This Mother's Day, meet the real mama's boys
A special Mother's Day post from "60 Minutes" producer Shari Finkelstein:
This story was born out of a vacation I spent in Italy years ago, where Italian friends of mine were teasing their older brother for living at home with his parents in his early 40's. I thought it was a little strange that this charming, smart, successful man was living at home, and I loved the word Italians had coined for men like him: "Mammoni." What I was shocked to learn, was that this older brother was no isolated case -- it was the norm in Italy.
Trying to decide who to include in our story we faced an unusual problem: almost every unmarried man we came across fit the bill. My colleague Sabina Castelfranco and I would be discussing the subject in a cab, and the driver would chime in that he too lived at home with his parents; the waiter; the man at the hotel; mammoni were everywhere!
Continue Reading »The secrets of Special Ops
When President Obama made his late-night announcement that a special team of Americans had killed Osama bin Laden, we all wanted to know more about the men behind this operation. "The American people do not see their work, nor know their names," the president said, "But tonight, they feel the satisfaction of their work and the result of their pursuit of justice."
In the end, it was reportedly an elite team of Navy Seals, working with the CIA, who conducted a surgical raid to deliver justice to bin Laden. The names and faces of the men who carried out this operation may never be known, but we do know this: Special Operations takes a special breed of soldier.
Continue Reading »After the assault: Lara Logan comes home
This week on the "60 Minutes" broadcast, Lara Logan told the story of what happened to her on Feb. 11. That's the night Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power and more than 100,000 people flooded into Tahrir Square in Cairo to celebrate. Lara was reporting from the square that night when she suffered a brutal sexual assault by a frenzied mob.
On the broadcast, Lara tells the story of the attack. On "60 Minutes Overtime," we begin our story at the moment she was rescued from the mob. We follow her back to Washington, D.C., where she was hospitalized for four days before coming home to her two young children.
Continue Reading »Can this man save New Orleans?
Correspondent Byron Pitts has been covering New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina devastated the area in 2005. His very first "60 Minutes" report, in 2006, was about then-Mayor Ray Nagin, as he struggled to get the city back on its feet. While many say Nagin ultimately failed, there's a new mayor giving the city new hope: Mitch Landrieu. What's different about Landrieu? And, perhaps more importantly, how did he get Byron to put on a clown costume and ride atop a Mardi Gras float?
Continue Reading »Runaway wives: Have you ever been tempted?
The free-wheeling 1960's had come and gone. There just had to be more to life than doing laundry, raising a family and kissing the husband goodbye every day as he left for work. What's a housewife to do? How about just chuck it all and leave? According to this classic "60 Minutes" report, thousands of women were doing just that. Mike Wallace went to Seattle to visit one family divided, in a report loaded with rap sessions, women's lib, and the notion of just letting it all hang out.
Continue Reading »The face of Jesus: an Easter essay
Easter, of course, is so much more than bunnies, candy-filled baskets and multi-colored eggs. It's the day Christians around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In this 1999 essay, Andy Rooney reflects on the images of Christ recorded over 2,000 years. Can we ever really know what He looked like? Does it matter?
Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Unplugged
We knew that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen owns the Seattle Seahawks, as well as the Portland Trail Blazers. And we knew about his 414-foot yacht, the "Octopus," which reportedly set him back $200 million. What we didn't know was that Paul Allen also has his own HD film crew following him around. That crew was rolling back in 2007 when Allen and Bill Gates took a trip down memory lane, to a now-abandoned building in Seattle.
Continue Reading »A billionaire bachelor's playground
What would you do if you suddenly became a billionaire with the means to indulge your every whim, no matter how extreme?
If you're Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, and you liked space travel, Jacques Cousteau, and Jimi Hendrix during your youth, why not go for a personal space rocket, build yourself a submarine, and buy the guitar Jimi used to play "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock?
Continue Reading »1979: Making millions the Mary Kay way
This week, "60 Minutes Overtime" presents Morley Safer's 1979 story on Mary Kay Inc., and we're pretty sure it'll tickle you pink. The late Mary Kay Ash is the retired grandmother who turned $5,000 in seed money into a cosmetic powerhouse. Back then, the company was hauling in $100 million a year; today, Mary Kay Inc. grosses $2.5 billion in global sales.
Ash told Safer she built her empire by giving the American woman what she needed most: confidence. "Here's a woman who's never had any praise at all for anything she's ever done," Ash said. "She wants recognition, so we praise her for everything good that she does."
Continue Reading »Reporting on an unsolved Mississippi murder
A special post from producer Sumi Aggarwal:
Like most American schoolchildren, I studied the civil rights movement. Years later, I only remembered the highlights: Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, the bus boycotts and the images of police dogs and water cannons being used on demonstrators.
But in researching this story, I learned that the real ground battle was being fought by ordinary African-Americans in small towns all over the South. They tried to vote and stood up to local Klan leaders and many, like Louis Allen, paid for it with their lives.
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