This week on "Sunday Morning" (August 18)

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.) 

Hosted by Jane Pauley

COVER STORY: Now it's the Democrats' turn
CBS News chief election & campaign correspondent Robert Costa reports on the Democratic National Convention, which will be gaveled into session this Monday in Chicago.

Watch CBS News' live anchored coverage starting Monday, August 19 at 5:00 p.m. ET, streaming on CBS News 24/7, Paramount+ and Pluto TV, with primetime coverage from 8:00-11:00 p.m. ET on CBS.

      
ALMANAC: August 18
"Sunday Morning" looks back at historical events on this date.

      
ARTS: Artist Mickalene Thomas and her dream of making a difference
In college Mickalene Thomas studied pre-law because she wanted to change the world. But then she saw an exhibition of photographs by Carrie Mae Weems, and she knew then what she wanted to do. The 53-year-old artist, who creates pieces celebrating women, is now being featured in an exhibition at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles titled "Mickalene Thomas: All About Love." Correspondent Tracy Smith talks with Thomas about her muses and her mixing of media, from collage and silkscreen to rhinestones.

For more info:

• Mickalene Thomas (Official site)
• "Mickalene Thomas: All About Love," at the Broad Museum, Los Angeles (though September 29)
• Catalogue: "Mickalene Thomas: All About Love," hand-signed (DAP), available in Hardcover via Amazon, Barnes & Nobles and Bookshop.org

       
U.S.: Giving wild donkeys a new life
Originally from Africa, donkeys (or burros, in Spanish) have been in North America for centuries. They were work animals that helped build the West, and today there are thousands of free-roaming donkeys on public lands, where they can overgraze and threaten delicate ecosystems. Correspondent Conor Knighton looks at efforts (such as adoption programs for wild and domestic burros) aimed at giving these social animals a better life.

For more info:

• Bureau of Land Management: Wild Horse and Burro Program
• Bureau of Land Management: Adoption Program
• Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue, San Angelo, TX
• Donkey History Museum, Mesquite, Nev.
• Happy Burro Chili & Beer, Beatty, Nev. (Facebook)

       
BOOKS: Carl Hiaasen on "Bad Monkey" becoming a TV series
Florida native Carl Hiaasen has written about his beloved state in a series of bestselling comedic novels that target the darkness which can cloud the Sunshine State. "60 Minutes' correspondent Lesley Stahl talks with Hiaasen about his love affair with Florida; and visits the Florida Keys location of "Bad Monkey," a new Apple TV+ series adapted from Hiaasen's 2013 bestseller about a failed detective, murder, and a misbehaving monkey. 

To watch a trailer for "Bad Monkey" click on the video player below:

For more info:

• carlhiaasen.com
• "Bad Monkey" is now streaming on Apple TV+

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

U.S.: The increasing hazard of black lung disease facing coal miners
Coal mining has always been a dangerous job, with one in every five miners ending up with "black lung" disease. But today, in Appalachia, miners are suffering from black lung at increasingly younger ages. "Sunday Morning" senior contributor Ted Koppel talks with miners and union officials who say coal companies routinely break the rules that could help protect their employees' health; and looks at a new government proposal that might offer real protection for miners, but which is facing opposition in Congress. (This story was originally broadcast December 10, 2023.)

For more info:

• New River Health clinics
• United Mine Workers Local 8843
• Respirable Crystalline Silica: Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Mine Safety and Health Administration)

PHOTOGRAPHY: Photographer Russell Lee's testament to coal miners
When coal was king, coal miners risked their lives to fuel America. Photographer Russell Lee captured the hardships and privations (as well as moments of joy) in America's mining communities in the mid-1940s. His pictures are now on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., in an exhibit titled "Power & Light: Russell Lee's Coal Survey." "Sunday Morning" host Jane Pauley offers us a tour.

For more info:

• Exhibition: "Power & Light: Russell Lee's Coal Survey," at the Lawrence F. O'Brien Gallery, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (through July 6, 2025)
• "Russell Lee: A Photographer's Life and Legacy" by Mary Jane Appel (Liveright), in Hardcover and Book formats, available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org

       
MOVIES: Carol Kane (and her mother) on "Between the Temples"
In her latest film, "Between the Temples," Oscar-nominated actress Carol Kane plays a retired music teacher who is determined to be bat mitzvahed. Kane talks with correspondent Nancy Giles about how her own mother inspired her character; how Andy Kaufman taught her the "language" that their characters, Latka and Simka, spoke on the TV series "Taxi"; and how, as a student, she resisted the opinion of a doctor who said she should never set foot on stage. 

To watch a trailer for "Between the Temples" click on the video player below:

For more info:

• "Between the Temples" opens in theaters August 23

     
HARTMAN: Shoes
       

BOOKS: H.R. McMaster on "the good, the bad and the ugly" of working for Trump
In his new book, "At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House," retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster discusses the 13 months he worked as national security adviser in the White House before former President Donald Trump fired him. McMaster talks with CBS News national security correspondent David Martin about serving in a White House where "everything was much harder than it needed to be"; about Trump's attraction to the qualities of autocrats; and how he participated in an intervention to prevent Trump from threatening fellow members of NATO.

For more info:

• "At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House" by H.R. McMaster (HarperCollins), in Hardcover, Large Print, eBook and Audio formats, available August 27 via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org
• H.R. McMaster, Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution

      
NATURE: TBD
       

WEB EXCLUSIVES:      

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Democracy and the Ballot Box (YouTube Video)
Watch stories from the "Sunday Morning" archives about the history of America's elections, the power of one's vote, and the fight to protect democracy. Featured: Mo Rocca on the original "birther" controversy of President Chester Alan Arthur, the "worst" president ever, the disputed election of 1876, and a classroom lesson on the Electoral College; Scott Simon on the violent 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago; Richard Schlesinger on the return of Richard Nixon; Anthony Mason on Bush v. Gore; Nancy Giles on the election of Barack Obama; Steve Hartman on a family split by competing political allegiances; Lee Cowan on how late-night comedians tackled the 2016 race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and how Trump attempted to overturn his 2020 election loss; David Martin on the violence of the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol; Seth Doane on how the world's media reacted to scenes of political violence in America; and John Dickerson on the importance of the congressional committee investigating a president who fought against the peaceful transfer of power. 

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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