Latest / The Rest of the World Podcast / GOOD NEWS SUNDAY | October 11, 2026

Transcript

GOOD NEWS SUNDAY | October 11, 2026 · The Rest of the World Podcast

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning from Paris.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rudy Martinez with The Rest of the World Report for Sunday morning, October 11th.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Time for some good news, you guys.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a little story about some wildlife comebacks.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Don't call it a comeback.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Wildlife populations have fallen 73% on average since 1970.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's the headline figure in the World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Report 2026,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: published on October 7th.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: The number's an average of change it monitored in population sizes.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a count of lost animals.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: The index produced by Zoological Society of London covers 35,803 population trends
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: across 5,790 vertebrate species from 1970 to 2022.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: But inside that average, the report finds recoveries.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: About half of the monitored populations are stable or increasing.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: WWF puts the split at 7% stable And 43% increasing.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: The declines are larger than the gains, so the overall average still falls.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: The WWF chief scientist Rebecca Shaw said species that were in free fall
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: a generation ago are fighting their way back.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: The report names tigers,
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: green sea turtles,
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Southern African elephants,
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: and Atlantic and Pacific bluefin tuna among the recoveries.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: While tigers numbers rose more than 70% between 2010 and 2025,
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: WWF credits commitments from Tiger Range countries,
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: including India, Bhutan, Nepal, Laos, and even China.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: In 2025,
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: the green sea turtle became the first marine turtle moved from endangered
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: to least concerned.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: The listing is the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: The change reflected 50 years of research,
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: protection of nesting females and eggs,
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: fishing gear measures, and community involvement.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: By 2010, Atlantic bluefin tuna had fallen 80% and were listed as endangered.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: They are now returning in numbers not seen in generations.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Tom Horton is a research fellow at the University of Exeter.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: He said fishers in British waters who had never seen bluefin now meet them regularly.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: The mountain gorilla was on the fast track to extinction back in the 1980s.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: More than 1,100 now live in Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Professor Brendan Godley of the University of Exeter said populations can rebound
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: when science,
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: policy, enforcement, and public support align, and he cautioned against complacency.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: The report says conservation alone cannot reverse the declines.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: It names the food, energy, and finance systems as the main drivers of nature loss.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: All right,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: this one,
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: first couple of times I practiced reading it,
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't get through it all without a little lump in my throat, so bear with me.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Jordan Hope took off his own shoes and gave them to a stranger.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hope is 18 and a recent high school graduate in Maricopa, Arizona.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: He saw an older man outside a drugstore in shoes that were barely staying on his feet.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: The man used a walker, and Hope stopped, took off his size 13 Nike slides, and handed them over.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't stop there.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: He bought the man candy,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: he called him a rideshare,
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: and then followed him to his home, and he stayed a while to talk.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's when he learned that the man's wife had died two weeks earlier.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: The man is 80 years old.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Eureli Madrid filmed the first moments from the parking lot and posted the video on Facebook.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Hope didn't know that he had been filmed.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: He found out the next day after the post drew hundreds of comments,
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: and someone who recognized him as a former student helped trace it back to him.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Hope credits his parents, his youth pastor, and his faith.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Of the man, he said, I just think he needed a friend.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: The man didn't want to take part in the story,
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: but he did tell a reporter he struggles to ask for help.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: He was grateful to have a new friend during a very hard time.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hope checks in with him by phone every day and the two plan to stay in touch
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: and may even attend church together.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: The crowdfunding page for the man had raised more than $2,000 within a couple
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: of days as of October 8th.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Hope said the money will go toward groceries and other expenses.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: You never know what someone's going through, Hope said.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Eight rescued and rehabilitated wild animals were released
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: at Mahognao Volcano Natural Park in Berean late in the Philippines.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: I hope I said that right.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: I apologize if I didn't.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Two were endangered bird species.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: An endangered South Philippine hawk eagle led the release.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: The animals included a Philippine hanging parrot and a South Philippine hawk eagle.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: The release took place on July 31st.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Separately,
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: The Philippine Eagle Foundation reported a nest of the same hawk-eagle species in
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: the same park.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: The foundation says it's
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: the first documented active South Philippine hawk-eagle nest on Late Island and
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: the first recorded in eastern Visayas.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: The species is endangered and logging and agricultural expansion have costed its habitat.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hunting, trapping, and poaching for the pet trade add to the pressure.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Foundation biologist Tristan Cenarius and his team documented the pair's complete nesting cycle.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: They first documented the pair in November 2025.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: By January, the female was incubating a single egg.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: The egg hatched on March 2nd, after 41 days.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: On May 17th, the young hawk eagle made its first flight.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: The team monitored the nest for the next 76 days.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: The foundation says this is the first time researchers have documented
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: the species' full nesting cycle.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: It says the data could guide stronger protection of breeding pairs and their forests.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: The Park's Protected Area Management Board approved four resolutions to protect
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: the nest site and the hawk-eagle family.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: The Bereuan local government is preparing an ordinance that would name
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: the South Philippine hawk-eagle a flagship species for conservation.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: The Foundation is preparing scientific papers on its findings.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: The Softball Sisters.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Less than an hour earlier,
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Samantha Rensfold had found out that she had just played against her sisters.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: It happened on a Friday in early August 2025 at
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: the 12th Annual Veterans Memorial Softball Classic in Belgrade, Montana.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Rensvold, then 18, played for the Army team.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Kayanne Dean, then 17, played for the Air Force, because clearly she's the smarter sister.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Both were born and adopted in Great Falls.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Both knew they had a sister somewhere.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Rensvold's parents had always told her.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: She knew the sister was in Montana, but little more.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Hayley Hernandez played on Army with Rensvold,
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And on the Huntley project team with Dean, she saw the resemblance.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: In the dugout during the opening game, she asked Rensvold, are you adopted?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Rensvold told her mom and her mom spoke with Dean's mother.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: The details matched and after Air Force beat Army, of course, Dean's mother told her.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Dean said she thought she was in trouble because her mom's tone was urgent.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Rensvold misplayed a ball in right field because she was listening in on
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: the conversation, she admitted.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: The tournament organizer,
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Jim Matter Jr., announced the news to a crowd during the opening ceremonies.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: The sisters then found more in common.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Each wore number one at the tournament.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Both played volleyball as outside hitters, and they shared the same laugh.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: They also share a younger brother, Case, whom Rensvold had already met.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Rensvold now pitches and plays infield at Spokane Colleges.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Dean and her family recently visited the campus to turret.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Rensvold had planned to go home to Montana the day before, but she stayed to meet them.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: She said softball was the perfect setting to meet her.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to end this off with a cute little story about an odd couple.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: A kangaroo grooms a bison calf almost every day.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: At Six Flags Great Adventures Wild Safari in Jackson, New Jersey, the two have become friends.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Penny is a hand-raised kangaroo just over a year old,
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: and Gertie is an American bison calf two months old as of August.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: They spend time near the safari's veterinary clinic,
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: and most days Staff arrived to find Penny tending to her much larger companion.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Dr. William Rives,
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: director of safari at Six Flags for Great Adventure,
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: said it's unusual for two such different species to form this kind of connection.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: The animal care team did not expect it.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Penny was preparing to join the safaris kangaroo population,
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: but Six Flags said the pair are making the most of their time together until then.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's it for Good News Sunday.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that at least one of these stories put a smile on your face and helped you
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Unplugged from the shit that was this week.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rudy Martinez and I will see you all again tomorrow.