Latest / The Rest of the World Podcast / GOOD NEWS SUNDAY October 25, 2026

Transcript

GOOD NEWS SUNDAY October 25, 2026 · The Rest of the World Podcast

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning from Paris.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rudy Martinez with The Rest of the World Report for this Sunday, October 25th.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Not going to lie, I've been looking forward to the Sunday Good News edition all week.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: In Illinois, they've erased medical debt.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Illinois has erased more than $1.4 billion in medical debt, and no one had to apply.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Governor J.B.
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  SPEAKER_00: Pritzker announced the figure Thursday,
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  SPEAKER_00: October 15th at a news conference in the Cook County Health Building.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: His office says the state's medical debt relief program,
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  SPEAKER_00: about two years old, has reached 694,000 residents.
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  SPEAKER_00: On average, about $1,200 in debt was erased for each person.
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  SPEAKER_00: One person had as much as $900,000 erased, according to the state.
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  SPEAKER_00: The state allocated $10 million to the program.
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  SPEAKER_00: Every penny that we put in relieves a dollar of debt, Pritzker said.
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  SPEAKER_00: He said he is committed to continuing the funding.
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  SPEAKER_00: Residents do not apply.
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  SPEAKER_00: A person whose debt is eliminated gets a letter in
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  SPEAKER_00: the mail saying how much was erased, Pritzker said.
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  SPEAKER_00: He said some people who received a letter broke out crying.
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  SPEAKER_00: The state works with Undue Medical Debt,
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  SPEAKER_00: a nonprofit that negotiates the sale or donation of portfolios of medical debt
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  SPEAKER_00: with hospitals and health systems.
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  SPEAKER_00: Eligible households typically have income at or below 400% of the federal poverty level.
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  SPEAKER_00: Cook County Board President Tony Preckwinkle joined Pritzker.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, that name was just Preckwinkle.
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  SPEAKER_00: The county started its own program with federal American Rescue Plan Act funds,
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  SPEAKER_00: and she said she's committed to continuing the funding once those funds end.
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  SPEAKER_00: She said the next phase will use data from the effort to study who is pushed
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  SPEAKER_00: into medical debt and why.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Together,
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  SPEAKER_00: the state and county programs have erased $2.4 billion in debt for
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: about 1.5 million residents, according to state and county officials.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: The share of residents reached varies by county.
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  SPEAKER_00: About 22% of the residents in Kankakee County, about 60 miles south of Chicago, had debt erased.
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  SPEAKER_00: In Kane County, it was nearly 13%.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: In Lake County, nearly 9%.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And in DuPage County, around 7%.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Women replant the Niger Delta.
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  SPEAKER_00: Since 2018,
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  SPEAKER_00: teams from one women-led center in Ogoniland,
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  SPEAKER_00: Nigeria,
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  SPEAKER_00: have restored 3 million mangroves and reclaimed 190 hectares of swamp forest.
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  SPEAKER_00: Agoni Land sits in the oil-exploited Niger Delta.
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  SPEAKER_00: Martha Agbani founded the Lokiaka Community Development Center in 2003,
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  SPEAKER_00: soon after her mother died.
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  SPEAKER_00: She grew up with the smell of crude oil in the air,
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  SPEAKER_00: rivers running black, and trees dying on the banks.
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  SPEAKER_00: She says the 1995 hanging of Agoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa
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  SPEAKER_00: and eight other campaigners opened her eyes to what lay behind the destruction
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  SPEAKER_00: of her hometown.
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  SPEAKER_00: Agbani has trained more than 400 women Many of whom have since run the training
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  SPEAKER_00: in their own communities.
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  SPEAKER_00: At Tinama,
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  SPEAKER_00: between the Kauawa and Capean oil settlements,
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  SPEAKER_00: Joy Lebewe works alongside a dozen other women.
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  SPEAKER_00: In the wetland there, they have planted more than 150,000 mangrove saplings.
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  SPEAKER_00: When the women began in 2018,
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  SPEAKER_00: they planted too close together and the canopies crowded each other out.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now they press a two-meter stick into the mud to mark where the next sapling goes.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is our forest, Lebewe said.
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  SPEAKER_00: Men from surrounding communities clear invasive nipa palm first,
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  SPEAKER_00: a species from Southeast Asia that crowds out native mangroves.
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  SPEAKER_00: About 1,000 hectares of mangroves were destroyed in the 2008 Ogonalen spill.
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  SPEAKER_00: Ferdinand Giadalm,
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  SPEAKER_00: Deputy Project Director of Bobo Mediation Initiative,
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  SPEAKER_00: estimates that more than 500,000 barrels of crude have spilled into the environment
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  SPEAKER_00: in under 20 years.
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  SPEAKER_00: Shell was ordered to pay 55 million pounds in compensation after two spills in Bodo
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  SPEAKER_00: in 2008 and 2009.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Delta's mangrove ecosystem is the largest in Africa and the third largest in
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  SPEAKER_00: the world, covering about one million hectares.
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  SPEAKER_00: Agbani points to the return of fish and crabs as a sign of progress.
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  SPEAKER_00: Life is returning, she said.
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  SPEAKER_00: Bleached corals make a comeback.
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  SPEAKER_00: In a Stanford University laboratory,
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  SPEAKER_00: all five bleached corals placed against healthy clones recovered within seven weeks.
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  SPEAKER_00: Five other bleached corals kept a few millimeters apart died.
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  SPEAKER_00: The study was published in Science Advances.
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  SPEAKER_00: Danny Collins, a Stanford PhD student and the lead author, arranged 10 pairs of coral fragments.
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  SPEAKER_00: Each pair held one healthy piece and one bleached piece from the same colony.
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  SPEAKER_00: Five pairs touched.
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  SPEAKER_00: Bleaching happens when water gets too hot and corals expel the microscopic algae
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  SPEAKER_00: that supplies much of their energy.
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  SPEAKER_00: That leaves them vulnerable to starvation and recovery can take months or even years.
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  SPEAKER_00: While bleached corals may be dying, they are not dead yet, Collins said.
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  SPEAKER_00: The discovery came by accident in 2025.
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  SPEAKER_00: Steve Palumby,
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  SPEAKER_00: a professor and marine biologist at Stanford,
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  SPEAKER_00: noticed two pieces of coral that had fallen against each other in a laboratory tank.
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  SPEAKER_00: One was healthy, and one was bleached.
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  SPEAKER_00: And where they touched, the bleached coral began to regain its color.
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  SPEAKER_00: Under a microscope,
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  SPEAKER_00: the researchers found the corals had fused,
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  SPEAKER_00: creating tiny channels that let algae and nutrients pass between them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Within three days,
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  SPEAKER_00: beneficial algae had begun moving into the bleached corals,
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  SPEAKER_00: and after about a week, some had received enough to recover on their own.
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  SPEAKER_00: In the second week,
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  SPEAKER_00: the algae doubled in number every four days,
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  SPEAKER_00: about ten times faster than in the wild corals.
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  SPEAKER_00: The method is not ready for the ocean.
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  SPEAKER_00: The corals must be genetically identical for their tissues to fuse,
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  SPEAKER_00: so every damaged coral would need a healthy copy of itself.
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  SPEAKER_00: The researchers hoped to find ways to deliver the algae without direct contact
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  SPEAKER_00: or identical twins.
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  SPEAKER_00: Global bleaching now occurs roughly every five to six years.
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  SPEAKER_00: Palumby said, it doesn't blunt heat waves, it just helps the aftermath.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is a cute one.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sloth bear gets a new paw.
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  SPEAKER_00: Basi, a sloth bear in India,
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  SPEAKER_00: is the first known sloth bear in the world to wear a prosthetic paw.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's according to Wildlife SOS, the non-profit that cares for him.
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  SPEAKER_00: Wildlife SOS announced it in September of 2025.
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  SPEAKER_00: Vasikharan, called Vasi, arrived at the Banargata Bear Rescue Center outside Bangalore in 2019.
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  SPEAKER_00: A wire snare trap in the Balari district had clamped his left hind paw.
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  SPEAKER_00: The injury was too severe to heal, and the paw was amputated.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because of his condition, he could not be released, and he receives long-term care.
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  SPEAKER_00: Derek Campana, an animal orthotist known as the Wizard of Paws, contacted a non-profit.
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  SPEAKER_00: He had helped domestic animals and horses, but never a wild bear.
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  SPEAKER_00: Caregivers first wrapped Vasi's paw in soft cloth so he could get used to
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  SPEAKER_00: the feeling of something attached to it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Over several days, Campana crafted a mold and a limb meant to withstand digging and climbing.
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  SPEAKER_00: When the prosthetic was presented, Vasi sniffed it, tapped it, and examined it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Wildlife SOS says he did not flinch when it was attached and
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  SPEAKER_00: that he could place his hind left leg on the ground comfortably for the first time
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  SPEAKER_00: in years.
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  SPEAKER_00: The prosthetic is removed periodically to prevent irritation and then reattached
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  SPEAKER_00: and Vasi has accepted the routine.
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  SPEAKER_00: Nicky Sharp,
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  SPEAKER_00: Executive Director of Wildlife SOS USA,
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  SPEAKER_00: says of Campana, he's remarkable, absolutely remarkable.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sloth bears are listed as vulnerable in India and Nepal and as endangered in Sri Lanka.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sharp said snares are probably the most common reason bears at the center are missing a limb.
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  SPEAKER_00: The dog goes home.
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  SPEAKER_00: I do love good dog stories.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lisa Wilson moved into her new home in Spruce Pine, North Carolina on September 17th.
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  SPEAKER_00: And went straight to the shelter to get her dog, Eddie.
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  SPEAKER_00: Mitchell County Animal Rescue said so in a Facebook post that day.
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  SPEAKER_00: Wilson had adopted Eddie as a puppy 11 years earlier.
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  SPEAKER_00: After her divorce this year, she could not find an affordable pet-friendly rental in her town.
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  SPEAKER_00: Hurricane Helen damaged towns across western North Carolina in 2024,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the rental market there was extremely tight.
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  SPEAKER_00: She surrendered Eddie to the rescue.
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  SPEAKER_00: She visited him several times a week to walk him,
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  SPEAKER_00: and one day she came back from a walk in tears.
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  SPEAKER_00: Katie Elkins, the Rescue Executive Director, asked how she could help.
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  SPEAKER_00: Elkins turned to Best Friends Animal Society,
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  SPEAKER_00: which gave the rescue a grant meant to keep pets out of shelters because
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  SPEAKER_00: of barriers such as moving costs.
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  SPEAKER_00: The rescue also shared the story on social media, and the community responded.
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  SPEAKER_00: The report says that about $18,000 was raised for housing and moving expenses.
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  SPEAKER_00: Elkins wrote that people had cared about a woman and her dog they had never met.
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  SPEAKER_00: She also wrote, You kept the family together.
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  SPEAKER_00: The rescue shared photos of Wilson and Eddie in their new home, with Eddie's tail wagging.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: A bookstore moves by hand.
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  SPEAKER_00: About 280 volunteers moved more than 7,400 books by hand down a sidewalk in Ottawa,
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  SPEAKER_00: one at a time.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Spaniel's Tail,
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  SPEAKER_00: a bookstore in the Hintonburg neighborhood,
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  SPEAKER_00: moved a block along Wellington Street West on Saturday, October 10th.
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  SPEAKER_00: Volunteers formed two lines running about 80 to 90 meters from the old location
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  SPEAKER_00: in Carruthers Avenue to the new one on Sterling Avenue.
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  SPEAKER_00: The books moved from about noon to about 2.30 p.m.
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  SPEAKER_00: Co-owner Cole Davidson said the idea came from customers who had brought
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: the store articles about other bookstores that had done the same.
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  SPEAKER_00: He counted around 280 volunteers by the end and more than 300 had signed up.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's really humbling.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's really such an honor, he said.
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  SPEAKER_00: People of all ages came.
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  SPEAKER_00: Harry Turk Meisner, 12,
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  SPEAKER_00: said a picture he drew for the store when it opened in 2022 still hangs in
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  SPEAKER_00: the children's section.
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  SPEAKER_00: Volunteer Ashley Graham said she was finding books to buy as they passed through her hands.
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  SPEAKER_00: All the books reached the new shelves in alphabetical order,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the rest of the stock was to move the following week.
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  SPEAKER_00: The new store is more than twice the size of the old one,
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  SPEAKER_00: which Davidson said will allow more events,
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  SPEAKER_00: such as book signings and candlelight shopping nights.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: The new location at 1109 Wellington Street West had its grand opening scheduled
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  SPEAKER_00: for Saturday, October 17th.
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  SPEAKER_00: All right, that's it for this Good News Sunday edition.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully at least one of those stories put a little smile on your face.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rudy Martinez.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: I will see you all again tomorrow.
• 10:30
  [music]