Good morning. Lots of violence today. The gunmen in the Bondi Beach shooting were motivated by ISIS, the Australian prime minister said. The suspects had recently traveled to the southern Philippines, where ISIS is still active. In Rhode Island, the police are still searching for the shooter in the killing of two students at Brown University. They have released new footage of a suspect. The police arrested the son of the director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, after they were found stabbed to death. Let’s start in Bondi Beach.
Gun controlAustralia vowed yesterday to enact even stricter gun laws as it began mourning the victims of its worst mass shooting in almost 30 years. The police accused a father and a son of killing 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s famed Bondi Beach. The Australian response to mass shootings stands in contrast to America’s reaction. In Australia, consensus forms quickly. That’s one reason its rate of gun violence is so low. A different outlookAustralia’s approach first took shape after a deadly shootout between rival motorcycle gangs in New South Wales in 1984. In response, Parliament required that anyone applying for a firearm license have a “good reason” for requesting one. But the nation’s most aggressive move against guns came after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, when a gunman attacked a tourist town in the state of Tasmania, killing 35 people. It was the deadliest attack in modern Australian history. It took the government just 12 days to ban semiautomatic weapons, to start a mandatory buyback program that took a fifth of firearms from public circulation and to introduce licenses that would stop people considered unfit from buying weapons. As a result, Australia has one of the lowest gun homicide rates per capita in the world. Other restrictions followed. In 2002, after a student killed two peers at Monash University in Victoria with pistols he’d gotten as a member of a shooting club, the government introduced the National Handgun Agreement, which led to mandatory buybacks for semiautomatic and large-caliber handguns. In 2014, after a gunman held customers and employees of a cafe in Sydney hostage with an illegal shotgun, the premier of New South Wales announced a tightening of laws governing their possession. The coming clampdownStill, the number of guns held legally in Australia has risen steadily for more than two decades. At four million guns, it now exceeds the number before the 1996 crackdown, according to the Australia Institute. And despite tougher laws and stricter enforcement, the police say the older suspect in the Bondi Beach attack had held a firearm license since 2015, along with six legally registered weapons. If there were flags on him, they do not appear to have been red. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his cabinet had agreed to strengthen gun laws and work on a national firearm register. They’ll look at the number of weapons permitted by gun licenses and how long those permits remain valid. “People’s circumstances can change,” Albanese told reporters. “People can be radicalized over a period of time. Licenses should not be in perpetuity.” You can read the latest updates here. Now, let's see what else is happening in the world.
The police arrested Nick Reiner, the son of the director Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, on suspicion of murdering his parents. They were found stabbed to death in their Los Angeles home. Charges could come today. Follow the latest updates. The night before the Reiners were found, Rob and his son went to a holiday party hosted by Conan O’Brien. An attendee reported seeing them shouting at each other. Nick, 32, had struggled with drug addiction since he was a teenager and once estimated he had been in treatment 18 times. Rob Reiner’s career spanned decades and gave us some of the most memorable films of the late 20th century, including “When Harry Met Sally … ” and “The Princess Bride.” He was unusually active in politics, even for Hollywood, and was an outspoken critic of President Trump. Trump mocked the news of his death yesterday, writing on social media that Reiner had died “due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” His comments prompted a rare backlash from some MAGA-aligned Republicans. Late night hosts also discussed his comments. The Times’s critics wrote about Reiner’s career:
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A daytime superstar: Anthony Geary, the actor best known for portraying Luke Spencer on the popular soap opera “General Hospital,” has died at 78. In the early 1980s, when his character married Laura Webber (Genie Francis), it became the most-watched episode of a daytime drama in history. (I cut class to see it.) What gives you hope? Cynicism is spreading. As we head into 2026, we want to know what makes you think the future can improve. Tell us here. Your pick: The Morning’s most-clicked link yesterday was to a video of the bystander who tackled one of the Bondi Beach shooters.
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