In 1993, she squeezed a $333m settlement from a Californian energy company in a scandal over contaminated water. Three decades later, she has a new target in her sights – and it’s global

When Erin Brockovich woke to find 30 emails from people from the same town, she realised something was going on. People email Brockovich all the time because of what happened in 1993, when she was instrumental in suing Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) on behalf of residents of the town of Hinkley, California, whose groundwater had been contaminated. The case resulted in a settlement of $333m – then the largest ever payout for a direct-action lawsuit. When she was immortalised by Julia Roberts in the 2000 film Erin Brockovich, she became the hero we didn’t know we needed, a modern day Joan of Arc. She had won against PG&E with no formal legal training.

The emails she received a few weeks ago were about datacentres. In April, she put a callout on her website asking for anyone with concerns about one near them to get in touch. Within a month, 3,862 people had replied. Tech companies have needed datacentres to power their technology “for ever”, she says, but the new ones being built to power AI? “This feels like Hinkley on steroids.”

While it can transform firms for better or worse, the use of private equity in essential services is attracting scrutiny. Here we examine some of its more contentious elements in the UK veterinary sector

Private equity could be the two most controversial words in business. For its supporters, it can bring investment, expertise and efficiency to a company. For critics, it is a one way ticket to profiteering, cutting costs and losing staff.

The arguments over private equity are particularly fierce when it is used in the public sector, particularly the NHS.

Air conditioning can bring significant benefits but also real harms. The answer is for it to take its place alongside a comprehensive state plan for climate adaptation

As Britain reels from Europe’s worst ever heatwave, many households are, for the first time, seriously considering air conditioning. Leftists have often been critical of AC, pointing out that there are cheaper, more ecological ways to combat severe heat. But with decades of underinvestment leaving the UK dismally unprepared to handle further heatwaves, is it time to rethink the progressive position on air con?

Like many new technologies, air conditioning can bring significant benefits but also real harms, contributing to external air temperatures and global emissions. Dogmatically denying these harms, as AC boosters tend to, is unhelpful, but likewise refusing to explore how mechanical air-cooling systems could play a more productive role in progressive climate adaptation is just as blinkered.

Phineas Harper is a writer and curator

As tens of thousands are freed, female survivors are increasingly reporting gender-based violence in the compounds, previously thought to hold mainly men

Late one evening in October 2023, Sarah* felt labour pains starting. It was 11pm, but at the cyberscam compound inside Laos’ Golden Triangle, workers were logging on for a long night shift, scamming Americans online.

Every night, workers sat at their computers until the early hours, building fake profiles of glamorous, jet-setting women on Facebook and Instagram. Sarah trawled the web to find older men to target with messages, where she fawned over their jobs, asked how their day had been and exchanged photos of luxury travel and beach trips. Each conversation she had was meticulously designed to follow a multi-day script, and monitored by bosses who walked up and down the long rows of desks.

Most swimwear relies on synthetic fibres, but some brands are taking steps to reduce their impact. We’ve rounded up the best bikinis, swimsuits and men’s trunks made from recycled and alternative materials

• The best sunglasses with UV protection

If your summer holiday is beckoning, you may have swimwear on your mind. And if you want to get some new gear with your responsible hat on, you may feel out of your depth. Swimwear needs to work hard, stretching to fit us and our movements, while withstanding tough environments like salt water, sunlight and chlorine. This generally means our bathers will be made from a human-made, petroleum-based fibre like nylon or polyester, but are there more environmentally friendly options out there?

“Better [swimwear] should first and foremost mean longer lasting and higher quality,” says Helen Lofts, a circular economy advocate and founder of the swimwear brand Davy J. “Nylon and polyester fibres are incredibly hard-wearing and robust but the elastane they’re woven with to form a stretch fabric is often not. The quality and density of the fibre weave within the fabric will determine how robust they are.” This means cheap, thinner swimsuits will start to go see-through and degrade much quicker than those with quality lining and a tighter weave.

They used to mean crusties, hippies, all-male lineups, near riots and burning toilets. Now, from Dorset to Inverness, there’s a festival – and a costume – for everyone. What caused this boom? And is there a dark side?

It’s 7pm on the first day of Gala festival in Peckham Rye park and dry ice drifts into the trees as grime MC Novelist, born just miles away, raps about a south London bus. “Four eight four! Going on raw on the 484,” he spits with a grin, bouncing like the sweaty moshpit in front of him. There are already hands in the air for this hyperlocal elegy when the DJ teases the next instrumental, Skream’s unmistakable Midnight Request Line – dubstep’s greatest ever anthem.

Gala is one of the first festivals of the now overflowing British summer season. That same weekend, Black Water County kicked off the Cursus cider and music festival in Dorset, Fatboy Slim headlined the Radio 1 Big Weekend in Sunderland, and scores more fizzed into action, from Elderflower Fields in East Sussex to Devauden in south Wales, Slam Dunk in Hertfordshire, Dot to Dot in Nottingham, as well as Sidmouth jazz and blues festival and Chippenham folk festival.

Makerfield MP and hopeful prime minister to pledge ‘growth in every postcode’

Asked what she thought of Andy Burnham not taking questions this morning, Badenoch said:

Andy Burnham doesn’t like questions. Nigel Farage doesn’t like questions. Even Keir Starmer in parliament, he doesn’t like questions here.

If you want somebody who can answer questions, please come to me. I will answer all of your questions.

I know that it should not be Ed Miliband. He is the single person who has done the most to deindustrialise our country and make us poorer. He should not be rewarded with an even more powerful job where he can completely bankrupt the country.

At least 1,450 are known to have died but the number is expected to rise

The wife and two children of Argentine footballer Lucas Trejo have died after the powerful twin earthquakes struck Venezuela last week, his team said on Sunday.

Trejo, who plays for Club Sport Maritimo La Guaira, a second-division team in Venezuela, had searched for his wife Yanina and children Aarón and Ainhoa in the rubble for three days before rescue workers recovered their bodies, CNN reported.

Spending watchdog says high-speed rail project must be put on stable footing to avoid repeat of costly past failures

Revised plans for HS2 should not be put into action until the government is confident they can be delivered, according to the public spending watchdog.

The project to build the high-speed railway must be put on a stable footing to avoid a repeat of past failures, the National Audit Office (NAO) said in a report.

Experts and activists back Mike Tapp’s proposal for care worker exclusion that led to row with Shabana Mahmood

Extending the leave to remain timeframe for care workers to 15 years is “cruel and unconscionable”, according to workers rights campaigners who back a Home Office minister’s proposal to exclude the cohort from the government’s immigration plans.

Mike Tapp is at the centre of a political row with the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, after writing an article in which he said migrant care workers should be excluded from plans to retrospectively change the length of time people must work before they can permanently settle in the UK.