This week on “Sunday Morning” (July 20)

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 11:00 a.m. ET. (Download it here.) 

Hosted by Jane Pauley

COVER STORY: The science of redesigning your personality | Watch Video
Writer Olga Khazan was unhappy with the person she was – anxious, obsessed with work, unable to have fun, and constantly worried about things. And when therapy, medications and self-care failed to work for her, Khazan decided a more radical approach was needed: she vowed to redesign her personality. Khazan talks with “Sunday Morning” correspondent Susan Spencer about the surprising steps she took to live outside her comfort zone – a journey she documented in her new book, “Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change.” Spencer also talks with University of Kentucky professor Shannon Sauer-Zavala about how it’s possible to change seemingly intractable personality traits.

READ AN EXCERPT: “Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change”
Atlantic staff writer Olga Khazan, a lifelong introvert, set out to change aspects of her personality she didn’t like by forcing herself outside of her comfort zone. How about trying improv comedy?

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ALMANAC: July 20 (Video)
“Sunday Morning” looks back at historical events on this date.

WORLD: Life within Naples’ volcanic “red zone” (Video)
There has been increasing volcanic activity around Naples, Italy (with around two thousand earthquakes in February alone). Just 30 miles west of Mount Vesuvius lies Campi Flegrei, a volcanic caldera that stretches for 125 miles underneath urban areas, where half a million people now live. Correspondent Seth Doane talks with scientists monitoring this activity.

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U.S.: A Civil War landmark in downtown D.C. (Video)
One little-known landmark in Washington, D.C., is an inconspicuous building that was the site of a revolutionary effort at the end of the Civil War – one that changed the military ever since – where Clara Barton worked to locate thousands of soldiers missing or dead. Correspondent Falie Salie visits the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum.

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BOOKS: Restaurateur Keith McNally on why he regrets “almost everything” | Watch Video
British-born restaurateur Keith McNally opened such popular New York City institutions as the Odeon, Balthazar and Pastis. But a 2016 stroke, which caused immobility and affected his speech, led to a suicide attempt two years later. It also led him to take to social media, and pen an irreverent memoir, “I Regret Almost Everything.” He talks with correspondent Mo Rocca about overcoming public embarrassment about his condition, and the importance of having a hamburger on the menu.

READ AN EXCERPT: “I Regret Almost Everything: A Memoir” by Keith McNally

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PASSAGE: Remembering Connie Francis (Video)
“Sunday Morning” host Jane Pauley looks back at the career of singer Connie Francis, who became a defining voice of the 1950s and ’60’s with such hits as “Where the Boys Are” and “Who’s Sorry Now,” and whose 1962 song “Pretty Little Baby” recently became a viral hit on TikTok.

TV: Bridget Everett on how she ended up as “Somebody Somewhere” | Watch Video
Actress and cabaret star Bridget Everett put her hometown of Manhattan, Kansas, on the map with “Somebody Somewhere.” Everett was a writer, producer and lead actor in the Peabody Award-winning HBO series about a Midwestern woman returning home and working through grief. Correspondent Luke Burbank visited Everett in Manhattan, to talk about her surreal journey, and about a show whose characters can be hopeless and hopeful in the same moment.

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HARTMAN: The Carousel of Happiness (Video)
While under fire during the height of the Vietnam War, Marine Corporal Scott Harrison got through those dark days thanks in no small part to a vision he had, of a carousel in a mountain meadow. Years later, he bought a broken-down carousel, and made his vision a reality. Today, in Nederland, Colorado, his non-profit Carousel of Happiness is on a mission to spread joy. Correspondent Steve Hartman reports. 

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TV: What shocked “Matlock” star Kathy Bates? (Video)
Academy Award-winning actress Kathy Bates, who sat down with Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz to talk about some of her most memorable stage and screen roles, from “Misery” to “Matlock,” learned a startling fact about her relationship with her mother the night she won the Oscar. (Originally broadcast Oct. 6, 2024.)

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THESE UNITED STATES: Yellowstone National Park (Video)
Correspondent Conor Knighton reflects on the American treasure whose preservation as our first national park inspired similar conservation efforts around the globe.

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MUSIC: Conductor Herbert Blomstedt, a man who has cheated time (Video)
Herbert Blomstedt is still conducting major symphony orchestras around the world at the age of 98. And as correspondent Martha Teichner reports, he plans to continue doing so past 100 because, he says, “I have gifts I have to live up to.”

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COMMENTARY: Former Obama speechwriter David Litt on finding neutral ground | Watch Video
“Common ground” may be increasingly difficult to find in a time when everything seems political. Instead, David Litt, a former speechwriter for President Barack Obama, suggests finding “neutral ground” with others – a place to spend time together focused on something other than our differences. Surfing, he found, is a good option.

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CALENDAR: Week of July 21

Photo: 

NATURE: Mammoth Hot Springs at Yellowstone (Extended Video)
We leave you this Sunday morning at Yellowstone National Park’s Mammoth Hot Springs in Wyoming. Videographer: Michael Clark.
     

WEB EXCLUSIVES: 

THE BOOK REPORT: Ron Charles on new summer reads (July 20) | Watch Video
The Washington Post book reviewer offers highlights from the season’s fiction and non-fiction releases.

Book excerpt: “The Beast in the Clouds” by Nathalia Holt
In the latest book by the bestselling author of “Rise of the Rocket Girls,” two sons of Theodore Roosevelt set out for China on a quest to find a mythical creature: the giant panda.

Book excerpt: “Bug Hollow” by Michelle Huneven
A summer lark turns tragic, and a shattered family must carry on, in the latest novel by the author of “Round Rock” and “Blame.”

Book excerpt: “The Satisfaction Café” by Kathy Wang
In her search to overcome loneliness and build connections, a woman from Taiwan creates a new life for herself in California, in a gently witty new novel from the author of “Family Trust.”

Book excerpt: “The Slip” by Lucas Schaefer
This debut comic novel, set in and around a boxing gym in Austin, Texas, pounces on issues of race, sex and gender identity in America today.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Songwriters Alan and Marilyn Bergman (YouTube Video)
Alan Bergman, part of the songwriting team of Alan and Marilyn Bergman (who created Oscar-winning lyrics for “The Thomas Crown Affair,” “The Way We Were,” and “Yentl”), died Thursday, July 17, 2025, at age 99. In this “Sunday Morning” profile that originally aired March 7, 2010, the Bergmans talked with correspondent Nancy Giles about writing for Barbra Streisand; and what a good collaboration and a good marriage have in common.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Martin Cruz Smith on writing mysteries (Video)
Martin Cruz Smith, author of such bestsellers as “Gorky Park” and “Polar Star,” died on July 11, 2025, at age 82. In this “Sunday Morning” profile that aired Oct. 20, 2002, Smith talked with correspondent Anthony Mason about how he continued writing mysteries featuring Moscow detective Arkady Renko, despite being blacklisted by the Soviet Union. He also discussed the “boring” aspects of writing, and the research he conducted in Japan for his novel “December 6,” set in Tokyo on the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Notable Deaths

MARATHON: Fun ‘n’ Games (YouTube Video)
Enjoy these classic “Sunday Morning” features about gaming, from board and tile games, to bizarre new games that might not catch on.

MARATHON: Pieces of history (YouTube Video)
In this compilation, “CBS Sunday Morning” delves into the pages of history, from the fall of Saigon to the reconstruction of the Notre Dame Cathedral.

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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