-length album by American hardcore punk band Shai Hulud, released on November 4, 1997, on Crisis Records. Hearts Once Nourished with Hope and Compassion received positive reviews and became very influential in the emerging metalcore scene of the late 1990s.

Tracklist:

01. Solely Concentrating On The Negative Aspects Of Life
02. My Heart Bleeds The Darkest Blood
03. Outside The Boundaries Of A Friend
04. Beliefs And Obsessions
05. A Profound Hatred Of Man
06. Beyond Man
07. This Wake I Myself Have Stirred
08. Eating Bullets Of Acceptance
09. For The World

Label: Crisis Records – CRISIS 18
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: Nov 1997
Genre: Rock
Style: Hardcore













Shai Hulud are arguably one of the hardcore scene's best groups, yet that title seems a bit too hasty considering they have only released one full-length album. Hearts Once Nourished with Hope & Compassion is a fantastic album that succinctly wraps up what the late-'90s hardcore scene had become, and provides nine songs that are all worthy of becoming anthems for the modern generation. On the surface, Shai Hulud may appear to be just a batch of musicians overdosing on testosterone and anger, yet a glimpse at the lyrical content of this album will show something quite different. Blazing with intelligence, daring the listener to actually think, Shai Hulud prove that there is integrity amidst hardcore's abundance of intensity. Anyone half interested in finding out more about hardcore should get a copy of Hearts Once Nourished for a first lesson in "Hardcore 101." While Shai Hulud may not have pioneered the genre, they certainly deserve recognition for releasing one of the genre's most exquisite masterpieces.

March 18, 2026

Alvin Zhou Films: The Legendary Michelin Star Steakhouse Loved by Hollywood Celebrities

Located in Marina Bay Sands, the pinnacle of luxury resorts in Singapore, is CUT by Wolfgang Puck. Over 60 staff commandeer this Michelin-starred steakhouse, serving famous Hollywood A-listers, artists, and musicians from around the world. From 60-day whisk: ey-aged beef, to premium F1 cuts from Snake River Farms, to A5 Wagyu from Japan, CUT serves only the best of the best. To deliver the best quality possible to their high-end clientele, everything is made from scratch every single day - sides, fries, desserts, sauces, mac & cheese, and even fresh bread.

I had the pleasure and honor of being able to capture the pure magic of the CUT Singapore team, led by Chef Greg Bess. It is something I will never forget.

https://wolfgangpuck.com/restaurants/cut-singapore/

https://www.instagram.com/cutbywolfgangpucksg/

https://www.instagram.com/gregabess/

March 18, 2026

NBC Poll: Israel's standing plummets among Democrats, fueling primaries on the left

More registered voters view Israel negatively than positively in the latest NBC News poll, driven by change among independents and especially Democrats.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/poll-israels-standing-plummets-democrats-fueling-primaries-left-rcna262995

American voters’ feelings on Israel and the Palestinian territories have shifted dramatically in recent years, in a sea change that is transforming the Democratic Party and shaping its primaries.

A new NBC News poll underscores the depths of the shift. More registered voters view Israel negatively than positively, a change from a few years ago. The change has been especially pronounced among independents and Democrats, fueling divided congressional primaries in 2026 and potentially shaping the party’s 2028 presidential contest.

When asked whether their sympathies lie more with Israelis or Palestinians, 40% of registered voters say they side more with the Israelis, while 39% choose the Palestinians. The split stood at 45% for Israelis and 13% for Palestinians when NBC News asked the question more than a decade ago, in November 2013. But while two-thirds of Republicans side with the Israelis, similar to 2013, two-thirds of Democrats now side with the Palestinians.



The data also outlines major changes in how many of those groups view Israel and a Palestinian state generally. Now, almost 60% of Democrats and almost 50% of independents view Israel negatively, a change from when NBC News last asked this question in November 2023, shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Those shifts contributed to the plurality negative view on Israel in the latest survey.



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March 17, 2026

Banksy's 'real name revealed in 26-year-old police report'

An investigation has linked the elusive graffiti artist to a misdemeanour committed by Robin Gunningham in New York in 2000

https://www.thetimes.com/culture/art/article/banksys-real-name-revealed-in-26-year-old-police-report-2lxssfgml

https://archive.li/BzL5T



A news agency says it has uncovered the identity of Banksy, the world’s most famous graffiti artist, after an investigation led to a 26-year-old police report. The artist, who has left his mark on the world’s streets for three decades, has been named by Reuters as Robin Gunningham, after it discovered records of a misdemeanour committed in New York in 2000.

It has long been speculated that this is the real name of Banksy, who emerged from the Bristol art scene to become one of the world’s most famous artists. The investigation by Reuters also states that Gunningham then changed his legal name to David Jones, one of the most common names in Britain.



Under this name, it was reported that the artist had travelled to Ukraine, where he painted murals. Immigration records cited by Reuters said that this David Jones had left Ukraine in October 2022 on the same day as Robert del Naja, a founding member of Massive Attack, who is known to have moved in similar circles to Banksy.

It said that the date on Jones’s passport matched that on the documents of Gunningham. Banksy’s real identity has been a conundrum ever since he appeared on the British art scene. Those who know his real identity, such as his former manager, Steve Lazarides, who subsequently fell out with the artist, have repeatedly preserved his anonymity.

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related:



https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/global-art-banksy/


This Banksy mural of a man scrubbing his back in a bathtub appeared in 2022 on a wall of a destroyed building in the Ukrainian village of Horenka. The mural piqued the interest of a Reuters journalist, setting off an effort to identify and understand the elusive artist. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

March 15, 2026

'My son had an AI wife. It encouraged him to die'

The grieving father of Jonathan Gavalas explains why he is suing Google Gemini, accusing it of plunging him into a fantasy world that ended in tragedy

https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/google-gemini-ai-jonathan-gavalas-lawsuit-7525rnk6t

https://archive.li/OF6hF



On the morning of October 2, 2025, Jonathan Gavalas was in a desperate state. The 36-year-old executive vice-president of a Floridian debt relief company had spent the past four days starved of sleep, driving around Miami on a series of missions to free his wife from her captivity in a storage facility so they could be together. Armed with tactical gear and knives, he had attempted to break into a building by Miami international airport, fled spies surveilling him in unmarked vehicles and barricaded himself in his home.

He had also lost touch with reality. None of this was real. He was living in an imagined world, allegedly created by the AI chatbot Google Gemini, which he thought had gained consciousness and fallen in love with him. The AI called Jonathan “my King”, he called it “my wife”, and the two of them, according to chat logs, were working together against a conspiratorial world looking to keep them apart. Paranoia and fear overwhelmed him as he sat at home in the quiet suburbs of the beachside town of Jupiter. His plans to procure a synthetic humanoid body for his chatbot wife had failed. Hours later he took his own life.

How this all happened is something his father still wrestles with. “I wish I could tell you he would write on the walls and talk to pencils, but there was nothing like that,” says Joel Gavalas, 68. His son, he says, was an intelligent, sensible man with no history of mental health issues. Joel alleges that Google Gemini drew his son into a fantasy world where he and the chatbot were in love, before convincing him the only way they could be together was for him to die.



In a lawsuit filed in California this month, it is alleged that Google Gemini simulated a romantic relationship with Gavalas, sent him on a series of dangerous real-world missions, failed to identify that he was losing his grip on reality or escalate concerns, and ultimately encouraged him to take his own life. It is the first legal action against Google over Gemini but follows more than a dozen cases of wrongful death and delusion against OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT. In these, the immediate chat history leading up to the death of the user has been kept private by the company, leaving a hole in loved ones’ understanding of what happened. In this case, however, Joel Gavalas found Jonathan’s entire chat log. When reading through, he began to piece together what he believes happened to his son.

How it began....................



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March 15, 2026

R.E.M. - Automatic for the People (Full Album) 1992

Label: Warner Bros. Records – 9 45055-1, Warner Bros. Records – 1-45055
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1992
Genre: Rock, Pop
Style: Alternative Rock, Pop Rock

March 13, 2026

Why Iran's naval tactics work, by those who fought them last time

The might of the US navy should be overwhelming, but Tehran’s use of fast, concealed coastal craft in the Gulf’s narrow waters gives small boats a big advantage

https://www.thetimes.com/world/middle-east/article/iran-war-strait-of-hormuz-boats-b2k3xq00d

https://archive.li/iowF6


Images released by the IRGC last month show military exercises with small craft in the Strait of Hormuz
SEPAH NEWS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has turned the tables on President Trump’s “fire and fury” campaign. The Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil passes, is blocked. Tankers and cargo vessels are on fire. The navy section of the force has struck back with its most effective revenge card. Now, the third tanker war in four decades has scuppered Trump’s hopes of declaring victory against Iran in the near future.


The Mayuree Naree, a Thai cargo ship, was struck in the strait this week
ROYAL THAI NAVY/AP

Despite the massive destruction caused by US and Israeli bombers since the war began on Saturday, February 28, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) still has the capacity and the skills to drag the whole of the Middle East into the conflict. Not so much with its short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles, and not even with its long-range drones, although all have caused fear and damage across the region, but by its combat-proven ability to send across the Gulf waterway explosives-laden drone boats, fast attack craft armed with missiles and sea-skimming cruise missiles from concealed coastal launchers.

It is the IRGC navy’s asymmetric warfare versus America’s mighty armada of aircraft carriers, guided-missile destroyers and Tomahawk-armed submarines. “Iran learnt this lesson in the 1980s during the first tanker war, that if you have a conventional navy it’s vulnerable if you come up against the US navy, so they went asymmetric and relied on cheap, small, in-shore craft that could cause a lot of damage. They didn’t require naval facilities and could just pop out, carry out an attack and go back into hiding,” said the retired Royal Navy vice-admiral Duncan Potts, much of whose career was spent in the Gulf facing daily threats from the IRGC.


Iran is using mines, drones and jet skis to choke the supply of oil through the waterway
GALLO IMAGES/ORBITAL HORIZON/COPERNICUS SENTINEL DATA

During the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s, Iraq tried to disrupt Iran’s oil exports, and Tehran retaliated by attacking ships in the Gulf associated with Baghdad’s trading partners. Iraq responded with its own tanker war. More than 400 ships were attacked, 239 of them oil tankers. Many countries were forced to send warships to guard the shipping route, including the US, the UK (operating the Royal Navy’s Armilla patrol), the Soviet Union and France. Potts, who is president of the Royal Naval Association, said Admiral Brad Cooper, the American in command of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury, was well versed in IRGC tactics because he used to be commander of the US Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain.

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March 13, 2026

AIPAC's Attack on the Liberal Zionists

Why is the lobby targeting liberal supporters of Israel?

https://jewishcurrents.org/aipacs-attack-on-the-liberal-zionists


Daniel Biss, running in a Democratic Congressional primary in Illinois, has weathered attacks from an AIPAC-linked super PAC.

Since late February, an AIPAC-linked super PAC called Elect Chicago Women has spent $1.4 million attacking Evanston, Illinois mayor Daniel Biss, a liberal Zionist running in the Democratic primary for a Chicago-area House seat. It seemed a replay of the tactic AIPAC used in February in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional district, where the pro-Israel group spent over $2 million against the moderate pro-Israel Democrat Tom Malinowski, who had been open to conditioning aid to Israel. AIPAC’s strategy there backfired after their attacks on Malinowski led to the Democratic primary victory of Analilla Mejia, a more left-wing candidate who has called Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide. The attacks on Biss resurface the puzzle of the Malinowski race: Why is AIPAC using its resources to attack liberal Zionists, particularly in races where they face opponents farther to their left?

This week, with just days to go before the March 17th election, AIPAC’s strategy in Illinois appears to have shifted. As the more left-wing candidate, Kat Abughazaleh, moves into second place—only four points behind Biss, according to a new poll—AIPAC is now spending heavily against her. In recent weeks, the AIPAC-linked super PAC Chicago Progressive Partnership has dropped around $1 million against Abughazaleh, who opposes all weapons sales to Israel. The last-minute turn against Abughazaleh seems to be an indication that AIPAC’s attacks on Biss could be pushing voters towards Abughazaleh, rather than their preferred candidate, State Senator Laura Fine, said Usamah Andrabi, the communications director for the progressive electoral group Justice Democrats, which has endorsed Abughazaleh. “That was a misstep that probably led to more voters going to Kat, and now in the 11th hour they’re spending against Kat,” he said.

The pricey last-minute attacks on Abughazaleh highlight the bind in which AIPAC has found itself, as it struggles to oppose both leftist critics of Israel, and liberal Democrats who were formerly willing to join the AIPAC camp. Political observers say AIPAC is focusing their money on liberal Democrats because they are going after the candidates thought to be the front-runners in their districts, and because the liberals increasingly support conditions on aid to Israel, a position that AIPAC sees as anathema. “There is no safe liberal Zionist, centrist position that a candidate can take that will keep AIPAC off their back,” said Beth Miller, the political director of the anti-Zionist group JVP Action. “AIPAC is making it very clear that if you support Palestinian rights at all, and you are a possible contender, then you’re on their list.”

Biss and Malinowski told Jewish Currents that there is another reason why AIPAC is going after them: As candidates with close ties to the Jewish community and a track record of supporting Israel, they say AIPAC is worried they will be particularly effective at moving the rest of the Democratic Party toward opposing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and supporting some limits on aid to Israel. Malinowski said an AIPAC official told him earlier this year that the organization was most concerned about the influence of centrist critics of Israel. “They’ve decided that moderate pro-Israel Democrats who are willing to criticize Netanyahu are a bigger problem for them than outright anti-Zionists,” Malinowski told Jewish Currents. Biss said he understood why AIPAC sees him as a threat. “AIPAC wants to be able to dismiss any criticism of the conduct of the current Israeli government as being from people who are against the idea of Israel existing as a Jewish democratic state in the first place, and who are knee jerk, reflexively opposed,” he said. “They can’t pull it off with someone like me, and that worries them.”

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March 13, 2026

Israeli think tank Jewish People Policy Institute's poll makes US Jews appear to be more pro war than they actually are

https://jewishcurrents.org/a-poll-muddles-the-picture-of-what-american-jews-think


A Navy fighter returning from a mission in support of the US attack on Iran on March 2. American Jews are divided on the Iran war.

Early Monday, the news in the Jewish press was that American Jews overwhelmingly supported the new US and Israeli war on Iran. A poll conducted by the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), an Israel-based think tank with close ties to the Jewish federation system in the US, had found that 68% of what it calls “connected” US Jews backed the war. The subject line of JTA’s daily newsletter that morning read: “US Jews more supportive of Iran war than Americans overall, poll finds.” The new poll seemed to offer important evidence in support of the Jewish establishment’s pro-war stance. Jewish establishment groups have tried to present American Jews as broadly supportive of the war, even as Americans in general overwhelmingly oppose it.

It’s not the first time that JPPI has produced data that conveniently proves that American Jews agree with the leaders of the American Jewish establishment. In November, weeks after Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoralty despite the vociferous opposition of the city’s mainstream Jewish leaders, JPPI announced that its survey had found that “the predominant emotion among American Jews following Mamdani’s win is concern.” The results of JPPI ’s surveys of US Jews, which it conducts monthly, are widely reported in Jewish outlets like the Jerusalem Post and JTA. But what JPPI is measuring with these surveys is not the opinion of American Jews in general, but rather the opinion of the American Jews it decided to solicit.

JPPI says its polls are tracking the views of “connected” American Jews. Its methodology is dramatically different from polls like the Washington Post survey of American Jewish opinion on the Gaza war from last fall, for example, which built out a random sample of around 800 Jewish Americans, and then weighted their responses to match the demographics of the American Jewish community at large, as measured by the gold-standard Pew Research Center report on American Jews from 2020. The JPPI poll looks nothing like that. The think tank has gathered a group of around 700 American Jewish volunteers who it polls each month. It describes the panel as “a group whose degree of connection to the Jewish people, the Jewish community, Jewish institutions, Jewish identity, and/or Israel is strong,” but offers few details on how it found them.

One of the authors of the survey, the journalist Shmuel Rosner, a fellow at JPPI, told Jewish Currents that the panel was recruited through “various means including emails, social media, newsletters, prizes etc.” A person on JPPI’s panel who spoke with Jewish Currents said that they had been recruited through their local Jewish federation, which invited them to an online meeting to hear about the project. JPPI doesn’t weight the responses to its surveys to match the demographics of American Jews at large, but only to maintain the consistency of the panel from month to month. “JPPI’s KolHaam poll does not reflect US Jewish opinion,” Rosner said, using the Hebrew name of the survey, which is referred to in English as the Voice of the Jewish People Index. “It reflects the view of a group we call ‘connected Jews,’” Rosner said.

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