This week on “Sunday Morning” (July 21)

The Emmy Award-winning “CBS News Sunday Morning” is broadcast on CBS Sundays beginning at 9:00 a.m. ET.  “Sunday Morning” also streams on the CBS News app beginning at 12:00 p.m. ET. (Download it here.) 

Guest host: Mo Rocca

     
COVER STORY: This week in the GOP
CBS News chief election & campaign correspondent Robert Costa reports.

      
ALMANAC: July 21
“Sunday Morning” looks back at historical events on this date.

ARTS: Sculptor Jago on unveiling humankind in marble
Thirty-seven-year-old sculptor Jacopo Cardillo, better known in his native Italy as Jago, has earned a following with his contemporary approach to this classical art form, exposing on social media his process of shaping marble. When he embraced a group of teens who’d defaced one of his works, Jago won a new fan touched by his humanity: Whoopi Goldberg. Correspondent Seth Doane talked with the artist about his most ambitious project yet: creating what will be a 6-ton sculpture more than 16 feet tall.

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FOOD: Hail, Caesar! An ode to the second most popular salad
It’s a staple on menus grand and humble: The Caesar salad, invented 100 years ago by Caesar Cardini, a restaurant owner in Tijuana, Mexico. Correspondent Mo Rocca travels south of the border to investigate the origin of the Caesar salad, in this “Sunday Morning” story that originally aired on November 23, 2008. 

SPORTS: Meet 90-year-old decathlete Florence Meiler
One Olympic sport that has not been open to women is the 10-event decathlon, whose winner is crowned “world’s greatest athlete.” (Women instead compete in the seven-event heptathlon.) But there are women athletes, young and older, who would like to see that changed. “Sunday Morning” senior contributor Ted Koppel meets Florence Meiler, a 90-year-old track star training for the USA Masters Combined Events Championship in Charlottesville, Va.; and with Lauren Kuntz and Sophie Knudson, decathletes who are part of a growing movement to overcome the one hurdle that keeps women from competing in the decathlon in international competition.

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PASSAGE: In memoriam
“Sunday Morning” remembers some of the notable figures who left us this week.

      
WORLD: Children of Gaza
The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund has helped rescue more than 200 children from Gaza who are in need of medical treatment, including two-year-old Jood Damo, who was injured by an Israeli airstrike. Correspondent Tracy Smith talks with doctors about conditions in the Gaza Strip ever since Israel responded to Hamas’ attack last October, and how children have become the overwhelming victims of violence.

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COMMENTARY: Josh Seftel’s mom on summer
“Sunday Morning” contributor Josh Seftel talks with his mother, Pat, about her summer plans.

MUSIC: Bruce Springsteen on “Nebraska,” and the emergence of Springsteen the poet
In-between his chart-topping album “The River” and his classic “Born in the U.S.A.,” Bruce Springsteen recorded a collection of songs on a 4-track cassette recorder in a bedroom at his rented farmhouse – dark, mournful, and rough-hewn songs that reflected the upheaval in his life at a time of rising success. The resulting album, 1982’s “Nebraska,” would be one of his most personal, and helped solidify his status as one of music’s most soulful voices. Springsteen talks with correspondent Jim Axelrod about how “Nebraska” spoke to his evolution as a songwriter. Axelrod also talks with Warren Zanes, author of the new book, “Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska’.” (An earlier version of this story was originally broadcast on April 30, 2023.)

READ AN EXCERPT: “Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska'”

You can stream “Nebraska” by Bruce Springsteen by clicking on the embed below (Free Spotify registration required to hear the tracks in full):

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NATURE: Secrets of the elephant
There is a lot we’re still learning about the magnificent elephant, a creature that became a political animal after satirist Thomas Nast used it in political cartoons in the 1870s. Correspondent Faith Salie visits the exhibition “The Secret World of Elephants,” at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and checks out the pachyderms at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., to uncover some of the elephant’s secrets, from its means of communication, to its trunk, “the Swiss army knife of organs.” 

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COMMENTARY: Politics
CBS News’ John Dickerson reports on an eventful week in the campaign for president.

      
NATURE: TBD
     

WEB EXCLUSIVES:

HISTORY: The origin of the Republican Party | Watch Video
On March 20, 1854, in Ripon, Wisconsin, several dozen citizens, alarmed by the prospect of slavery spreading westward, gathered in a little white schoolhouse, a meeting widely believed to be the birthplace of the Republican Party. Correspondent Mo Rocca looks at how the Grand Old Party was formed and how it was dominant in presidential politics in the years following the Civil War, until Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” (YouTube Video)
On July 16, 1951, J.D. Salinger’s landmark novel “The Catcher in the Rye,” about cynical teenager Holden Caulfield, was published. In this “Sunday Morning” report that aired September 1, 2013, correspondent Anthony Mason looked back at the author who famously shunned the spotlight. He also talked with filmmaker Shane Salerno (director of the documentary “Salinger”), who explored the Salinger myth; and with Jean Miller, who broke decades of silence to discuss the relationship she had with the reclusive writer beginning when she was 14 (and he, 30).     

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer (Video)
Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the radio/TV host and bestselling author who had an impact on millions with her frank talk on sex, died Friday, July 12, 2024 at age 96. In this profile from correspondent Martha Teichner that originally aired on “CBS Sunday Morning” on February 17, 2002, Westheimer talked about championing sexual literacy, having fun being “Dr. Ruth,” and what she was looking for in a companion.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Richard Simmons’ advice on exercise (Video)
Fitness guru Richard Simmons, who helped millions lose weight by preaching the value of exercise and movement, died Saturday, July 13, 2024, at age 76. In this November 30, 2003 commentary recorded for “Sunday Morning,” Simmons offered his advice on dealing with holiday feasts, diets, and the benefits of “moving and grooving.”

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Texas musician Kinky Friedman (YouTube Video)
The larger-than-life and proudly politically incorrect Texas musician, bestselling writer and political candidate Kinky Friedman, who made a career out of shooting from the lip, died on June 27, 2024. In this “Sunday Morning” profile that aired February 20, 2005, correspondent Lee Cowan talked with Friedman, who fronted the country band The Texas Jewboys, about his campaign for Texas Governor. Cowan also talked with Texas Monthly columnist Molly Ivins, editor Evan Smith, singer-songwriter Billy Joe Shaver, and former President Bill Clinton about the humorous and quixotic Friedman.

The Emmy Award-winning “CBS News Sunday Morning” is broadcast on CBS Sundays beginning at 9:00 a.m. ET. Executive producer is Rand Morrison.

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