The festival says goodbye to both founder Robert Redford and its longtime home of Park City, Utah, with a selection of provocative documentaries and starry new films

New films starring Charli xcx, Natalie Portman and Salman Rushdie will all receive their world premieres at next month’s Sundance film festival.

The festival will be held for the last time in Park City, Utah, before it moves to Boulder, Colorado, in 2027. Over the years, it has been home to the first screenings of films including Get Out, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Blair Witch Project, Past Lives, Napoleon Dynamite, Precious and Little Miss Sunshine.

A fin whale washed ashore in Anchorage and was left there for months. Then a self-described ‘wacko’ museum director made a plan

When a whale dies, its body descends to the bottom of the deep sea in a transformative phenomenon called a whale fall. A whale’s death jump-starts an explosion of life, enough to feed and sustain a deep-ocean ecosystem for decades.

There are a lot of ways whales can die. Migrating whales lose their way and, unable to find their way back from unfamiliar waters, are stranded. They can starve when prey disappears or fall to predators such as orcas. They become bycatch, tangled in fishing lines and nets. Mass whale deaths have been linked to marine heatwaves and the toxic algae blooms that follow.

There is no rule of law if the president can deem anyone an enemy combatant and order them summarily shot

The largely supine Republicans in Congress had no apparent trouble as Donald Trump and defense secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the killing of suspected drug runners off the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia. But suddenly they are up in arms because the Washington Post reported on 28 November about one incident, a double-tap strike, in which the US military finished off two survivors of an attack.

Tempted as I am to accept whatever it takes to spark some minimal scrutiny of these summary executions, I hope this unexpected opening prompts broader investigation of this entire series of murders, which have now claimed 87 victims in 22 attacks. As Democrats join in, there are some indications that this expanded scrutiny may be finally beginning.

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. His book, Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments, is published by Knopf and Allen Lane

Continent’s other nationalist parties wary of echoing sentiments of US president due to his unpopularity

Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has responded to US claims that Europe faces “civilisational erasure” by saying it backs efforts for a nationalist revival on the continent – but other nationalist parties in the EU are far more cautious.

“The AfD is fighting alongside its international friends for a conservative renaissance,” the party’s foreign policy spokesperson, Markus Frohnmaier, said on Wednesday, adding that he would meet Maga Republicans in Washington and New York this week.

Ro Khanna, California Democrat who was co-sponsor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, says judge’s decision ‘gives me hope we’re going to see transparency’

House speaker Mike Johnson said today that he has yet to see the video of the boat strike that has been the subject of intense scrutiny and accusations of war crimes.

The Republican speaker said he missed the classified briefing with Hegseth and Rubio this week because he was working with House GOP lawmakers on their emerging health care proposals.

Plan would apply to countries not currently required to get visas to the US, including Britain and France

Tourists to the United States would have to reveal their social media activity from the last five years, under new Trump administration plans.

The mandatory new disclosures would apply to the 42 countries whose nationals are currently permitted to enter the US without a visa, including longtime US allies Britain, France, Australia, Germany and Japan.

RootsAction report finds Harris courted moderates instead of working-class Democrats – and Gaza stance did not help

Kamala Harris lost last year’s US presidential election because she chased the wrong voters with the wrong message, ultimately demobilising the very base that she needed to win, according to an autopsy by a progressive grassroots advocacy group.

The vice-president focused on courting moderate Republicans over motivating core Democratic working-class, young and progressive voters, a misstep compounded by her failure to break from Joe Biden on Gaza, says the report by RootsAction.

Daughter delivers speech, with Nobel Institute saying María Corina Machado still expected in Oslo after journey of ‘extreme danger’

Venezuela’s most prominent opposition leader, María Corina Machado, has vowed to continue her struggle to free the country from years of “obscene corruption”, “brutal dictatorship” and “despair” as she was awarded the Nobel peace prize at a ceremony in Norway’s capital, Oslo.

The 58-year-old conservative has lived in hiding in Venezuela since its authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, was accused of stealing the 2024 presidential election from her political movement. Despite fevered speculation that she would make a dramatic appearance at Wednesday’s event, having somehow slipped out of Venezuela, Machado was not present, although she was expected to arrive in Oslo in the coming hours.

Don’t say you weren’t warned: Trump’s new national security strategy seeks to destroy liberal democracy as we know it

On the same day that Donald Trump received his made-to-order “peace prize” from his newest pal, Fifa president “Johnny” Infantino, his administration published an equally gaudy national security strategy. The relatively short document oozes Trump and Trumpism. It starts out with the typically modest claim that the president has brought “our nation – and the world – back from the brink of catastrophe and disaster”.

Even if the strategy mostly formalises the ongoing actions and statements of Trump and his administration, it should be heeded as a warning for the world, and Europe in particular.

Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today

The Emily in Paris actor and writer of the Tony-nominated Slave Play remains in Japan while prosecutors investigate the alleged discovery of MDMA in his bag

The American playwright and Emily in Paris actor Jeremy O Harris has been released three weeks after his arrest in Japan on suspicion of drug smuggling while prosecutors investigate, police said Wednesday.

Japan has some of the world’s strictest drug laws, and possession of illegal narcotics can result in jail time. Prosecutors also have a very high conviction rate.

President sought to rehab image after criticism of being out of touch, but speech aimed at midterms took different turn

• Fact-checking Trump’s speech

Donald Trump has sought to reboot his ailing US presidency at a rally-style event with a blitz of false claims about the economy and xenophobic attacks on immigrants and “shithole countries”.

In the wake of Republican election defeats and criticism that he is out of touch with America’s affordability crisis, Trump’s speech at the Mount Pocono casino in north-eastern Pennsylvania on Tuesday was billed as an opportunity to reclaim the economic narrative.

Trump had further said Nicolás Maduro’s ‘days are numbered’ as military has targeted alleged drug boats

Two US fighter jets circled the Gulf of Venezuela on Tuesday, in what appeared to be an escalation of the Trump administration’s ongoing hostilities toward the South American country and its leftist leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Venezuelans and South American media followed the flights in real time using websites like FlightRadar24, which showed a pair of F/A-18 Super Hornets flying together into the narrow Gulf of Venezuela for about 40 minutes. The jets flew just north of Maracaibo, Venezuela’s most populous city.