An unnamed source told the New York Times the Reiners’ daughter, Romy, had discovered only her father’s body, and disputed reports the couple argued with their son, Nick, at a party the previous evening

New details have emerged about the deaths of film director Rob Reiner and photographer Michele Singer Reiner, whose bodies were discovered at their home in Brentwood, Los Angeles, on Sunday.

A report in the New York Times, quoting a “person close to the family” who remained anonymous, says that a massage therapist arriving for an appointment first raised the alarm after not being able to gain access for an appointment on Sunday. The therapist contacted their daughter Romy Reiner, who lives nearby, who entered the house and found Rob Reiner’s body. The Times said that Romy “fled the house in anguish” without realising that her mother’s body was also inside, and that her roommate, who had accompanied her, called 911. Emergency responders then discovered Michele Singer Reiner’s body.

The dismissal of a a renowned health leader who refused to ignore Palestine highlights false claims of universality in human rights, global health and academia

Last Tuesday afternoon, Dean Andrea Baccarelli at the Harvard School of Public Health sent out a brief message announcing that one of the country’s most experienced and accomplished public health leaders, Dr Mary T Bassett, would “step down” as director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights. The email struck a polite, bureaucratic tone, thanking her for her service and offering an upbeat rationale for a new “focus on children’s health”.

It omitted the fact that, according to a Harvard Crimson source, Bassett had been asked to resign just two hours earlier and instructed to vacate her office by the end of the year. The decision was not a routine administrative transition. It was the culmination of a year of escalating pressure on the Center for Health and Human Rights for its work on the health and human rights of Palestinians. Powerful figures inside and outside Harvard, including the former Harvard president and now thoroughly disgraced economist Larry Summers, condemned this work and claimed it “foments antisemitism”. A leading public health scholar whose career has been defined by work on racial justice, poverty, HIV, and global inequality appears to have been removed not because her commitments shifted, but because the political costs of applying those commitments to Palestinians became too great for Harvard to tolerate.

The legal action has made news and it will do damage. A potential disaster for the corporation and the UK, but a good day’s work for this president

Love Actually may be a terrible movie, but it provides one speech that’s hard not to wish into reality this Christmas. Keir Starmer, the actual, nonfictional UK prime minister, needs to channel the one played by Hugh Grant – and stand up to an absurd US president now bullying the BBC with a $10bn lawsuit.

Just imagine for one moment that Starmer decided to make Donald Trump’s claim against the BBC the final straw for a special relationship that is increasingly special only in a bad way. That would not be outlandish, for not only has Trump taken aim against a British broadcaster, but earlier this week it seemed that his promise of an AI “prosperity deal” (bought, let’s not forget, with gurning invites to Windsor Castle) is set to evaporate. As the fictional Love Actually PM once said: “A friend who bullies us is no longer a friend … Since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward I will be prepared to be much stronger.”

Jane Martinson is professor of financial journalism at City St George’s and a member of the board of the Scott Trust, which owns the Guardian Media Group. She writes in a personal capacity

Ultra-conservative Christian organisations look to reshape global health landscape as new aid agreements open door to demands restricting family planning services

The sudden stop work order on USAID in January 2025 sent shock waves around the world. Many health clinics were immediately shut down, leaving millions without access to vital medicines and facilities, with potentially deadly consequences, especially for HIV patients, children, and women and adolescent girls.

To many, the subsequent axing of 83% of USAID programmes seemed like pure nihilism, engineered by ideologues who wanted to kill off the agency. But there was a long-term vision behind the destruction. The gutting of USAID has cleared a path for the next phase of a plan to reshape the global health landscape, say reproductive justice campaigners.

Nuno FG Loureiro, 47, was shot multiple times at his home, and no details about a suspect or motive have been released

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) community is grieving after the “shocking” shooting death of the director of its plasma science and fusion center, according to officials.

Nuno FG Loureiro, 47, had been shot multiple times at his home in Brookline on Monday night when police said they received a call to investigate. Emergency responders brought Loureiro to a hospital, and the award-winning scientist was pronounced dead there Tuesday morning, the Norfolk county district attorney’s office said in a statement.

The Russian strategy of exporting chaos to provoke extremism only works if liberals succumb to cynicism and despair

I once spent an exasperating week showing a Russian friend around London. He insisted on seeing everything and admiring nothing. Museums, monuments, shops – all compared unfavourably with St Petersburg and Moscow. This got tiresome after a few days, so I asked my friend if there was anything at all about Britain that impressed him. “The stability,” he said without hesitation. “You can feel the stability.”

That was a different world; the late 1990s. I don’t remember the year, but I remember knowing what my friend was talking about because I had felt the same culture shock in reverse when first visiting Russia.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

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Growth in the US economy – and the president’s political survival – rest on AI. The EU must use its leverage and stand up to him

The unthinkable has happened. The US is Europe’s adversary. The stark, profound betrayal contained in the Trump administration’s national security strategy should stop any further denial and dithering in Europe’s capitals. Cultivating “resistance Europe’s current trajectory in European nations” is now Washington’s stated policy.

But contained within this calamity is the gift of clarity. Europe will fight or it will perish. The good news is that Europe holds strong cards.

Johnny Ryan is director of Enforce, a unit of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties

In a joint statement with other close friends, including Albert Brooks and Martin Short, the comedians pay tribute to the Reiners after their deaths

US comedy luminaries Billy Crystal, Larry David, Martin Short and Albert Brooks have come together to remember their friend and peer Rob Reiner, hours after the director’s son was charged with the murder of his parents.

Nick Reiner, 32, has been in custody since Sunday evening, hours after his sister, Romy, reportedly discovered the bodies of Rob and Michele Reiner in their Los Angeles home. Police said the couple had suffered fatal stab wounds.

Giuffre’s family calls the success of her posthumous memoir, Nobody's Girl, ‘bittersweet’ after her death in April

A posthumous memoir by one of Jeffrey Epstein’s best-known accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has sold 1m copies worldwide in just the two months after its release.

Publisher Alfred A Knopf announced on Tuesday that more than half the sales for Nobody’s Girl came out of North America; in the US, the book is now in its 10th printing after an initial run of 70,000 copies. Giuffre’s book, co-written by author-journalist Amy Wallace, was published in early October.

Development is latest in case in which carmaker accused of falsely marketing and overstating self-driving capabilities

A California regulator has put on hold an order to suspend Tesla sales in the state, the latest development in a case in which it accused the electric vehicle maker of falsely marketing and overstating self-driving capabilities.

The decision grants a reprieve to Tesla in a case that could force it to halt sales in its biggest US market.

Move comes amid escalating campaign against Maduro as Venezuelan government condemns ‘grotesque threat’

Donald Trump has ordered “a total and complete” blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, ramping up pressure on the country’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro.

The move comes amid an escalating campaign by the Trump administration against Maduro that has included a ramped-up military presence in the region and more than two dozen military strikes on vessels in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea near Venezuela, which have killed dozens of people.

Nick Reiner, 32, charged after Rob Reiner and wife Michele Singer Reiner found dead at Los Angeles home on Sunday

Nick Reiner has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the killing of his parents, the acclaimed actor and director Rob Reiner and the photographer Michele Singer Reiner, authorities announced on Tuesday.

The 32-year-old, who is being held without bail, has been in custody since Sunday evening, hours after his sister reportedly discovered the couple’s bodies in their Los Angeles home. Police said on Sunday the couple had suffered fatal stab wounds.

Keir Starmer’s office claims UK still in ‘active conversations’ about deal for tech industries in both countries to cooperate

Downing Street insists the $40bn Tech Prosperity Deal between the US and UK that is on hold is not permanently stalled. The BBC reported on Tuesday evening that the prime minister’s office claimed that the UK remains in “active conversations with US counterparts at all levels of government” about the wide-ranging deal for the technology industries in both countries to cooperate.

The agreement, previously billed as historic, was paused after the US accused the UK of failing to lower trade barriers, including a digital services tax on US tech companies and food safety rules that limit the export of some agricultural products. The New York Times first reported British confirmation that negotiations had stalled.

Mark Chavez given eight months of home confinement and three years of supervised release after star’s overdose death

A doctor who pleaded guilty in a scheme to supply ketamine to the actor Matthew Perry before his overdose death has been sentenced to eight months of home confinement.

Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett handed down the sentence that included three years of supervised release to 55-year-old Dr Mark Chavez in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles.

Corporation will argue it did not have rights to air film in US and it did not cause serious reputational harm

The BBC is preparing to argue Donald Trump’s $10bn court case against it should be dismissed, arguing it has no case to answer over the US president’s claims he was defamed by an episode of Panorama.

The development comes after Trump filed a 33-page complaint to a Florida court on Monday, accusing the broadcaster of “a false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory and malicious depiction” of the president in the documentary.

Annual UCLA study finds declines in cultural diversity behind and in front of the camera since last year

Popular scripted series on streaming services showed a marked decrease in cultural diversity both behind and in front of the camera last year as Hollywood inclusion programs waned, a new study from the University of California at Los Angeles concluded.

The latest edition of the school’s Hollywood Diversity report, published Tuesday, found that of the top 250 most-viewed current and library scripted series in 2024, more than 91.7% were created by a white person, with white men accounting for 79% of all show creators – both increases from last year. Diversity also slipped for performers, with white actors cast in 80% of all roles.

Development abandoned after Serbian minister indicted over $500m project, in setback for Trump family empire

Serbia’s authoritarian ruler has threatened reprisals after protesters and a prosecutor thwarted plans for a Trump Tower in Belgrade.

In a rare setback for the Trump family’s global moneymaking campaign, the $500m development was abandoned after Monday’s indictment of a Serbian minister on suspicion of abusing his office to support the project.

LA district attorney says charges could carry the death penalty, after Nick Reiner arrested in murder of his parents

• What do we know about Rob Reiner’s son Nick?

Nick Reiner will be charged with two counts of first-degree murder, after he was arrested on suspicion of murdering his parents, the director and actor Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, the Los Angeles district attorney has said.

Nathan Hochman, the district attorney of Los Angeles, said the charges could carry the death penalty, and said that the counts against Nick Reiner include a special circumstance of multiple murders and a special allegation that he used a deadly weapon or knife to commit murder.