THE LAUGHTER DIES: Beloved Hollywood actor-director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were found yesterday afternoon stabbed to death in their Brentwood, California home. He was 78, she was 68.

  No suspect has been named but the Los Angeles Times reports that a family member is being interviewed by the police. 

  Reiner was the son of the  pioneering television comedian, Carl Reiner. The younger Reiner became a popular sitcom actor starring in the long running series “All in the Family,” playing the liberal son-in-law referred to as “meathead” by Carroll O’Connor’s Archie Bunker. 

  Reiner went on to direct poplar movies himself including “This Is Spinal Tap,” “When Harry Met Sally …” and “The Princess Bride.” He became a force in both California and national Democratic politics, championing gay marriage and early childhood development programs.

  Reiner directed too many good movies to list here but among them are: “Stand by Me,” “A Few Good Men,” “Misery,” and “The American President.”

  Michele Reiner had been a photographer and producer. The pair met on the New York set of the romantic comedy “When Harry Met Sally …” and married in 1989.

  The Reiners had three adult children, sons Jake and Nick, and daughter Romy. Son Nick and his parents had long been open about his struggles with drug addiction. He told People magazine in a 2016 interview: “I was homeless in Maine. I was homeless in New Jersey. I was homeless in Texas. I spent nights on the street. I spent weeks on the street. It was not fun.” 

THE SHOOTING GALLERY: Fifteen people were killed yesterday in a shooting during a Jewish Holiday celebration at Sydney, Australia’s popular Bondi Beach. This came a day after a classroom shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island in which two students died.

  Antisemitic attacks in Australia are reported to be on the rise. Authorities say the Bondi Beach massacre was carried out by a 50-year-old man, who ended up getting killed, and his 24-year-old son. Australian Broadcasting identified them as Sajid Akram and his son, Naveed.

  At the Hanukkah celebration, children were playing as music and bubbles filled the air. A witness said that two gunmen came out of a car near a foot bridge and began shooting into the crowd. 

  Many minutes of video were taken of the incident. At one point a man is seen tackling one of the gunmen from behind and wresting away his rifle. But the gunman was able to walk away and rejoin the fight against the police.

  A lengthy video shot by a bystander shows the shooters later taking their stand against the police using the concrete rails of the bridge for cover. They had several guns. Eventually one of the gunmen is cut down, evidently dead, and minutes later the second drops, wounded, before the police close in.

  Australia has strict gun laws following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in which 35 people were killed. Police said the father in yesterday’s shooting was a member of a gun club with a license to own rifles.

  At Brown University in Providence the gunman opened fire inside an auditorium classroom around 4 pm during a final exam review for a Principles of Economics class. In addition to two killed, nine people were wounded.

  The university spent Saturday night on lockdown and all classes and final exams were cancelled for the remaining days of the semester.

  After detaining and releasing “a person of interest” in a Providence hotel, police say they are still looking for the shooter.   

THE WAR ROOM: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said before peace discussions in Germany yesterday that he would be willing to give up having his country join NATO in exchange for security guarantees. But he also said he would not be willing to cede any of Ukraine’s territory to Russia as President Trump outlined in the peace deal he put out for consideration.

  Zelensky told reporters, “In my view, the most important thing is that the plan be as fair as possible — first and foremost for Ukraine, because it was Russia that started this war.” 

THE BLUE TENT: Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes, a two time winner of the Super Bowl, left the field yesterday against the Los Angles Chargers with a season-ending tear in the anterior crucial ligament (ACL), a vital structural element of his left knee. The Chiefs lost 16-13, eliminating them from the playoffs for the first time since 2014 and possibly signaling the end of an empire.

THE SPIN RACK: Two US soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed Saturday in an ambush in Syria. Three others were wounded in what the Trump administration says was an attack carried out by a single ISIS gunman. President Trump vowed  “very serious retaliation.” — A Hong Kong court found media tycoon and pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai guilty of colluding with foreign governments to cause unrest and distribution of seditious materials. This puts a lid on free speech in Hong Kong as the 78-year-old Lai faces the possibility of the rest of his life in prison. “This verdict proves that the authorities still fear our father, even in his weakened state, for what he represents,” his daughter Claire said in a statement. “We stand by his innocence and condemn this miscarriage of justice.”

BELOW THE FOLD: Various news outlets report that with the high price of everything from food to gifts, socks are a popular Christmas gift this year although musicians have yet to write the song, “All I want for Christmas is Socks.”

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