CBS Sunday Morning: Stories That Matter to Real People

America’s Complicated Dance with Cuba

For nearly seven decades, the tiny island of Cuba—sitting just 90 miles off Florida’s coast—has been a major thorn in America’s side and a constant fixture in our foreign policy debates. It’s one of those situations that seems almost absurd when you think about it: how can such a small nation command so much attention from a superpower? Yet here we are in 2025, still grappling with the same tensions that defined the Cold War era. The Trump administration has recently tightened the screws even further, blocking nearly all oil shipments to the island, which has pushed Cuba deeper into a humanitarian crisis. President Trump has made headlines with his aggressive rhetoric, even threatening that he will be “taking Cuba”—whatever that means in practical terms. Mo Rocca sits down with history professor Jorge Malagon-Marquez to explore this long and tangled relationship, looking at past U.S. interventions and how these tensions have remarkably outlasted even Fidel Castro himself, who passed away years ago. It’s a reminder that some international relationships are like family feuds—they just keep going long after everyone forgets what started the fight in the first place.

The Human Body as Art and Landscape

British artist Jenny Saville has built an extraordinary career by looking at the human body—particularly the female form—in ways that challenge our comfortable assumptions about beauty and representation. Her work isn’t about creating pretty pictures; it’s about communication on a deeper level, what she calls “communication of the unspoken.” Saville has become one of the most celebrated modern British portrait painters by turning bodies into landscapes, using bold strokes and massive canvases that force viewers to confront the physicality and reality of flesh in all its forms. In conversation with correspondent Elizabeth Palmer, Saville discusses her artistic process and her unflinching gaze at the female body, including her own. There’s something refreshingly honest about her approach in an age where so many images of women are airbrushed and filtered into unreality. Saville’s paintings are large, raw, and unapologetically real—they celebrate the weight, texture, and presence of bodies in a way that feels almost revolutionary. Her work reminds us that art can be a form of truth-telling, especially when it comes to subjects we’re taught to view through layers of social conditioning and expectation.

Hollywood Comes to Wales: A Soccer Fairy Tale

Sometimes the most unlikely partnerships create the best stories. When Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds (known for playing the wisecracking Marvel superhero Deadpool) and Rob McElhenney (from the long-running comedy “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”) announced in 2021 that they were buying a failing soccer club in the northern Welsh city of Wrexham, most people thought it was either a publicity stunt or a midlife crisis dressed up as a business venture. But what happened next surprised everyone, including probably Reynolds and McElhenney themselves. The team went from losers to winners, the club’s value skyrocketed to nearly half a billion dollars, and suddenly Wrexham—a city that had seen better days—had something to be proud of again. Correspondent Ramy Inocencio reports on how this Hollywood investment became so much more than a celebrity vanity project. It became a story about community revival, about what happens when people believe in something again, and about how success in sports can lift an entire city’s spirits. The Wrexham story has inspired underdogs around the world, proving that sometimes taking a chance on something that seems hopeless can pay off in ways nobody imagined. It’s also a reminder that celebrities can use their wealth and influence for genuinely positive community impact—though the documentary series about the team’s revival probably didn’t hurt the bottom line either.

Taking Control of Your Brain Health

Here’s a fear that keeps many people up at night: if dementia runs in your family, are you doomed to the same fate? It’s the kind of worry that can feel like a dark cloud hanging over your future, making you wonder if there’s any point in planning for your later years. But new research offers genuine hope that you’re not simply a prisoner of your genetics. A tool called the Brain Care Score is helping people understand that lifestyle changes can make a real difference, potentially slashing the risk of dementia even for those with family histories of the condition. National Public Radio correspondent Allison Aubrey talks with neurologist Dr. Jonathan Rosand about how the choices you make every day—what you eat, how much you move, how you manage stress, whether you stay socially connected—can be as important as the genes you inherited. This isn’t about false promises or miracle cures; it’s about giving people practical tools and real agency over their brain health. The Brain Care Score helps identify the traits and habits that impact your cognitive future, turning abstract anxiety into concrete action steps. For anyone who’s watched a loved one struggle with dementia, this kind of research feels like a lifeline—proof that we’re not helpless in the face of these diseases, and that the small choices we make today might protect the person we’ll be decades from now.

The Remarkable World of Plant Lovers

There’s something deeply hopeful about people who dedicate themselves to plants and trees. Writer and illustrator Amy Stewart captures this beautifully in her book “The Tree Collectors,” which tells stories of people with what can only be described as tree obsessions—and she means that in the best possible way. Correspondent Martha Teichner explores the world of these devoted plant enthusiasts, from urban designers creating leafy city spaces to individuals cultivating ancient tree species in their backyards. Stewart describes planting a tree as “an act of hope,” which is a perfect way to think about it—you’re investing in a future you might not even live to see fully realized. The segment introduces us to Kao Saelee, who grows tropical fruit trees at his California home in the Central Valley (which seems wildly ambitious given the climate), and Reagan Wytsalucy, a plant scientist working to revive the peach trees of her Navajo ancestors. Wytsalucy’s work is particularly moving because it connects botanical science with cultural preservation—those ancestral peach trees carry stories and traditions, not just fruit. In another segment about the Venus flytrap, correspondent Seth Doane talks with botanist Julie Moore and Damon Waitt from the North Carolina Botanical Garden about saving these carnivorous plants native to the Carolinas, which Charles Darwin called the most interesting plant in the world. These stories remind us that in an age of rapid environmental change and species loss, the people working to preserve plant diversity are doing essential work—keeping alive not just species, but possibilities.

Music, Democracy, and the Human Spirit

Kacey Musgraves went home to east Texas a couple of years ago to heal from a breakup, and what emerged from that difficult period was her album “Middle of Nowhere.” In conversation with Anthony Mason, the Grammy-winning artist talks about the creative process behind the album and how she learned to embrace solitude rather than run from it. There’s something universally relatable about retreating to familiar places when life gets hard, and Musgraves channeled that experience into songs that capture loneliness not as something to be fixed but as something to be understood. She discusses the influence of her mentor, the late singer-songwriter John Prine, and describes writing lyrics as “the greatest drug”—that feeling of finding exactly the right words to express emotions that seemed inexpressible. Meanwhile, in a different kind of American story, Congressman Jim Clyburn sits down with national correspondent Robert Costa to discuss democracy itself. Clyburn, South Carolina’s sole Black Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives and a civil rights veteran, has become one of the Democratic Party’s most important voices. At an age when most people would be thinking about retirement, he’s seeking an 18th term because he believes the work of protecting democracy isn’t finished. He talks about fighting efforts to roll back voter protections established by the 1965 Voting Rights Act and what might happen if Democrats win back the congressional majority. These two interviews—one with a musician processing personal heartbreak, another with a politician fighting for democratic principles—might seem unrelated, but they’re both ultimately about the same thing: finding your voice and using it, whether through song or through service, to say something that matters.