Our photojournalist explores the Cornish landmark on the eve of its anniversary and meets some of its staff, visitors, plants and creatures

“Give me a sleeping bag and I’ll happily sleep here overnight,” says Kim Mackintosh as she wanders amid the vibrant flora of the Mediterranean biome at the Eden Project on the eve of the tourist attraction’s 25th anniversary.

Loupe in hand, the leader of the biome’s horticulture team is marvelling at an array of plants that have recently come into bloom, tenderly examining the yellow furry buds of an Acacia glaucoptera before flogging a Grevillea flower to dispense its rich, honey-flavoured nectar.

Kim Mackintosh inspects the ‘kangaroo paw’ of an Anigozanthos through her loupe. All photographs by Jonny Weeks

Due to an ongoing judicial review, Home Office data currently leaves out the thousands of people apprehended at Palestine Action protests. But whichever way you cut it, the number of arrests is outrageous

On the surface, the Home Office’s latest data on terrorism arrests looks relatively stable. There were 255 terrorism-related arrests in 2025, which is only a 2% increase on the previous year’s figure of 250.

Funny thing is, I know three people who were arrested on terrorism-related charges last year. I could even pinpoint the date, because two of their middle-aged children had to leave my middle-aged birthday party to pick them up from a police station. I know, I know, it’s not all about me, even if it was my birthday – but if those numbers are solid, that means more than 50% of the mini-surge came from more or less the same group of people, two of them from the same postcode.

As stories of men leaving their dates in ‘sketchy situations’ go viral, experts say these incidents could stem from big egos and poor communication

MJ calls what happened to her in Zion national park “small ‘T’ trauma”. She knows women have experienced worse from their partners. But she still feels the anger of being left behind on a hike by her now ex. “It brings up stuff in my body that maybe I have not cleared out yet,” she said.

Five years ago, MJ and a new partner – he was not exactly her boyfriend, and the pair were not exclusive – traveled from Los Angeles to Utah for an adventure getaway. MJ, who is 38 and works in PR, was looking forward to exploring Zion’s striking scenery; its vast sandstone canyon and pristine wading trails were on the list. But on the morning of their big hike, MJ was not feeling well. She could not shake the feeling that something was “off”; indeed, MJ would learn on this trip that her partner was seeing other women.

It is the first African country to deposit data in the Arctic World Archive, a storage facility designed to preserve records of everything from cultural practices to historical events

A decommissioned coalmine near the north pole is the last place you’d expect to find Indigenous stories from rural Nigeria, but deep below the Arctic permafrost of Svalbard a storage unit contains a cache of cultural and literary records from the West African country.

The Arctic World Archive (AWA) is a data storage unit where organisations and individuals can deposit records kept on specialist digitised film called Piql that lasts up to 2,000 years. On 27 February, Nigeria became the first African country to place archives at the facility 300 metres beneath a mountain where the cold, dark, dry conditions are perfect for preservation.

Sweden’s V-Dem Institute warns that the US is no longer a liberal democracy. And autocracy is creeping across Europe too

The US is no longer a democracy. One of the most credible global sources on the health of democratic nations now says this outright. The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at Gothenburg University reaches the alarming conclusion in its annual report, that the US is hurtling towards autocracy at a faster rate than Hungary and Turkey.

“Our data on the USA goes back to 1789. What we’re seeing now is the most severe magnitude of democratic backsliding ever in the country,” says Staffan Lindberg, founder of the institute.

Britons learn about the country’s involvement ‘almost as a self-congratulatory narrative’, says historian Joseph Mulhern

In 1845 British citizens and companies were already legally prohibited from owning or buying enslaved people overseas, yet that year 385 captives were “transferred” to a British mining company in Brazil named St John d’El Rey.

Despite a global campaign waged by the UK against slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, the move was not technically illegal because the enslaved people were not sold but “rented” – a practice permitted overseas under the 1843 Slave Trade Act.

Exclusive: Jonathan Powell thought Tehran’s ‘surprising’ offer on its nuclear programme could prevent rush to war

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Britain’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, attended the final talks between the US and Iran and judged that the offer made by Tehran on its nuclear programme was significant enough to prevent a rush to war, the Guardian can reveal.

Powell thought that progress had been made in Geneva and that the deal proposed by Iran was “surprising”, according to sources.

If confirmed, death would make Larijani the most senior Iranian figure to be killed since Ali Khamenei on first day of war

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Israel says it has killed a linchpin of Iranian politics, the national security chief, Ali Larijani, in overnight strikes, a claim that if confirmed would make him the most senior Iranian figure to die in the war since the supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed on its first day.

Iran has yet to comment on either claim. If confirmed, Larijani’s death would remove a pivotal figure at the heart of the regime’s political and security establishment at a moment of acute crisis and represent devastating blow.

Exclusive: Early US assessment suggesting missile was Iranian was almost immediately dismissed, sources say

Donald Trump’s attempt to blame Iran for the deadly strike on an elementary school stemmed from an early US intelligence assessment that initially suggested the missile was Iranian but was almost immediately dismissed, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The CIA initially told the president that they did not believe the missile that struck the school was a munition used by the US because the fins appeared to be positioned too low for it to be a Tomahawk cruise missile.

The government is launching a targeted vaccination programme for Kent students living in university accommodation

Nigel Farage is speaking now at the Reform UK event.

The website promoting the lottery is up. It is called nigelcutmybills.com.