Morning Report

TODAY’S CRIME story

Son arrested over killing of Rob and Michele Reiner

What happened
Nick Reiner, the 32-year-old son of Hollywood director Rob Reiner, was arrested yesterday as a suspect in the murder of his parents. Rob and Michele Reiner were found dead with stab wounds in their Los Angeles home on Sunday. The Los Angeles Police Department said its initial investigation found that Nick Reiner “was responsible for their deaths,” and he was “booked for murder and remains in custody with no bail.”

Who said what
Police “focused almost immediately” on Nick Reiner, The New York Times said, “in part because” of his openly discussed “struggles with drug abuse and bouts of homelessness” beginning when he was 15. He and his father had “explored their difficult relationship” and Nick’s struggles with drugs in a “semi-autobiographical 2016 film, ‘Being Charlie,’” The Associated Press said. Police have not disclosed a potential motive.

Nick Reiner and his father were seen arguing at a holiday party at Conan O’Brien’s house on Saturday night, witnesses told CNN. They “got into a shouting match,” with “Rob Reiner telling his son that his behavior was inappropriate,” the Times said, citing attendees. “Several people commented” that Nick Reiner “looked anxious and uncomfortable in a way that deeply unsettled them.” President Donald Trump’s post claiming Reiner was murdered because his “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME” had “driven people CRAZY” drew widespread condemnation, including from “conservative influencers” and his own “MAGA base,” The Washington Post said.

What next?
The LAPD said it would turn over the double-homicide case to prosecutors today. It will be “up to the DA’s office to charge” Reiner with “specific counts” by tomorrow night, said CNN.

TODAY’S INTERNATIONAL Story

Kushner pulls out of Trump hotel project in Serbia

What happened
Jared Kushner’s private equity firm Affinity Partners yesterday pulled out of a deal to finance a Trump-branded development in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade. Affinity’s withdrawal came hours after a member of President Aleksandar Vucic’s Cabinet and three other officials were indicted for allegedly abusing their positions and falsifying documents as the government worked to strip the bombed-out former military site of its cultural-heritage protections.

Who said what
Affinity said it was withdrawing from the half-billion-dollar deal “because meaningful projects should unite rather than divide, and out of respect for the people of Serbia and the City of Belgrade.” It was an “abrupt end to an increasingly controversial project that Kushner,” President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, “has worked on for more than two years,” The Wall Street Journal said.

The project to build apartments and a Trump-branded luxury hotel on a central Belgrade site bombed by NATO in 1999 involved Kushner and the Trump Organization, “run by the president’s sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr.,” The New York Times said. The project, “fiercely championed” by Vucic, “exemplified the willingness of foreign governments to bend over backward to further the financial interests” of Trump and his family. Serbia “has plenty of things it wants from the Trump administration, such as lifting sanctions on its sole oil refinery,” the Journal said

What next?
The Serbian prosecutor’s office said its corruption investigation was ongoing and could lead to further indictments. Vucic in recent days has “vowed to pardon any officials caught up in the case,” the Journal said, and “stepped up his rhetoric” against the “semi-independent” prosecutor’s office.

It’s not all bad

A 3D-printed cornea made of human cells has been successfully implanted in the eye of a person considered legally blind, restoring their vision. Precise Bio, which manufactured the cornea in a laboratory, said the process has the potential to create hundreds of grafts out of one donated cornea. The transplant is a “defining moment for the future of regenerative medicine,” said Precise Bio co-founder Dr. Anthony Atala.

Under the radar

A fentanyl vaccine may be on the horizon

There may soon be a new way to prevent deaths from fentanyl. A vaccine that could prevent the deadly synthetic opioid from reaching the brain and causing respiratory failure is set to begin human trials, potentially changing the landscape of drug overdoses.

The new vaccine works differently from naloxone, which is currently used to reverse the effects of drug overdoses. Instead, the vaccine is “similar to a suit of armor,” said The Independent. “Receiving it first will, in theory, protect an individual from danger if they encounter fentanyl.” The shot “pairs a fentanyl-like compound with a deactivated diphtheria protein that kicks the immune system into high gear,” said The Tech Buzz.

ARMR Sciences is launching a human trial of its vaccine in the Netherlands next year. The study, using 40 healthy adults, will be conducted in two phases. In the first, volunteers will “receive a series of two shots in varying doses, and researchers will measure their blood antibody levels,” said Wired. In the second, a “small group of participants will receive a medical dose of fentanyl so that investigators can study how well the vaccine blocks its effects.”

An effective vaccine, even if made available in time, will not end the opioid epidemic by itself. But it could save some lives. “What we are trying to do is put some innovation and newfound technology behind this problem,” Collin Gage, the co-founder and CEO of ARMR Sciences, said to Wired. “I think we are in desperate need of it.”

On this day

December 16, 1773

The Sons of Liberty tossed some 340 chests of tea into Boston Harbor in protest against British taxation — an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. The Revolutionary War began less than two years later, and the Boston Tea Party remains an iconic moment in U.S. and Boston history.

TODAY’S newspaperS

‘MAGA figures warn Trump’

“Officials renew hunt for suspect in Brown attack” after “Wisconsin man freed,” The New York Times says on Tuesday’s front page. “Focus shifts to surveillance cameras,” The Boston Globe says.“Rob Reiner’s son arrested in parents’ deaths,” the Los Angeles Times says. “MAGA is bringing back the ‘R-word,’” despite “bipartisan offense taken by term deemed a slur,” USA Today says. “MAGA figures warn Trump the base is checking out,” says The Washington Post. “Ford takes costly hit on EVs, will shift lineup,” The Wall Street Journal says. “As gang rapes surge in Haiti, aid groups strain under demand for services,” says the Miami Herald.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

Cold brew

Buffalo Bills fans can enjoy a taste of the original Highmark Stadium by pouring a glass of Blizzard Brew, a limited-edition beer made of snow collected from the facility. The Bills and Bud Light partnered on the lager, which they said celebrates the “great lengths” Bills fans go to shovel snow out of the stadium before home games. This is the final season the Bills will play at Highmark Stadium, as the team is moving to a new arena, also called Highmark Stadium, in 2026.

Morning Report was written and edited by Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Rafi Schwartz, Peter Weber and Kari Wilkin, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.