60 Minutes

Chinese hackers have infiltrated U.S. government systems, the private sector and critical infrastructure, but hacking has not replaced Beijing’s pursuit of old-fashioned human intelligence, aka: spying. Norah O’Donnell reports on Chinese covert agents who monitor and influence events outside their own borders and surveil and intimidate Chinese dissidents right here in America.

Correspondent Bill Whitaker visits New Orleans, where two high school seniors solved a mathematical puzzle that was thought to be impossible for 2,000 years. Whitaker speaks to the students, their families and the teachers at their school, St. Mary’s Academy, which has been fostering academic excellence and boundless possibilities for its student body of African American girls since the end of the Civil War.

Correspondent Jon Wertheim visits southwest Louisiana, where the sounds of Cajun and zydeco music – long the soundtrack in this singular pocket of America – are experiencing a remarkable revival.

Evidence has emerged that could change our understanding of the 9/11 terrorist attacks more than two decades ago. A 60 Minutes investigation has found that crucial information, initially turned over to the FBI shortly after the attacks, was never shared with the bureau’s own field agents or senior intelligence officials. Correspondent Cecilia Vega reports on this evidence, which has come to light amid a lawsuit against the Saudi government filed by families of the nearly 3,000 victims and includes a video of a Saudi national filming the U.S. Capitol, thought to be al-Qaeda’s fourth target.

Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi travels to Costa Mesa, Calif., to meet with Palmer Luckey, the 32-year-old tech billionaire who founded Anduril, a defense products company that makes autonomous weapons, some already in use by the U.S. military and in the war in Ukraine. Alfonsi explores the artificial intelligence that powers Anduril’s systems and reports on some of the company’s most advanced weapons, including a

Correspondent Bill Whitaker reports from the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, a Marian shrine in Southern France and the site of 72 medical miracles recognized by the Catholic Church. 60 Minutes goes inside the Lourdes Office of Medical Observations, where world-renowned doctors and researchers conduct decade-long investigations into the dozens of claims of miraculous cures made every year. They determine which

Twenty-three years later, over 1,000 families are still waiting for news of loved ones lost in the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11. Correspondent Scott Pelley looks at how efforts to search for and identify their remains have never stopped, driven by the promise made by the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner. Pelley visits their laboratory, which is using new advancements in DNA research and breakthrough techniques to provide answers for families holding on to hope. This is a double-length segment.

Correspondent Bill Whitaker reports from Germany’s Baltic Coast on the bombing of the Cap Arcona, a little-known human tragedy in the closing days of World War II in Europe. Once a luxurious German ocean liner, the Cap Arcona was commandeered by the Nazis and, at war’s end, turned into a floating concentration camp. Thousands of prisoners were killed in the aerial attack. Whitaker interviews historians and speaks with Holocaust survivors who witnessed the bombing to bring this largely

Jamie Lee Curtis has been making movies for almost 50 years. Not surprising for a child born into Hollywood royalty. But to hear her tell it, leaving school as a teenager, only to graduate into an A-list movie star before she was 30, was never the plan. Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi talks with Curtis in Los Angeles about her long career in Tinseltown and about her recent wave of award-winning performances that came to

Demis Hassabis, a pioneer in artificial intelligence, is shaping the future of humanity. As the CEO of Google DeepMind, he was first interviewed by correspondent Scott Pelley in 2023, during a time when chatbots marked the beginning of a new technological era. Since that interview, Hassabis has made headlines for his innovative work, including using an AI model to predict the structure of proteins, which earned him a Nobel Prize. Pelley returns to DeepMind’s headquarters in London to discuss what’s next for Hassabis, particularly his leadership in the effort to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) – a type of AI that has the potential to match the versatility and creativity of the human brain.

Fertility rates in the United States are currently near historic lows, largely because fewer women are having children in their 20s. As women delay starting families, many are opting for egg freezing, the process of retrieving and freezing unfertilized eggs, to preserve their fertility for the future. Does egg freezing provide women with a way to pause their biological clock? Correspondent Lesley Stahl interviews women who have decided to freeze their eggs and explores what the process entails physically, emotionally and financially. She also speaks with fertility

60 Minutes reports on how the flight logs found in a plane in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., uncovered Argentina’s notorious death flights during its dictatorship in the mid-1970s – serving as key evidence of the country’s lethal scheme that “disappeared” thousands of innocent citizens whom they viewed as a threat. Correspondent Jon Wertheim revisits this dark and traumatic period in Argentine history, meeting the pair of investigators who discovered the plane, and families of the victims who were thrown to their deaths. This is a double-length segment.

Host John Oliver’s highly lauded show, “Last Week Tonight,” gives him a Sunday night platform to unleash searing, satirical takes on the politics and problems of America, his adopted homeland. So how did this Brit become one of this country’s sharpest comedians? Correspondent Bill Whitaker travels to the U.K., and goes behind the scenes in New York, to trace Oliver’s comedic journey.

From 1950 to 1970, the Vatican sent thousands of Italian children to eager American Catholics for adoption. The children entered the United States on orphan visas. The trouble was most of the children were not orphans. They were the children of unwed mothers, many of whom were alive and searching for their children. How the Vatican got into the orphan business is the subject of The Price of Children, a book by author Maria Laurino. Bill Whitaker speaks to Laurino and to American adoptees still struggling with the decades of separation from their birth families.

Correspondent Anderson Cooper explores AI in the classroom and learns how the education nonprofit Khan Academy teamed up with the AI company OpenAI to enhance teacher efficiency and deepen student learning. Cooper previews a voice and vision technology from OpenAI, and test-drives a pioneering online tutor named “Khanmigo” from Khan

Mezcal is having its moment. This handcrafted Mexican spirit, made from agave, has seen exponential growth in popularity and production. Correspondent Cecilia Vega travels to Oaxaca and meets the mezcaleros laboring to quench the world’s thirst for mezcal. The deeper you travel into Oaxaca’s countryside, the harder mezcaleros cling to their ancestral methods and the louder they’ll tell you: there’s a price to pay for this mezcal boom.

It’s rare for 60 MINUTES to follow a story for 16 years, but correspondent Lesley Stahl reports on Jennifer Thompson, a rape victim who learned years after her attack that an innocent man had been sent to prison, a story Stahl covered in 2009. In this era of DNA exonerations, Thompson has come to believe that crime victims are forgotten, and even blamed, when the justice system gets it wrong. She has created Healing Justice, an organization that brings together the wrongfully convicted, crime victims and family members for multi-day intensive retreats. She invites 60 MINUTES to come along as they share their stories and move together on a path of healing.

Correspondent Bill Whitaker cruises through Espanola, N.M., a town that’s a hub of lowrider culture: vintage American automobiles with vibrant paint jobs and street-scraping suspensions. He meets a community of “cruisers” who are turning their hobby’s bad-boy reputation on its head, paving a new route as activists and community servants, and claiming a place as custodians of Hispanic culture and champions of fine art.

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Correspondent Bill Whitaker ventures out to one of the most dangerous inlets in America, nicknamed the Graveyard of the Pacific, at the mouth of the Columbia River. The mission? Document the training of elite members of the U.S. Coast Guard determined to graduate from the National Motor Lifeboat School and earn the coveted title of certified Surfmen. Whitaker speaks with some of the best water rescue professionals in the country as they push their limits, tackling the roughest waters and toughest test, to hear firsthand what it takes to operate in huge breaking surf in order to save lives.

Located in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay and only accessible by boat, Smith Island, Md., is a place where time stands still, and its residents speak a unique dialect. Rising sea levels and erosion are changing the landscape and placing residents at risk of becoming some of the country’s first climate refugees. Correspondent Jon Wertheim meets these locals to hear how climate change threatens their way of life – and the island itself – and how their perseverance and pride are inspiring a new generation of islanders.

Something unusual is going on in Major League Baseball stadiums across the country this season, and it isn’t traditional baseball. Correspondent Lesley Stahl reports from Savannah, Ga., on the dancing, back-flipping, lip-syncing almost-baseball team, the Savannah Bananas. They’ve created a new twist on the sport, which they call Banana Ball. Among its rules: a two-hour time limit; no bunting, walks or mound visits; and if a fan catches a foul ball, it’s an out. Stahl meets Banana Ball’s unorthodox, yellow-clad founder, Jesse Cole, and discovers the electric, circus-meets-sporting-event atmosphere that is selling out ballparks.

As chatbots continue to evolve, Lesley Stahl reports from Nairobi, Kenya, on the growing market of “humans in the loop” – workers around the world who help train AI for big American tech companies. Stahl speaks with digital workers who have spent hours in front of screens teaching and improving AI, but complain of poor working conditions, low pay and undertreated psychological trauma.

Correspondent Jon Wertheim journeys by boat (and winch) into the world’s smallest – and unlikeliest – state: the Principality of Sealand. Just off the English coast, and roughly the landmass of two tennis courts, it boasts a full-time population of one. It was built during World War II as a nautical fort, and later repurposed as a “pirate radio” station under its monarchs, the Bates family. Wertheim takes a tour of this micronation and its history of piracy, coups, countercoups and rogues.

The name Werner Herzog may not be as recognizable as Spielberg or Scorsese, but over the last six decades, the German filmmaker has had a profound and far-reaching influence on the world of cinema. He’s made over 70 features and documentaries, which are often dream-like explorations of nature’s power, human frailties and the edges of