News Desk

The festival began on Friday and was due to continue until Sunday, but a decision was made by organisers to cancel the remainder of the event after the incident .

“We are working with the emergency services, police and the Health and Safety Executive as they establish the circumstances surrounding today’s incident,” the organisers said.

“We are incredibly grateful to everyone who responded, and to our teams and community for the care they have shown one another.”

Christian parent support charity ParentFuel said its people at the festival were all safe.

“We cannot praise the BCF (Big Church Festival) team enough for the way things have been handled,” they said on social media on Saturday morning.

“We are currently sat in the volunteer tent with a brew in hand, worship music being played and the warmth of chatter around us.”

The charity said it was a “freak accident”.

“Life is so precious and so, so short. This weekend brought that ever closer for us all,” they added.

J. Cole’s concert in Sacramento was canceled Thursday, following the death of a crew member.

The tour stop at Golden 1 Center was nixed after a member of the rapper‘s crew was involved in a deadly crash earlier that day.

The venue and concert promoter Live Nation shared the news on social media.

“Following the tragic passing of a member of the touring crew in a trucking accident this morning, J. Cole’s performance at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento tonight, August 27, has been canceled,” the statement read. “Our thoughts are with the crew member’s family and loved ones during this incredibly difficult time.”

According to the Sacramento Bee, California Highway Patrol said that around 6 a.m., a touring member driving a big rig crashed on Interstate 5 in Yolo County, when the semitruck drifted onto the right shoulder and tried to return to the road off southbound I-5 and overturned south of Zamora. The crew member died at the scene, according to police.

Per the outlet, the big rig was transporting touring equipment from Tuesday night’s Seattle show.

The Yolo County Coroner’s Office told the Sacramento Bee that the driver was identified as Jarlath Parkinson, 66, of Jackson, S.C.

The exact cause of the crash is unknown. “May have been a distraction or fell asleep. Unfortunately, the solo occupant did not survive the crash,” Sgt. David Barker of the California Highway Patrol said.

Parkinson, who went by “Chip,” shared his adventures as an entertainment specialist truck driver on social media. His wife, Regina, posted a photo of the two on Friday morning with the caption, “The love of my life.” Parkinson leaves behind three children and three grandchildren.

According to Live Nation, concertgoers who purchased their tickets through Ticketmaster can expect an automatic refund while those who bought tickets through third-party resellers were told to contact their point of purchase.

J. Cole’s tour is in support of his seventh album, “The Fall-Off,” and he’s slated to play Oakland for a two-night run over the weekend. The show will come to Los Angeles and Inglewood for four shows next week.

Representatives for J. Cole did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

This week, three newborns died in an NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) fire at a government hospital in Amravati, in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Two days later, 14 newborns were killed in a fire that broke out in the maternity ward at one of Pakistan’s most prominent state hospitals. The reported causes of the fire were different – a faulty ventilator in Amravati and an exploding air conditioner in Islamabad – but the harrowing stories of the parents on both sides of the border are identical.

On both sides, parents stand outside a government hospital, trying to make sense of this state-inflicted cruelty. In Amravati, one father was still distributing sweets to celebrate the birth; he had not yet seen the baby’s face. In Islamabad, a family was celebrating the first baby boy in years. The circumstances are different, but the institutional failures and official response followed a familiar pattern. Rescue teams arrived late, while emergency evacuation was hampered by basic fire-safety failures. Politicians were quick to express their sorrow. High-level inquiries were announced, along with financial compensation and fire safety audits. As the dust settles, the two tragedies expose the same indecent truth: lives of poor, vulnerable families are expendable in both nations.

The two countries are rivals in cricket, military posturing and diplomatic rhetoric, but united when it comes to spending lives of ordinary citizens like pocket change.

Over the past 26 years, as a health reporter, I have watched hospital fires in India and Pakistan result in significant and frequent loss of life, without a jot of difference in regulating these institutions. In India, the AMRI Hospital fire of 2011 in which 89 people died and the SUM Hospital fire in Bhubaneswar in 2016 in which 24 people died were traumatising to write about. Not a single person was convicted.

In Pakistan too, a fire at Services Hospital in Lahore killed 10 newborns in 2012 and another 11 infants died at Sahiwal Teaching Hospital in 2024.

I dredge these memories because the latest fires – in Amravati and Islamabad – cannot be reduced to stories about faulty equipment or individual negligence. The hospital fires did not happen in the boondocks, but in India’s wealthiest state and Pakistan’s capital. They are stories about government priorities.

The longer you look at government data, the more grisly it gets. Year on year, both nations sacrifice their citizens to fire like medieval societies trying to appease indifferent gods. India and Pakistan are not poor or war-torn countries without knowledge or wealth to do what is needed. The refusal to make any meaningful improvements is a political choice. An unforgivable one at that.

India and Pakistan have spent decades convincing their citizens that the highest form of security is protection from each other. The truth is that the greatest co-morbidity citizens of both nations live with is our own careless governments.

Fires in large buildings such as factories, shopping centres and hospitals are frequent in India and Pakistan, often due to poor compliance with safety laws and lax enforcement of building codes. These repeated incidents raise questions about our political system, the judiciary, our newsrooms and civil society all in one sweep. What they expose is the very core of these two democracies – what they prioritise and who they value. And all the questions raised are being answered in one voice – not the vulnerable or the sick or the poor.

Earlier this month, both nations marked 79 years of independence. Both have, for 79 years, reminded each other of the pride they take in their complicated histories and their fabled cultures, languages and cuisines. Yet, on both sides of the border, we are governed with careless barbarity. What we have right now are nations that have the trappings of procedural democracies but refuse to concern themselves with bringing change to the poorest. We are taught to sacrifice – wealth, family members, dignity – everything in the service of our nation, and must forage for our own safety without expecting anything from the governments.

This week, as I watched newborns utterly unable to protect themselves die in an inferno on both sides of the border, I wondered if the men leading both states are filled with some shame. Shame over the fact that women who had just given birth had to run down several flights of stairs and climb out of windows and down ladders to escape. Or that families found to their horror that the ward’s water spray system failed to function when the fire broke out. Or that these families will spend the rest of their lives recovering from the horror of seeing charred babies, their bodies covered in black ash.

I wondered what the military might and nuclear arsenal mean to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as they stand facing a mother crying outside a neonatal ward. This is not polemic or rhetoric, simply a sober assessment of our incompetent leadership that has no love for its own people. Because countries that can spend billions preparing for war cannot plausibly claim that a functioning sprinkler system or fire safety regulation in a hospital is an unreasonable expectation.

Fire safety is not a luxury. It is not a Western or colonial aspiration. It is not even an infrastructure of affluence – like, say, bullet trains – that a country acquires once it has become sufficiently rich, sufficiently modern or sufficiently powerful. It is the floor. The floor beneath which a government cannot allow its people to fall repeatedly and remain shamelessly indifferent every single time.

Seventy-nine years is a long time for a country to become itself. Long enough to build armies, send satellites into space, build a nuclear arsenal and to flex them at neighbours. But what good is national security if a newborn cannot survive the building in which she was born? Or does security only mean the ability of the state to protect itself from another state – while its citizens die like insects in unpredictable ways.

The parents in Amravati and Islamabad did not need a nuclear arsenal to defend their babies. They needed the fire alarm to work and emergency exits to not be blocked. Nations that cannot guarantee such a basic amenity must have no right to national pride.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance

Welcome to Bunker Talk. This is a weekend open discussion post for the best commenting crew on the net, in which we can chat about all the stuff that went on this week that we didn’t cover. We can also talk about the stuff we did or whatever else grabs your interest. In other words, it’s an off-topic thread.

This week’s caption reads:

Cutaway display of a concrete masonry basement fallout shelter with an exercise bike, television and library, 1950s. (Photo by Pictorial Parade/Getty Images)

PRIME DIRECTIVES:

• If you want to talk politics, do so respectfully and know that there’s always somebody that isn’t going to agree with you. 
• If you have political differences, hash it out respectfully, stick to the facts, and no childish name-calling or personal attacks of any kind. If you can’t handle yourself in that manner, then please, discuss virtually anything else.
• No drive-by garbage political memes. No conspiracy theory rants. Links to crackpot sites will be axed, too. Trolling and shitposting will not be tolerated. No obsessive behavior about other users. Just don’t interact with folks you don’t like. 
• Do not be a sucker and feed trolls! That’s as much on you as on them. Use the mute button if you don’t like what you see.  
• So unless you have something of quality to say, know how to treat people with respect, understand that everyone isn’t going to subscribe to your exact same worldview, and have come to terms with the reality that there is no perfect solution when it comes to moderation of a community like this, it’s probably best to just move on. 
• Finally, as always, report offenders, please. This doesn’t mean reporting people who don’t share your political views, but we really need your help in this regard.

The star is a mainstay on British screens now but was just at the start of the their career in the costume drama

One of the stars of Silent Witness looks worlds away from their role on the BBC crime drama in these images from their first big screen role.

The star was just starting out at the time they landed a part in BBC’s iconic 1995 Pride and Prejudice adaptation with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. Emilia Clarke took on the role of Mr Darcy’s younger sibling Georgiana Darcy in Jane Austen’s cherished romantic classic.

The role saw her character Georgiana making friends with Ehle’s witty Elizabeth Bennet, who was the object of her brother’s affections. The role was just the beginning of an impressive career that saw Fox going on to feature in the BBC’s 1999 Charles Dickens adaptation of David Copperfield, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), and Oscar-winning film The Pianist with Adrien Brody.

The BBC’s 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice is still considered by many to be the most faithful screen adaptation of the literary classic. However, Netflix will be hoping to steal this crown when it launches its version of Pride and Prejudice starring Emma Corrin and Jack Lowden.

Fox spoke last year on Kate Thornton’s White Wine Question Time podcast about starring in Pride and Prejudice. She explained how she had “tiny, weeny, weeny part in it” in the Regency series.

She went on to admit that she’d never actually seen Pride and Prejudice, despite starring in the series because she was at university at the time, studying at St Catherine’s College, Oxford.

Nonetheless, Fox said she still had plans to watch Pride and Prejudice at some point. She praised the cast of the drama, which also includes David Bamber, House of Cards actress Susannah Harker, Gavin and Stacey star Alison Steadman and Jonathan Creek’s Julia Sawalha.

Fox hails from an acting dynasty, with her brother being White House Farm and House of the Dragon star Freddie Fox. Meanwhile, her actor parents are Joanna David and Edward Fox.

Her uncle is The Remains of the Day actor James Fox and her cousins are Lewis star Laurence Fox, Sanditon’s Jack Fox, and Lydia Fox. The star has been portraying forensic pathologist Dr Nikki Alexander in BBC series Silent Witness since 2004 after taking over as the show’s lead from Amanda Burton.

Despite being busy on Silent Witness, Fox has managed to squeeze in other projects, such as Legend Has It, Signora Volpe, The Trial of Christine Keeler, and Delicious. She is next going to be featuring in the forthcoming season of Silent Witness, which will be out in 2027.

Pride and Prejudice is streaming on U and BBC iPlayer now

Icelanders head to the polls on Saturday to decide whether their country should reenter negotiations to join the European Union, a vote that could have economic and security implications beyond the small Arctic country.

The election comes 13 years after Iceland, under a Eurosceptic government, paused the last EU accession talks, believing the country would fare better outside the bloc.

But much has changed since then.

Arctic security concerns have grown amid Russia’s war against Ukraine and United States President Donald Trump’s threats to invade neighbouring Greenland, the cost of living has climbed and Iceland’s currency has kept wavering.

Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir, whose Social Democrats party is pro-EU, said she will honour whatever choice the public makes.

If Icelanders vote “yes”, the country would likely start years of negotiations with Brussels to hammer out membership terms. It would then hold a second referendum on whether to formally become part of the EU.

Frostadottir has said a “yes” vote would see the nation “enter negotiations with our heads held high and stand together in seeking a good agreement”.

If the result is “no”, “all speculation about what [EU membership] might involve will be set aside”, she said.

Knife-edge vote

Recent surveys show Icelanders are almost evenly split on the proposal.

A Gallup opinion poll conducted this week found that 51.6 percent of respondents were against new EU membership talks, while 48.4 percent favoured them.

An earlier survey by Icelandic pollster Maskina showed a narrow majority of 51.3 percent of respondents backing new EU accession talks.

Gabriella Gricius, associate professor of strategy at the Norwegian Military Academy, said Iceland’s lack of armed forces has always left it “reliant on NATO and specifically the US for its security”.

“As the US has grown more unpredictable, and specifically, its rhetoric around Greenland has grown more concerning, it is not surprising that Iceland is seeking additional security guarantees through the EU,” Gricius told Al Jazeera.

Adam Fishwick, a lecturer in international relations at the University of Iceland, said the expected benefits of membership would be reduced inflation, a more stable currency and fewer customs barriers for consumers.

“There may also be opportunities for regional development in Iceland, which is an important issue here, with access to dedicated EU funds,” he told Al Jazeera.

However, the debate over EU accession remains “quite polarised”, he noted. Opponents fear the small nation of 395,000 people would “lose control over everyday policy decisions” and have limited sway in a bloc filled with larger European powers, Fishwick said.

Voters to weigh impact on inflation, currency

The benefits of EU membership for Iceland are not as obvious as for other potential candidates.

Iceland is a relatively wealthy country that, as a member of Schengen and the European Economic Area, already gets a lot of the single-market access that would come with EU membership.

However, the country has experienced growing economic pains in recent years, primarily regarding the cost of living. Consumer prices in 2025 exceeded those of any EU state and were 87 percent higher than the EU average.

Iceland’s currency, the krona, meanwhile, has been prone to exchange-rate swings that opponents say lower investment confidence and make it more costly to borrow money. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs concluded that the costs of maintaining Iceland’s own currency probably outweigh the benefits. Adopting the euro, it said in a report, may help reduce interest rates and transaction costs.

Joining the EU could help address both issues.

Iceland would become a part of the bloc’s customs union, in which goods move freely between members and face a common tariff when imported from non-member countries. It could also adopt the more stable euro as its currency.

Fishing industry concerns: ‘Backbone of the economy’

A major concern, though, is the impact on the country’s fishing industry, an economic pillar that in 2024 directly contributed about 8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and much more indirectly.

By joining the EU, Iceland would become subject to the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy, which governs European fishing fleets and fish stocks.

Iceland’s fishing industry fears this change could lead to new catch quotas, increased foreign competition and, more broadly, less control over local fishing policy.

“The fundamental objection to EU membership is that Iceland would not retain full control over its fisheries – the traditional backbone of the economy,” Valur Ingimundarson, professor of contemporary history at the University of Iceland, told Al Jazeera.

Even if Icelanders vote “yes” to proceed with EU negotiations, the country is unlikely to go forward with EU membership unless it secures “ironclad” exemptions regarding its fishing industry, said Ingimundarson.

‘Additional security guarantees’

Mounting security pressures in the Arctic, coupled with uncertainty about US commitment to its traditional European partners, are also contributing to Iceland’s renewed interest in the EU, say analysts.

Though Iceland is a founding member of NATO and has a 75-year defence treaty with the US, it has no standing armed forces of its own and is located in a geopolitical hotspot that both Russia and the US have sought to project power in.

While Russia has expanded its military presence in the Arctic in recent years, President Trump has repeatedly threatened to use force to seize nearby Greenland.

Ingimundarson said pro-EU Icelanders see “the EU as a source of political and economic protection for a small state confronted by coercive great-power politics and uncertainty about the US as a reliable security partner”.

Iceland’s Foreign Minister Thorgerdur Gunnarsdottir has said membership would be “a valuable addition” for Iceland, even though NATO and the US would still be its core security partners.

In comments to Reuters, Gunnarsdottir said Iceland has been “disappointed” with the US’s “pressure campaign waged against both Greenlanders and Denmark”.

Russia poses a security threat “in our waters and nearby, in the North Atlantic”, said Gunnarsdottir.

For the EU, bringing Iceland into its orbit would expand EU territory much deeper into the North Atlantic, potentially deepening its strategic focus there, said Gricius, the professor.

“Icelandic membership in the EU wouldn’t necessarily change Arctic security dynamics, as Iceland is and will continue to be an Arctic state,” she said. “However, it may influence how the EU behaves in the Arctic, as the EU would then include four of the eight Arctic states – Iceland, Finland, Sweden and Denmark.”

SYDNEY Sweeney spilled out of an incredibly sexy Syrn bra while licking cake off her fingers – ahead of her 29th birthday.

The Housemaid star is never one to shy away from displaying her body and now she’s shown off her raciest look yet.

Sydney, who is turning 29 on September 12, showcased a black bra, thong and garters that she designed for her lingerie brand.

The SYRN by Sydney Sweeney Instagram page shared these racy photos on its account.

One person commented: “I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU.”

Another added: “Prettiest girl and most beautiful lingerie.”

Read more on Sydney Sweeney

TAKES THE CAKE

Sydney Sweeney slaps her butt and strips topless before slipping off thong

While a third wrote: “Keep breaking the internet while you already demolished it.”

It comes after Sydney featured in another sexy SYRN ad where she went topless in a pink thong before slipping into black lingerie.

In the clip, Sydney is seen opening up a refrigerator while wearing a light blue ruffled lingerie set, complete with sexy stockings.

She showed off her toned and tanned body as she displays plenty of cleavage in the sexy set.

Sydney then sports a pink flowery number with a bow around her neck as she bakes a cake.

In one particularly raunchy scene, she slapped flour onto her backside and leaves hand prints all over before pulling her panties down.

The business owner then slipped back into the blue number as she places a cake onto the table.

Sydney captioned the post: “celebrate my birthday month with my newest @syrn collection. coming september 1st.”

Gladys Knight has announced she’s gearing up to embrace the next phase of her life and career at 82.

The announcement comes after recent performances raised alarm with fans and staff worried about the storied singer’s health.

“After much soul searching I’ve decided that I will be easing into fewer performances while focusing on transitioning into the next stage of my career and life moving forward,” Knight said via Instagram on Thursday.

Knight said she’ll be spending more time on projects with her husband and manager; William McDowell, 68; and visiting with her grandchildren.

“I’d like to take a moment, in advance, to thank all my fans over this last three quarters of a century for making a little girl’s dream come true and supporting her every step of the way,” she continued. “I am immensely grateful to all of you and send my eternal love back to you. … I hope to see your smiling faces out and about and on the road.”

Her publicity team declined further comment Friday.

During her Aug. 18 show in Detroit, Knight took several breaks. And back in July at the Hollywood Bowl, the Grammy-winner seemed to lose her place while belting, “Midnight Train to Georgia,” one of her signature songs.

Backup singers appeared to come to the rescue more than once, guiding the singer back toward the stage as she wandered off and filling in when the lyrics to her classic soul hits seemed to escape her.

In an interview with the Shade Room last year, Knight’s son, Shanga Hankerson, claimed McDowell pushed the singer into performing and manipulates her.

Hankerson said that he drove to North Carolina to see his mom and was kept from being alone with her. He subsequently filed a complaint with the state Department of Health and Human Services.

“I noticed that William would always chime in, make sure that I didn’t get to speak with her by myself or by herself,” he said.

During a performance, Hankerson said he was concerned watching as his mom, who’s been performing for 75 years, fumbled through the set.

“The band played two or three extra bars, and she zoned out. The background singer started singing, and that brought her back. They’re having to rewind the teleprompters because my mom is forgetting to even look at them,” he said.

Aug. 28 (UPI) — The leader of the Seneca Nation on Friday called on President Donald Trump to reverse his decision to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America.

Trump on Thursday signed an executive order renaming the body of water amid a trade dispute with Canada.

J. Conrad Sence, president of Seneca Nation, said, “The president cannot assert ownership over our culture or erase it through irresponsible political action.”

“His order should be rescinded and the name Lake Ontario should be left as it is, reflective of the Seneca people, other Haudenosaunee nations and all Indigenous people surrounding the lake,” Seneca said in a statement shared with WIVB.

“To us, Lake Ontario is not a political pawn,” he added. “It does not separate the countries of the United States and Canada. It is all Indigenous land, which has been occupied by Indigenous people since time immemorial.”

Jérôme Marty, executive director at the International Association for Great Lakes Research, said the lake was named by indigenous people.

“They gave the name of Lake Ontario, and then this name was then used to give the name of the province of Ontario, so it’s certainly not the province of Ontario that gave the name of the Lake Ontario, but it’s the opposite,” Marty told WIVB. “It’s prior to Canada, the creation of the United States, it’s been there for a really, really long time.”

Conrad told WGRZ the people of the region will continue to call it Lake Ontario, and urged others to do the same.

In a statement, a White House spokesperson pushed back against the criticism.

“As the president said yesterday, the majority of the great lake’s volume sits in United States territory,” the spokesperson told WIVB. “Thanks to President Trump’s bold action, its name will now reflect its place in America and her heritage.”

Lake Ontario is called sga:nyodai:yoh in the Seneca language, meaning “beautiful lake,” WGRZ reported.

Trump has also changed the name of Alaska’s Mount Denali, an indigenous name, to Mount McKinley after the 25th president of the United States.

He also renamed the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America.

US president says deal secures majority US control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in Venezuela.

The United States has struck a deal with Caracas that would give them control of some 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven oil reserves, President Donald Trump has announced, while reviving the OPEC nation’s battered energy industry.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the “historic transaction more than doubles American oil reserves” and “will substantially lower gas prices for all Americans”.

“At my direction, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, working closely with Highly Respected Interim President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, and, through a partnership with private business, have secured majority US control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American Taxpayer,” Trump wrote.

Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez welcomed the deal, which is expected to bring about $209bn to the state’s treasury.

The announcement followed weeks of negotiations over an agreement that would give American companies long-term access to a group of Venezuelan oilfields and guarantee the resulting crude supply to the US.

Venezuelan officials are preparing to sign agreements next week granting new oil exploration and production rights to a number of companies, particularly US firms.

Sources previously told Reuters news agency that a lease model was under consideration, with fields potentially auctioned to US producers, but the arrangement could face legal and constitutional challenges in Venezuela, where the state retains control over core oil industry activities.

The new deal would represent a dramatic expansion of Washington’s role in Venezuela’s oil industry as the Trump administration seeks to revive the country’s production and secure more crude for US refineries. Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but produces only 1.25 million barrels per day, far below its potential after years of underinvestment, mismanagement and sanctions.

Trump did not disclose the structure of the agreement, the fields or companies involved, nor how the US would exercise majority control over the reserves.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the agreement as a win for both countries, saying on X that it would secure stable, low-cost oil for the US and help lower petrol prices.

For Venezuela, Rubio said the deal would bring nearly $100bn in private investment, support thousands of high-paying jobs and help rebuild the country’s economy.

ITV aired the first episode of hit US legal drama, The Rainmaker, on Friday night

The Rainmaker viewers were all quick to say the same thing after the first episode.

ITV aired the legal thriller series on Friday 28 August after acquiring the star-studded US show. The show, which was actually filmed in Ireland, will air weekly and also be available to stream on ITVX.

A synopsis teases of the legal thriller: “Based on the best-selling novel by John Grisham, Rudy Baylor, who is fresh out of law school, goes head-to-head with courtroom lion Leo Drummond as well as his law school girlfriend, Sarah.

“Rudy, along with his boss, Bruiser, and her disheveled paralegal, Deck, uncover two connected conspiracies surrounding the mysterious death of their client’s son.”

ITV aired episode one on Friday evening, where it saw young attorney Rudy Baylor, fresh out of law school, as he confronted Leo F Drummond in a medical malpractice case.

The incredible star-studded cast sees Rivals actor Milo Callaghan as Rudy Baylor, Mad Men legend John Slattery as Leo Drummond, Once Upon a Time’s Lana Parrilla as Jocelyn “Bruiser” Stone and Jumanji star Madison Iseman as Sarah Plankmore.

After Friday’s first episode, viewers were quick to share their thoughts on Twitter, now X. One person said: “Liking it so far #TheRainmaker.”

To which another account wrote: “This isn’t bad.. or so the first ep seems #therainmaker” while another viewer added: “I love legal dramas. Especially Grisham ones #TheRainmaker!”

The Rainmaker was first released in the US back in 2025, receiving rave reviews at the time. The show has been confirmed and renewed for a second series.

The first series got an impressive 84% on Rotten Tomatoes with many fans praising the ‘outstanding’ legal drama at the time.

One person said: “This is one of the best shows I’ve seen this year. Anyone interested in a nice show should try it. For this one don’t judge by the rating. Trust me. Its one of the best shows you will find this year, 2025.

“I loved and enjoyed every single episode hour, minute and second. I was honestly angry that I now have to wait for the season 2. Its a very good tv show and i would wish to watch the complete story.”

While a different viewer wrote: “This is absolutely the best show I have seen for awhile,I love all the actors they couldn’t not have done a better job on that all great actors.”

The Rainmaker is available to watch on ITV and ITVX from Friday 28 August