Topline:
The Jackie and Shadow live stream is facing a common issue among content creators: fakes.
Backstory: Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that operates the nest cam, started noticing fake social accounts a few years ago. But the knock-offs have exploded this year, after the eaglet hatchings.
Read on… for what options the nonprofit has to combat the fake accounts.
Imitation, it's often said, is the sincerest form of flattery.
But in the case of the internet's favorite bald eagles, Jackie and Shadow, that has meant an explosion of fake social media accounts that have nothing to do with the official Big Bear Valley nonprofit behind the nest cam on YouTube.
Sandy Steers, executive director of Friends of Big Bear Valley, said fans started noticing copycat accounts on Instagram and Facebook a few years ago.
But as eaglets have emerged and endured (or not, in the case of one unfortunate chick) snow and wind, the imitators’ presence has grown.
According to the nonprofit, some 2.5 million unique visitors checked out the official Friends of Big Bear Valley website in the last 30 days. Their Instagram, launched in late 2024, has more than 80,000 followers. As for the live YouTube nest cam — that's at 588,000 subscribers and counting.
"Just this year is when everything started multiplying like crazy," said Steers, adding that the group has been filing takedown requests with social platforms when they spot imitators. "We're still working on a lot more. It's like they're popping up faster than we can keep a handle on it at this point."
Steers said there are knockoff accounts selling merchandise for a profit — and in some cases falsely claiming that the proceeds will go to the Friends of Big Bear Valley. And in others, they’re making up stories about the bald eagle family to gin up more clicks.
The Big Bear nonprofit that has made the parenting saga of Jackie and Shadow a must-watch stream is experiencing something that many successful content producers have had to grapple with — how to protect their content from exploitation.
Kristina Mitri is the vice president of social media and email marketing at Studio 3, an agency specializing in internet marketing with offices in Los Angeles and other cities.
Mitri said fake accounts is commonplace in the social media space. One tip for creators is to watermark or put an official logo over their content to prevent exploitation.
And once a copycat is identified, to let their fans and followers know. Finally, Mitri says to consider seeking legal counsel for protection.
"Social is ever evolving," Mitri said. "There's a lot of unknowns and so it's important to realize that each case is unique and to set a precedent. It could help others in this space going forward."
Given all the time and resources spent on the issue of fake accounts, Steers said the group is indeed looking into their legal recourse.
"That's taking away from our funds, taking away from our time that we could be helping other people to understand the eagles," Steers said.
With the live nest cam, the case of infringement might be hard to make, according to copyright expert Justin Hughes.
Hughes, a law professor at Loyola Law School, said that there are two conditions for copyright laws.
First, it requires fixation — meaning a work claiming copyright protection needs to be in a permanent or a semi-permanent form. Think a photograph or a painting.
"The phrase we use is 'fixed in a tangible medium of expression,'" Hughes said. " So a livestream by itself by definition is not subject to copyright."
But that condition could be met if the livestream is recorded — even if the recording is not made available to the public.
Now onto the second condition: human creativity.
"Copyright protects what we call original expression," Hughes said, citing Supreme Court precedents, "that shows a modicum of creativity."
In the court of law, the live eagles cam would unlikely be considered a work of "human original expression."
"Nothing that happens in the frame, nothing the birds do...it's not original expression," he said.
One possible argument, Hughes said, could be made over the angle or placement of the camera — but not if it's random or arbitrary.
"That there are unscrupulous people taking their video feed doesn't surprise me, and it saddens me," Hughes said. But "copyright is not going to give them much help.
Eleanor Musick, an attorney in San Diego who specializes in intellectual property law and who is representing the nonprofit, offers a different conclusion based on the inner workings of the nest cam.
The livestream is indeed recorded, she said. In addition, the two cameras capturing footage are controlled by someone at all time, Musick said, "who chooses when to zoom, when to pan, when to incorporate sound from a microphone on a separate camera and when to activate infrared lighting."
Such actions, she said, fits the definition of "original" expression.
Despite the prevalence and popularity of this type of content, Musick said, it's uncharted territory where the nonprofit has found itself in.
"I am aware of no court decisions to date regarding the copyrightability of trail camera or surveillance camera videos," Musick said.
As Friends of Big Bear Valley navigates these new terrains, Steers reminds new and longtime fans to keep an eye out.
"Anything that they see, you know, if they can just make a point of seeing what really is from Friends of Big Bear Valley and what is authenticated by us," Steers said.
Topline:
California has funded immigrant legal defense against deportation for a decade. Now, more cities and counties are kicking in money, too.
In L.A.: Los Angeles became one of the cities to set up funds for immigrants to use against deportation soon after Trump’s first inauguration in 2017. It was the start of a $10 million public-private fund launched by former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. The Los Angeles Justice Fund, which was expanded in 2022 to create RepresentLA, is an ongoing investment by the city, county and philanthropic organizations.
What's happening now: San Francisco and Alameda County are among the latest to designate additional money for immigrants to defend themselves against deportation.
Read on... for more about why these counties are funding immigrant legal defense.
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
With the Trump administration escalating immigration enforcement, a number of California municipal and county governments are setting aside public money to help immigrants and rapid response networks build legal defenses.
San Francisco and Alameda County are among the latest to designate additional money for immigrants to defend themselves against deportation. In October, when President Donald Trump threatened to increase Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Bay Area, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors beefed up its defense fund by a unanimous vote with $3.5 million. In March, Alameda County doubled the fund it had started with $3.5 million.
Richmond, Los Angeles and Santa Clara County also have established immigration defense funds. And Bay Area cities have joined forces to create Stand Together Bay Area Fund, a legal resource completely funded by philanthropy.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Susan Ellenberg said it’s in the county’s best interest to protect immigrants, who make up 40% of its population.
“ We have a direct nexus and concern to people who are working, living, raising families, paying taxes, participating in our community and keeping our economy and our social fabric strong,” Ellenberg said. “ So our local dollars are being spent to protect local interests.”
Caitlin Patler, associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Goldman School of Public Policy, said the funds are necessary, given the large immigrant population in the United States and the punitive nature of immigration courts.
“I don't think that anyone should be representing themselves in any courtroom when the government comes with an attorney every time,” she said.
Unlike criminal cases, deportation proceedings are in civil court, which means those defending themselves against the federal government do not have a right to a court-appointed lawyer free of charge. But the cases have an enormous impact on people’s lives.
“Immigration judges have said these cases are like adjudicating life sentences in a traffic court setting,” Patler said.
Local government investments in defense funds for immigrants are not new, and they precede the Trump era.
In 2013, New York City became the first major city to implement a pilot legal defense fund for immigrants, after the Obama administration ramped up enforcement. San Francisco launched a similar program the following year.
A 2014 study by the Northern California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice found that immigrants represented by a lawyer from a number of Bay Area nonprofits won 83% of their removal hearings, substantially higher than those who had no representation. But two-thirds of detained immigrants didn’t have any access to legal counsel.
California established an Immigrant Assistance Program in 2015, shortly after the Obama administration expanded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, enabling more immigrants who came to the U.S. undocumented as children to legally live and work. Known as “One California,” the $45 million fund supports nonprofits that serve immigrants including with legal help. The program prohibits funds to be used for those convicted of a serious felony.
The fund is part of the annual budget year after year, although debates have emerged on whether the funds can be used by immigrants with felony convictions. Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a budget bill that some immigrant advocates criticized as too restrictive because it appeared to expand the number of felony offenses that exclude someone from state-supported legal support. Newsom’s stance aligned with Republicans who wanted to tighten access to the fund.
While immigrant defense funds started more than a decade ago, the trend picked up in late 2016, after Trump’s first election. That year, Trump campaigned on toughening border enforcement and discouraging immigration throughout the country.
Los Angeles soon after Trump’s inauguration in 2017 became one of the cities to set up funds for immigrants to use against deportation.
It was the start of a $10 million public-private fund launched by former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. The Los Angeles Justice Fund, which was expanded in 2022 to create RepresentLA, is an ongoing investment by the city, county and philanthropic organizations.
A month before Trump’s second presidency, Santa Clara County allocated $5 million to support response activities related to Trump’s targeting of immigrants. Since then, it has increased that allocation to $13 million.
Santa Clara’s fund is more expansive than most others, Ellenberg said, supporting an array of immigration resource organizations including the Rapid Response Network, as well as legal defense, outreach, education and prevention efforts.
In September, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stood at a news conference with the mayors of Oakland and San Jose to announce the Stand Together Bay Area Fund, with a goal of raising $10 million to support immigrant families impacted by detentions and deportations. The cities have not allocated any public dollars to this fund, which is being managed by the nonprofit San Francisco Foundation.
“ My understanding is that their role is to support fundraising,” said Rachel Benditt, the foundation’s spokesperson. “I do not believe that they will be donating money from the city budgets.”
In a news release about the fund, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee said it will pool resources from individuals, corporations, the faith community, and philanthropic partners to support nonprofit groups working with immigrant communities.
Three Alameda County supervisors are using some taxpayer money to support the effort. It will come from the so-called discretionary budgets they receive to support activities in their districts. Supervisor Nikki Fortnato Bas said she will donate $50,000 to the cause.
“These dollars are one piece of a much larger fight,” she said in a news release. “A fight for dignity, for rights, and for the future of our democracy.”
This story is part of “The Stakes,” a UC Berkeley Journalism project on executive orders and actions affecting Californians and their communities.
Topline:
The California Democratic Party is betting that a tried-and-true playbook and standard-bearer candidates offer their best chance to take back the U.S. House in November’s midterms rather than fresh faces and more populist policy planks.
Why it matters: The country’s largest state Democratic party endorsed a slate of aging congressional incumbents at its convention in San Francisco after a weekend that illustrated the high stakes in this year’s midterms. In congressional districts without an incumbent, the party gave the nod to a handful of current state lawmakers who, while younger, are party insiders compared to the grassroots political outsiders who are running as Democrats in contested races.
Why now: In their own defense, time-tested incumbents argue that now is not the time to bring in an entirely new class of lawmakers as House Democrats try to reign in a rogue second Trump administration.
Read on... for what this means for the midterm elections.
The California Democratic Party is betting that a tried-and-true playbook and standard-bearer candidates offer their best chance to take back the U.S. House in November’s midterms rather than fresh faces and more populist policy planks.
The country’s largest state Democratic party endorsed a slate of aging congressional incumbents at its convention in San Francisco after a weekend that illustrated the high stakes in this year’s midterms. In congressional districts without an incumbent, the party gave the nod to a handful of current state lawmakers who, while younger, are party insiders compared to the grassroots political outsiders who are running as Democrats in contested races.
Among the incumbents who sailed to endorsements were Rep. Mike Thompson of St. Helena, 74, who’s running for his 15th term, and Rep. Brad Sherman of the San Fernando Valley, 71, seeking a 16th term.
In the open race to succeed the late Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa, who represented the state’s rural north for more than 13 years, state Sen. Mike McGuire overwhelmingly won the party’s endorsement despite an internal spat with party leadership that almost forced a vote of the entire convention floor.
The outcome, while not surprising, disappointed several grassroots political outsiders who sought to give their party a facelift and push beyond the anti-Trump rhetoric that its leaders have relied on since President Donald Trump was first elected in 2016.
“This weekend just reaffirmed why we need to push the Democratic Party for new leadership. It also reaffirmed to me why people are leaving the Democratic Party,” said Mai Vang, a progressive Sacramento city councilmember.
Vang is the first elected official to challenge Rep. Doris Matsui in the 20 years since she took over her late husband’s Sacramento-area seat in the 7th Congressional District. Matsui, 81, ultimately won the endorsement despite a challenge from Vang. She argued the endorsement caucus had unfairly allowed Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who was not a delegate for the 7th District, to give a speech in support of Matsui, a 10-term incumbent.
Jake Levine, a former Biden White House aide who’s running against Sherman, argued that Democrats can’t keep beating the same anti-GOP, anti-Trump drum without also outlining a clear vision for addressing young voters’ anxieties on issues like the high cost of housing and a scarcity of good-paying jobs.
“Yes, we need to flip the House, but we also need to put a new generation of leaders in the House when we take it over,” Levine said. “In order to sustain a party that can keep winning for many more years, we need a new message. And the people who have gotten us to where we are today are still stuck in the politics of yesterday.”
The weekend also served as a swan song for Pelosi, the San Francisco political titan and first woman speaker who announced last year that she would retire after her current term. Pelosi was repeatedly lauded for cultivating generations of elected officials, including Sen. Adam Schiff. His uncharacteristically fiery and profanity-laden speech on the convention floor spoke to the pent-up anger and frustration with the Trump administration that has turned even the party’s mellower figures into all-out fighters.
Schiff bellowed from the stage that the massive turnout for Proposition 50, which redrew congressional districts to favor Democrats, sent a resounding message to the Trump administration: “When you poke the bear, the bear rips your f—ing head off!”
In their own defense, time-tested incumbents argue that now is not the time to bring in an entirely new class of lawmakers as House Democrats try to reign in a rogue second Trump administration.
“This is not the time to wimp out,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, chair of California’s Democratic congressional caucus and a close friend and supporter of Matsui. “We need people who know what the heck they’re doing. And she does.”
Still, Levine and others lamented that recently, the party has mostly paid lip service to uplifting the next generation of leaders rather than actually giving younger voters a voice in elected office. Failing to tailor the party’s message to younger voters and instead doubling down on the party’s historic deference to seniority, he argued, will continue to drive voters away.
One potential bright spot for progressives and the anti-establishment wing of the party was in the endorsement race for the 22nd Congressional District, a Central Valley seat that Democrats hope to flip from moderate Republican Rep. David Valadao.
Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, a physician and political moderate from Bakersfield, had been heralded as the Democratic frontrunner and boasted endorsements from the powerful Service Employees International Union of California, a labor group, and a swath of state and federal elected officials. But she still failed to capture the party endorsement after her Democratic opponent, Visalia educator and college professor Randy Villegas, built a groundswell of support and also raised more than her last quarter. The party did not endorse a candidate in the race.
Villegas said several delegates told his campaign they wanted to support him, but “there's been intimidation, outright coercion,” by Bains’ camp.
Bains, through a spokesperson, denied that she or any of her supporters coerced or intimidated any delegates into voting for her.
Jeanne Kuang and Juliet Williams contributed reporting.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
Topline:
California wants to slash greenhouse gases by electrifying homes and installing six million heat pumps by 2030. Lawmakers are pushing new policies to speed adoption. But some of the nation’s highest electricity rates stand in the way.
Why it matters: Though the state’s temperate coast is ideal for heat pump adoption, high residential electricity prices can make swapping a gas furnace for a heat pump a pricey proposition. That’s especially true in counties where homes tend to be larger, winters are colder or electricity is costly.
Bills: This year state lawmakers are considering bills to speed up the local permitting process for heat pumps and to require gas utilities to offer homeowners cash to electrify their homes in lieu of replacing an old gas line.
Read on... for more on how high power bills might get in the way of California meeting it's goal.
If you’re a California homeowner and you’ve been feeling chilly this winter, there are plenty of reasons to go get a heat pump.
An all-electric, energy-efficient alternative to gas-burning furnaces, heat pumps are widely seen as the climate-friendly home heater of choice.
They can do double-duty as both home heaters and AC-units and are pretty good at maintaining a constant temperature inside a home without the blast-then-cool-off cycle typical of a furnace.
What about a guaranteed lower monthly utility bill? Not in California.
Call it California’s heat pump conundrum.
On the one hand, California has hyperambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to curb the worst effects of a changing climate. Most experts see the electrification of buildings — swapping furnaces, water heaters, stoves and ovens that run on burning fossil fuel with appliances plugged into California’s increasingly green electrical grid — as a necessary step toward meeting those goals.
California has built one of the most aggressive heat pump strategies in the country. The state aims to install six million heat pumps in homes by 2030. Lawmakers are also moving this year to boost heat pump adoption – proposing to streamline permitting, and make it easier to electrify homes.
On the other hand, California’s residential electricity prices are among the highest in the country — expensive even compared to its also pricey natural gas. That makes heat pumps a tough sell to many Californians.
A new Harvard University study maps exactly where that reality bites – and tries to explain why some places are more heat-pump friendly than others.
The public is “overwhelmed with these sorts of plans now for decarbonization: ‘This by 2030,’ ‘this by 2050,’” said Roxana Shafiee, an environmental science policy researcher at Harvard University. “But then you scratch the surface a bit more and you look at things like electricity prices.”
Reaching those goals amid such high prices is a tough circle to square, said Shafiee.
By looking at residential energy costs, usage and winter temperatures in every county in the United States, Shafiee and Harvard environmental science professor Daniel Schrag found in a recent paper that typical households living across the American South and the Pacific Northwest would likely see lower utility bills by making the switch to a heat pump.
Average homes in northern midwestern states, in contrast, would see their bills increase. That’s partly because heat pumps work by extracting heat from outdoor air, compressing it, and piping it indoors, a thermal magic trick that’s harder to perform in places with subzero winters. It’s also thanks to the region’s relatively cheap gas.
Then there’s California: A surprisingly mixed bag.
Though the state’s temperate coast is ideal for heat pump adoption, high residential electricity prices can make swapping a gas furnace for a heat pump a pricey proposition. That’s especially true in counties where homes tend to be larger, winters are colder or electricity is costly. .
Quentin Gee, a manager at the California Energy Commission, said the advantage of heat pumps comes down to thermodynamics. Unlike a gas furnace, which burns fuel to create heat, a heat pump compresses and expands a refrigerant, like a refrigerator in reverse. That moves heat from outside into a home — allowing it to deliver several units of heat for every unit of electricity it uses.
Even in PG&E territory, where electricity rates may be some of the highest in the U.S., Gee said that efficiency can allow heat pumps to compete with — and in some cases beat — gas on operating costs, depending on local rates and home characteristics.
In lower-cost municipal utility regions such as Sacramento’s SMUD, he said heat pumps can be a clear financial win.
“Gas prices have also gone up over time as well — so both are tricky when it comes to heat pumps versus, say, a gas furnace,” Gee said.
Between 2001 and 2024, average retail gas prices have gone up by 80% in California, according to federal data. Retail electricity rates, padded out with wildfire prevention costs and state-manded social programs, have increased by twice as much.
Even in parts of California where the average home isn’t likely to save with a heat pump, there are plenty of exceptions. Smaller, well-insulated homes can often stay warm with minimal output from a heat pump.
For some homeowners, solar panels have helped bridge the gap. Doug King, a green building consultant in San Jose, installed his first heat pump in 2021 alongside a new rooftop solar system; those panels more or less covered the monthly cost of running the heat pump. A second unit installed last year has pushed his bills higher. "But that's fine, I don't mind," he said. "I was willing to pay a bit of a premium for using electricity over gas anyway."
Homes that already use old-fashioned electrical baseboard or space heaters are guaranteed to save on monthly costs by switching since that entails swapping an inefficient electrical heating system that uses a ton of energy (“basically like heating your home with a toaster,” said Shafiee) for heat pumps that use up to 60% less.
But for all of California’s reputation as a climate champion, most of its homes don’t rely on electric heat. Nearly two-thirds use natural gas, well above the national average of 51%.
That isn’t surprising, said Lucas Davis, a UC Berkeley energy economist.
Looking at 70 years of home heating data across the country, Davis’ research has found that the best predictor of whether a household uses electricity to stay cozy in the winter is the price of energy.
“To this day, where do we see that electric heating is the most common? Throughout the southeast,” said Davis. “What do we know about the southeast? Cheap electricity.”
The consequences of costly electricity extend well beyond any individual household’s ambitions for a heat pump or its utility bill. Using fossil fuels to heat up water, warm indoor air and cook food inside homes and businesses was responsible for 13% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2022, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Gas-powered cars and trucks used for private use make up another 16%.
Heat pumps are a 19th century invention and started popping up regularly in American homes in the 1960s, but you would be forgiven for thinking they’re a new technology.
Spurred on by concerns over climate change and policies meant to address it, heat pumps have outsold gas furnaces each year since 2021, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute, a clean-energy research nonprofit. Demand saw a particularly sharp spike after 2022 thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden-era law that threw rebates and tax credits at homeowners.
Installation costs can reach into the tens of thousands of dollars, which is why most federal and state policies promoting heat pump adoption have focused on defraying them. In California, the push runs through multiple agencies:
This year state lawmakers are considering bills to speed up the local permitting process for heat pumps and to require gas utilities to offer homeowners cash to electrify their homes in lieu of replacing an old gas line.
Even as the federal supports subsided with President Trump’s return to the White House, installation costs are “pretty competitively priced with traditional units, especially since in most cases, you are installing two appliances for the price of one,” said Madison Vander Klay, a California policy advocate for the Building Decarbonization Coalition, a national nonprofit which represents appliance manufacturers and utilities.
That may not be the case for all homeowners.
Many homes need new wiring, larger breakers or a full panel replacement, and some require upgrades to the service connection to the grid, said Matthew Freedman of The Utility Reform Network. Costs rise quickly when homeowners electrify more than just heating, he said.
Customers often underestimate how complex and costly that electrical work can be, he said, another uncertainty on top of the potential for long-term rate savings.
Installation costs aside, month-to-month electricity costs remain an obstacle.
Last year, the Legislative Analyst’s Office released a report warning that California’s residential electricity rates are among the highest in the country — nearly double the national average — and rising much faster than inflation.
The report, authored by LAO analyst Helen Kerstein, cautioned that those high rates could undermine the state’s climate strategy by discouraging households from switching to electric cars and appliances like heat pumps from gas-powered ones.
“If I'm a consumer, I'm going to be thinking about — not just, ‘is this good for the environment?’ That's certainly one consideration, but also, ‘is this something I can afford?” Kerstein said. “Unless folks are saving money on the operating cost, it often doesn't pencil out.”
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
Topline:
Nick Reiner, the son of Hollywood legend Rob Reiner, pleaded not guilty Monday to murder charges stemming from the deaths of his parents in their Brentwood home.
Why it matters: Reiner, if convicted, faces a maximum sentence of life without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.
It's not yet clear whether the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office will seek the death penalty in this case.
The backstory: Rob Reiner, 78, and Michele Singer Reiner, 70, were found dead in their bedroom Dec. 14 from what the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office described as multiple sharp force injuries. Nick Reiner was arrested the same day near the University of Southern California, according to police.
Go deeper ... this story will be updated as more details from the arraignment emerge.
Nick Reiner, the son of Hollywood legend Rob Reiner, pleaded not guilty Monday to murder charges stemming from the deaths of his parents in their Brentwood home.
Reiner, 32, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and special-circumstance allegations — multiple murders and use of a deadly weapon — that make him eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted.
Reiner is being held without bail.
Deputy Public Defender Kimberly Greene is representing him after high profile defense attorney Alan Jackson abruptly dropped out of the case in January, citing circumstances beyond his control.
It's not yet clear whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty in Reiner's case or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman has not yet announced a decision, but has said he will consider input from the Reiner family on the issue.
“We take the process in which the death penalty should be sought extremely seriously,” Hochman said after the arraignment. “It goes through a very rigorous process.”
It is common for prosecutors to weigh information from many sources before making a decision about whether to pursue capital punishment.
“We will be looking at all aggravating and mitigating circumstances and we have invited defense counsel to present to us both in writing and orally in a meeting any arguments they would like to make in consideration of going forward or not going forward with the death penalty,” Hochman said.
Rob Reiner, 78, and Michele Singer Reiner, 70, were found dead in their bedroom Dec. 14 from what the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office described as multiple sharp-force injuries.
Nick Reiner was arrested the same day near the University of Southern California, according to police.
Authorities have not identified a possible motive.
Nick Reiner has been open about his struggles with addition, mental health and stays in rehabilitation centers. In 2015, he co-wrote a film about a family struggling with a child’s addiction, which his father directed.
At the time of the killings, Reiner was living in a guest house on his parent’s property.
Reiner's next Superior Court hearing is set for April 29.
