Friday, April 24, 2026 — Edition No. 70 — The Cornmill Intelligencer

← Past Editions · Edition No. 70 · Friday, April 24, 2026

Today’s outlook: Eight puppies, one terror croc, and a coffee-fuelled spring

Dogs & Animals Rescue

Eight puppies, one miracle: the rescue stories powering Pawsitive Restorations

From a mother dog who needed emergency surgery to deliver her litter, to a puppy who came back from the brink of euthanasia, the charity is quietly rewriting endings for dogs who had run out of time

By Helen Cooper

When Mama Moira arrived at Pawsitive Restorations Animal Rescue, she could barely walk. The small-breed dog's belly, the charity says, was "ALL. THE. WAY. FULL" — eight puppies, a mother in uterine inertia, and a clock running down fast.

A caesarean section delivered the litter. Moira delivered something else: a reminder of why the volunteers at Pawsitive Restorations keep answering the phone.

The charity, which publishes its case histories on its Success Stories page, specialises in the dogs no one else will take — the medically complicated, the cruelty cases, the ones already on a euthanasia list by the time someone thinks to make a call.

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Science

Meet the bus-sized 'terror croc' that ate dinosaurs for breakfast

Palaeontologists have unveiled the first scientifically accurate full skeleton of Deinosuchus schwimmeri — a 31-foot Cretaceous apex predator that outweighed most of the dinosaurs it hunted

By Damien Day

Imagine a crocodile the length of a school bus hauling itself out of a Cretaceous swamp, jaws wide, eyeing up a passing dinosaur as a light lunch. That was Tuesday afternoon, give or take 76 million years.

Now, for the first time, you can stand next to one.

Scientists have unveiled the first scientifically accurate, fully mounted skeleton of Deinosuchus schwimmeri — a 31-foot "terror croc" that ruled the swamps and estuaries of the eastern United States between 83 and 76 million years ago. The life-size replica has just gone on display at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville, Georgia, which is currently the only place in the world you can see one.

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Health

A painkiller without the hook: how suzetrigine is rewriting the rulebook

After two decades with no major innovation in pain relief, a new drug that blocks pain at the nerve — not the brain — is offering genuine hope for an opioid-free future

What's On Glasgow

Monty Don brings his love letter to British gardens home to Glasgow

The nation's favourite gardener lands at the SEC Armadillo on Sunday with a new live show celebrating the plots, patches and paradises that make us who we are

By Helen Cooper

There is something almost unreasonably comforting about Monty Don. The soft corduroy, the battered gardening gloves, the voice that could talk you down from almost anything — he has, for two decades now, been the nation's unofficial horticultural therapist. On Sunday, he brings all of that to Glasgow.

Monty Don: A Journey Through British Gardens arrives at the SEC Armadillo on Sunday 26 April, with doors opening at 1pm for a 2pm start. It is the live companion to his recent BBC Two series and book, both titled British Gardens, and it marks a deliberate turning homeward after years of globe-trotting programmes about Italian, French, American, Japanese and — only this year — Rhineland gardens.

"What do our gardens say about us?" is the question the show sets out to answer. Don, armed with photography and anecdote, takes audiences from the northern tip of Scotland down to the Cornish coast, stopping at Alnwick, Beatrix Potter's Lake District farmhouse and the gloriously unruly rewilded walled garden at Knepp in Sussex.

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What's On Glasgow

Scotland's biggest coffee party brewed up a storm at The Briggait

Glasgow Coffee Festival 2026 packed out Merchant City with 50+ stalls, the inaugural Best Roaster UK final and a very caffeinated crowd

By Damien Day

If you wandered through the Merchant City last weekend and caught an unmistakable waft of fresh espresso, you weren't imagining things. Scotland's biggest coffee party had returned — and this year it was bigger than ever.

The Glasgow Coffee Festival took over The Briggait on Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 April for its twelfth year, with organisers expanding into the neighbouring Clydeside Halls for the first time. The move pushed capacity to around 2,800 visitors across the weekend, up nearly 40% on last year's 2,000-strong sell-out crowd.

Tickets — starting from £17, with under-12s going free — sold out well in advance. A waitlist remains open at glasgowcoffeefestival.com for anyone keen to catch next year's edition.

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