Friday, April 17, 2026 — Edition No. 62 — The Cornmill Intelligencer

← Past Editions · Edition No. 62 · Friday, April 17, 2026

Today’s outlook: Warm front of wagging tails with scattered showers of standing ovations

Dogs & Animals

Two days in her new home, Layla Lou saved the family who saved her

A shelter dog who waited two years for adoption repaid her new owners within 48 hours — by waking them to a house full of smoke

When Deborah Watkins and her grandson Logan walked into PAWS of Dearborn County on 28 January, they were looking for an American Staffordshire terrier. They came home with a dog called Cindy Lou, who had been waiting two years for someone to notice her.

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What's On Glasgow

Aisling Bea brings 'Older Than Jesus' to Glasgow's King's — and it's already sold out

The BAFTA-winner's debut solo tour lands at the King's on Sunday 19 April. Here's why Glasgow is ready for her — and how to watch for returns.

By Damien Day

Here's the thing about Aisling Bea: she has been quietly stealing scenes on British television for a decade, and now, at last, she's coming to Glasgow's King's Theatre with a show of her very own.

Older Than Jesus, the BAFTA-winner's long-awaited debut stand-up tour, rolls into the King's on Sunday 19 April 2026 at 8pm. One night only. And — fair warning — the box office is already flashing "Sold Out" on the ATG Tickets listing, so if you want in, you'll be watching for returns like a hawk over Kelvingrove.

If the name doesn't immediately ring a bell, the face will. Bea has been the sharpest voice in the room on 8 Out of 10 Cats, the most gleefully competitive contestant on Taskmaster, and a regular on QI, Live at the Apollo, Travel Man and Netflix's Last One Laughing.

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Community

Sorting, serving — and a soft spot for the sixties: meet Ash, Partick's student volunteering hero

Glasgow University student Ash Kasibante on weekends behind the till at Chest, Heart & Stroke Scotland's Partick shop, the friends he's made, and why volunteering stuck

By Helen Cooper

Ask Ash Kasibante what he actually does on a shift at the Chest, Heart & Stroke Scotland shop in Partick, and he grins.

"Everything!" he laughs.

That covers it, more or less. Sorting donations out the back. Steaming a jacket before it goes on the rail. Ringing up a fiver's worth of paperbacks for a regular. Chatting to whoever walks through the door on Dumbarton Road on a Saturday afternoon. The 23-year-old Software Engineering student at Glasgow University has been a fixture at the shop since the summer of 2021, and he is, by the charity's own reckoning, one of its volunteering heroes.

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News Clydebank

Faifley's Easter spirit beats Storm Dave as 300 brave the cold for community celebration

While storms shut down events across West Dunbartonshire, Flourishing Faifley's volunteers kept the kettle on — and the kids kept coming

By Helen Cooper

When Storm Dave rolled into Clydebank on Easter Sunday with snow, wind warnings and the kind of cold that makes your fingers forget they exist, the sensible move was to stay indoors.

More than 300 people did the opposite. They pulled on hats, zipped up coats, and headed for the Flourishing Faifley community garden — and, in doing so, turned a washout forecast into one of the warmest community days of the year.

"We did it, Faifley. We beat Storm Dave."

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What's On Glasgow

Jazz, gods and Gene Kelly: Scottish Ballet's Starstruck lights up the Theatre Royal

Christopher Hampson's expanded two-act tribute to Hollywood's golden age runs in Glasgow this weekend before heading north to Inverness

By Helen Cooper

If Gene Kelly had ever choreographed a Greek myth, it would probably have looked a lot like this. Scottish Ballet's Starstruck lands at the Theatre Royal Glasgow this week in a newly expanded two-act form — a glittering, jazz-soaked love letter to Hollywood's golden age that swaps backlots for Mount Olympus and gets away with it.

The production, running from Thursday 16 to Saturday 18 April, is Artistic Director Christopher Hampson's biggest reworking yet of the company's 2021 hit. Think of it, as the marketing copy cheerfully puts it, as the director's cut.

At the heart of Starstruck is a piece of dance history most audiences have never seen. In 1960, Gene Kelly — already a screen icon — was invited to create an original ballet for the Paris Opéra. The result, Pas de Dieux, was hailed at the time as "a breath of fresh air" before slipping into near obscurity.

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AI Model Releases

Waymo's Virtual Miles: How Google's Genie 3 Is Teaching Self-Driving Cars to Expect the Unexpected

From snow on the Golden Gate Bridge to elephants in the road, Waymo's new world model simulates the scenarios its robotaxis may never meet — but must be ready for.

By Damien Day

A self-driving car has never seen an elephant wander into its lane. It has probably never rolled across snow piled high on the Golden Gate Bridge, or met a tornado on a suburban cul-de-sac. But according to Waymo, its cars are now learning to handle all three — and thousands of other vanishingly rare scenarios — inside a hyper-realistic virtual world built on Google DeepMind's Genie 3.

The Alphabet-owned robotaxi company unveiled the Waymo World Model in a blog post on 6 February, describing it as "a frontier generative model that sets a new bar for large-scale, hyper-realistic autonomous driving simulation." The technology was spotlighted again this week by Ars Technica, as Waymo pushes into tougher new markets including Boston and Washington, D.C.

At its heart, the announcement rests on a deceptively simple idea: if you want to teach a car to cope with the unexpected, you need a way to show it the unexpected.

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