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We begin with the weather. From wildfires to tornadoes, floods to record-breaking heat. It's been a tough summer for many of us around the country. In fact, last month was the hottest July ever recorded in the continental United States. Of course, some of us can seek a little respite from the heat with summer vacations.
But many of us have to suffer in silence at home, wondering. What's with this weather? We've asked our Jonathan Vigliotti to grab an umbrella. and head out into the heat. From Washington, DC to Washington State.
This has been a nationwide summer. Gee. of extremes. Are these isolated events or are they all connected? Oh, they're absolutely all connected.
You know, a lot of people have said that this, the thing about this summer is it's the coolest summer of the rest of your life. The sizzle of summer. and the shape of seasons to come. Ahead. on Sunday morning.
They've been rocking for more than five decades, and the eagles are still flying high. the band behind the best-selling album in US history, to say nothing of their slew of number one hits and Grammys, is now enjoying the longest residency ever at Sphere in Las Vegas. This morning, Eagles co-founder Don Henley talks with Tracy Smith. Yeah. Oh no.
Happy house. To a generation of music lovers, the Eagles are essential, but they won't be around much longer, says band co-founder Don Henley.
So what if people say, we want more Eagles after this? I guess they'll just have to listen to the records. I'll come with you. An Eagle show like you've never seen before and may never see again. coming up on Sunday morning.
Slaves. As we sweat through these dog days of August, what could be better than a cool pair of shorts? But this morning Low Rocket takes us back to a time when wearing shorts just wasn't an option. Will the people of Yonkers ever see you wearing shorts? Uh They have.
And they were. Believe it or not, there was once a time when wearing shorts could land you in jail. I think it's wild, but I understand. It was scandalous to show legs during certain eras. Students are freed from confining bloomers and floppy mini blossoms.
And it's a treat for the boys, too. The Long History of Shorts. later on Sunday morning. You know, I almost wore these. David Pogue this morning communes with nature and Martha Stewart using an app that can identify all kinds of wildlife.
Ian Lee saddles up and takes a closer look at an iconic item of cowboy culture. the Trophy belt buckle. Faith Saley introduces us to a woman who went from living a traditional Amish life. to becoming a social media influencer. Robert Costa talks with former Obama White House Chief of Staff and U.
S. Congressman Rahm Emmanuel. PLAS A Story from Steve Hartman. and more. this Sunday morning, august sixteenth, twenty twenty six.
We'll be back in a moment. Yeah. We begin this morning with Jonathan Vigliotti, taking a closer look at this record-breaking summer of extreme weather from coast to coast. And walking and walking and walking. In Washington, D.C.
this July, America's 250th birthday. Began with an evacuation. Due to approaching severe weather, we are temporarily pausing the event. An incoming summer storm forced crowds gathered on the National Mall for fireworks out of the park and indoors. Hours later, the show finally went on.
But by then, Mother Nature had made her point. For tens of millions of Americans, The season long associated with getting away has increasingly become something to get away from. In Texas, a second once-in-a-thousand-year flood in 12 months. In Indiana, outside Tornado Alley, a record 77 twisters. And there through it all, the heat.
July was the hottest month ever in the Lower 48, breaking a record last set during the Dust Bowl. And so we just got the dogs, the cat, The kid. And we just got out. July's heat, months of drought, and high winds fueled a brush fire in Spokane, Washington, allegedly started by an arsonist. Yeah.
Within hours flames had gone from the forest into Ted Chauvin's neighborhood. When you look around, what is it that you see? What goes on in your mind? where I was diagnosed with cancer. where I'd beat cancer.
Where we had our child and the memories we gave her in growing up in this place. That honestly has been the hardest part is the memories and hearing our kiddo go. And this is my house. And that's my house. This year has been Washington State's most destructive wildfire season to date.
Another new record.
Something's changing and what we need to do is Really ask the questions to figure out what to do about it. The summer of 2026 is another step. In the escalation of our world into a sort of hotter, more dangerous planet that climate scientists have been telling us about for decades. Are these isolated events or are they all connected? Oh, they're absolutely all connected.
We're creating a different world and we need to think about that and adapt to that world. But before we can adapt, climate journalist Jeff Goodell says we have to recognize there is a problem. The titles of his best-selling books read like today's headlines. We just tend to normalize them and tend to think Oh, it's just an abnormal year. There's always been a heat wave.
It's always been hot in Texas. You know, there's always been big hurricanes, whatever. Is it fair to say to characterize it? this way that we are frogs in a pot. that is slowly boiling and we're not noticing what's happening around us?
Yes, I think that's very appropriate analogy for sure. Because I do think that it it captures this idea of these slow changes that that you know we don't recognize until it's too late. Heat waves now occur three times as often as in the 1960s. Today's wildfires burn twice as much land each year as in the 1990s. It's a similar pattern across the Atlantic.
Deadly fires and record heat swept Europe. Where air conditioning is still uncommon because it rarely got so hot for so long. Heat is estimated to have claimed more than 10,000 lives in Europe. All of human civilization, all of life that we know, Has thrived in this sort of Goldilocks zone. The human civilization has evolved in the last 10,000 years.
And we've evolved in this certain range of temperatures. And what's happening now is that we're moving out of that range. But from a cultural perspective, Do you think that our understanding of the calendar is going to change. Where summer break isn't July. It's another period.
So ice cream and the beach in October or November. Yeah, absolutely. How much of American life is built based on a climate that no longer exists? All of it. All of it.
All of it. Goodell says our understanding of how and where we build will also need to evolve. It's particularly difficult to do here in the United States, even when you have cities with the best intention, if you don't have a federal government that is really helping. My hope is that we can come together and figure something out, figure out solutions. Maria Molina is an atmospheric scientist at the University of Maryland, where she's using artificial intelligence and past weather data to model future seasons.
You can see into the future. And yes. And it will learn those signals and produce its best guess, right? Does it worry you about what's to come down the road? Yeah, I guess I want to clarify that.
There have always been extreme events, right? There will always be extreme events aside from. The climate perspective. The question is: how are these extremes potentially evolving due to that background climate? gradually warming.
That is what could be concerning because That could be a very small signal like a slightly longer wildfire season, which may not seem meaningful when you hear it from like a statistical number, but suddenly that changes your likelihood. of experiencing an extreme event. Yeah, we notice a difference. There was not a smoke season in the past. We didn't have that for the first 10 years that we lived here.
So things are changing. For Ted Chauvin, it's research that could help him read the signals and trust his next steps. Do you move back? Have your neighbors Gotten together and spoken about moving back. Will we come back?
I don't know. Two o'clock yesterday, I would have said, yeah, sure, let's go back. Five o'clock in the evening, no, we're not gonna go back. You know, it's way too emotional right now. There's way too much going on.
We will stay in Spokane. Will it be here? I'm not 100% sure right now. How will we reflect back? on this period of time.
Yeah, I am. I walked through the woods with my daughter last weekend and And thought about that. You know, I I just thought. You know. What that world will look like.
Sorry. Power names. It won't be the same. Sure. She'll ask what What we did.
And what we didn't do. Evening. Buy his remorse. Buy a new car? I'll be moving in.
Let's get started.
Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana. You what? Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it.
So there's no. No, no buyer's remorse. More like buyers rejoice? I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations.
I mean it. Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven-day return policy at Carvana.com.
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To Faith Saley, and the story of a woman who's turned from the simple life. to become an online phenomenon. The Amish are what are known as plain people, religious Christians who value tradition over change. They dress modestly, and most don't use technology like cars, computers, or phones.
So what exactly is going on here? Meet Lovina Hirschberger-Zuck, the unlikely 23-year-old social media creator who has amassed some 6 million followers with her recipes and stories about the Amish.
So when you were growing up Amish, if someone had said to you, you're going to be a social media star. What would that have meant to you? Nothing because I didn't know what social media was. I would have been scared because I'd be like, what is social media? She comes from one of the most conservative subgroups in the Amish and grew up speaking a dialect of German known as Pennsylvania Dutch.
She's no longer Amish. She left the faith five years ago. But she maintains many of their traditions at home. She made her dress and prefers to wear it around the house. Online, she is known for cooking Amish dishes.
Simple, practical fare that ranges from the super traditional to the unconventional, like this coffee soup made with hot milk, instant coffee, sugar, and saltine crackers. My favorite way to eat it is with cottage cheese and meat.
Sometimes it's what's in a name that matters most. You guys have probably never had an Amish cheeseburger, so we're gonna make one today. That's two pieces of bread, homemade, slathered with butter and layered with cheese, and grilled in a cast iron pan until golden brown and gooey. Are you making a grilled cheese? I've only had an Amish cheeseburger.
I have never had a grilled cheese. And that's the thing. Lovina doesn't always know what she doesn't know. What traditions and what words are ones the English, as the Amish called the non-Amish, might not know.
So good. Had you ever used a phone before? No. No. Did you even know what a computer was?
No. Like, I knew people worked on their computers. But I didn't I didn't know what a laptop was and then I bought a laptop like a couple of years after I left the Amish. But apparently it's a laptop computer. And now.
I just call it a computer instead of Why is it called a computer? That's a weird word. Computer. Computer. I don't know why.
Sometimes I see words and I'm like, why is it called that? Lovaina got her start talking not just about food, but about the culture she left. Her most watched video is a tutorial on how Amish women do their hair. It has more than 50 million views on TikTok. Let's do your hair.
Let's do it. She gave me a one-on-one lesson. I like this. You look gorgeous. Thank you.
I'm ready to make something. Yeah, Brett. What? What was it like growing up Amish? We just live our life, be like, mm I know there's people who live different lives I know there's people with electricity, but that's wrong, so I'll just like I'll stay Amish, not live an Amish life.
And it wasn't just electricity. No makeup, no dancing, the list of prohibitions was long.
So I didn't smoke. was not about for women. No drinking, that's not all for anybody. And no cursing, absolutely not. You can't even say, oh my gosh, that's considered a bad word.
Gosh, you can't say that. Gosh, that's considered a bad word. You can say, Darn it or something like that. Cheese and crackers. Like cheese and crackers.
I don't know. And any transgressions came with serious consequences. You were told that if you did something different, you would go to hell? Yes. If you leave Dylmish...
You're going to hell. Lovina is one of thirteen children her older brother left before her. When she finished eighth grade, she became a school teacher. I loved being a school teacher. That was the best part of my life at that time.
But They were paying me $12 a day and I was driving eight miles a day with horse and bokeh.
So the wear and tear on the horse and bulky wasn't covered by what I was getting paid. Her father said she was going to have to change careers.
So he's like. You are not going to teach another term because they don't pay enough. And you're going to work at the sawmill. The last straw for Lovina came when her mother criticized how she dressed for church. She's like, you're gonna have to use a smaller band around your neck because people are gonna start talking.
And in that moment, I didn't say a word, but I was like... I'm so t tired. of people telling me what to do and I'm always trying to be perfect and it is never right and I was just done. And I was like, okay, this is the moment I start planning. she planned for two weeks before escaping while her family slept.
So I was like, I have to time this so they're sleeping like really deeply when I leave. Because the stairs creaked a little, and I had to figure out which stairs creaked. And the day before, I sneakily oiled all the door hinges so they don't squeak when you open and close them. And I left my. This is like escaping from prison.
Yeah, it is. Lovina says she didn't like living with all of the Amish rules, but she still respects a lot of their ways. Do you miss your family? Oh yes, my siblings especially, because I was the second oldest and I feel like they always called me mama number two. Once she left the Amish, she had to learn all the ways of the English world.
She stayed with her brother and other family members while she got settled. And five years later, she drives, she makes a living making social media, she sells a self-published cookbook, and she's married to an ex-Amish man named Eli. Do you ever think that God is not sending you to hell, but rather that you are actually living? The way that God wants you to do that? Oh yes, I believe that 100%.
Lovina and Eli are expecting their first baby next month, and she's not done yet. I want a house, I want a garden, I want to farm, I'd like to have someday maybe have an Amish restaurant. Yes please. And in Amish Marga, like our plans for the future seem very busy. And bright.
Yes, very bright. My life just seems to get better and better and better every day. After this past week's primaries in Minnesota, Wisconsin and elsewhere, we're one step closer to November's midterms. Former Congressman Rahm Emmanuel won't be on the ballot, but he is But he tells our Robert Costa he's keeping close watch on what's ahead. Yeah.
On a sunny afternoon in Chicago, along the riverwalk he helped expand. Former mayor Rahm Emmanuel was beaming about the city he led for eight years. all along this river walk. One mile. You have people from all parts of the city, and guess what?
All parts of the country and all parts of the world. What is it about Chicago that tells us a little bit about you? Oh well. It's grit, it's toughness, it's no nonsense. And you're tough.
Yeah. I am tough. When I believe something's right, you're going to get it done. That toughness extends to interviews, where Emmanuel is known for pushing back on reporters and on the left. Including Senator Bernie Sanders, a Democratic Socialist.
This year, Sanders and his allies have been factors in primary after primary. They think they're pushing you aside and your allies inside the Democratic Party. This is not some just academic debate. Arguably, the most prominent Democratic socialist in the country, Senator Bernie Sanders, recently said this on CBS: People are sick and tired of the Ram Emanuals. And the Democratic establishment and the- You've taken Senator Sanders on.
You wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed. It's not me pulling something out of thin air, saying Bernie Brose could spoil the midterms. Yeah, well, here's what I would say to you. I'm about flipping red districts to blue. I'm not about taking blue districts and making them midnight blue.
You want to see a raise in the minimum wage? Winning over Democratic districts is not the way to get it there. I've covered these Democratic Socialist candidates. A lot of their voters feel members of the Democratic establishment, longtime Democratic leaders, just don't get. The pain they're in.
How do you show them the passion, the commitment to their own grievances? Emmanuel is passionate about keeping the left at bay. If a Democratic socialist calls you on the phone and says, I want you to come campaign, help me win over centrist voters, what do you say? I don't.
Well, first of all, it's a hypothetical, and let me break the news to you. The calls haven't come in. The calls haven't come in, and everybody knows the numbers.
So I don't see that happening. Look, there's fundamental differences, and that's, and I'm comfortable with that.
So you don't want them to use the Democratic Party as a part of the case? I don't think they should, because I think they're a separate party. That's one. Two, I don't believe in defunding police. I don't believe in open borders.
Over a long career, mayor. Congressman, Ambassador. and top aide for two presidents, including Chief of Staff in the Obama White House, Emmanuel has been a key and combative moderate in showdowns over health care and the economy. These days he wants Democrats to focus less on taking on capitalism and more on matters like lowering costs and on President Donald Trump. If they win the Senate, they win the House.
Do you believe Democrats should impeach President Trump next year? You've said he has corruption across the board. You've called his business deals dirty money. Yeah. Worse than Castro, one of your phrases.
I say he would make an alderman in Chicago blush for the kind of corruption he's doing. They're just out there. Taking money left and right, the President of the United States is $4 billion richer and you're $4 trillion poorer. And I think that this is a travesty of his constitutional responsibilities, let alone the responsibilities what he's done. He wants a ballroom, you're going to get the bill.
He wants his $450 million Qatari plane. You get $450 a gallon. He's building an arch. and your family can't afford a meal at the Golden Arches.
So that to me is the indictment to make. Emmanuel is also offering Democrats his own path. on an issue rolling them. Israel. Speaking in Tel Aviv last month, he was sharply critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called for a peace deal that features, quote, Palestinian dignity and Israeli security.
You cannot fight indefinitely. against a world that has stopped believing. You have a right to fight. You must instead find a new sustainable path to peace, to security and prosperity. As Emmanuel, who is Jewish, engages in this fierce debate, he is deeply troubled by the anti-Semitism that has emerged alongside it.
You don't have to agree with the Israeli government. To be concerned with the rise of anti-Semitism in America and more than the anti-Semitism which always existed. the way it's being manifested with violence and killing. And for all of us, regardless of our positions. Whether it's expressions of anti-Muslims.
Attitudes. as some members of Congress have done. or whether it's encouraging or creating an environment. That's conducive. to anti-Semitism or not calling out anti-Semitism when you should call it out.
so that in fact it doesn't become violent. For Emmanuel, this moment rouses memories of relatives who perished in Russian pogroms and the Holocaust. In our family room, Uh there was a walk. In the center of the wall. Was my grandmother's little pushka, the little purse.
framed and above it in the frame was grammar and Uh Auntie Ida. and anti-giddies. passports. That's what brought him to this country in 1914. And on either side of that, Was the picture of relatives of mom and dad who never made it to America.
And it was my parents' reminder to us daily. You are the fortunate few. You're not to be frivolous with this. And you have a responsibility. to make other people's lives better.
My faith is important to me. It's a moral guiding principle for me. And I think the bigger challenge isn't my faith. And again, if it's a problem for you, You need to work on that, not me. The faith we need to work on is the fact that Americans have lost faith in America.
That's our joint mission. If you're an American, that's what we have to work on together. This is a spin-free tour. Working through a presidential campaign might be next. Earlier this summer, he was in New Hampshire on a bike tour.
You have a small footprint. You know, just you and your friends taking a bike trip across New Hampshire, stopping at coffee shops. You've been an ambassador, a congressman, a mayor, a White House chief of staff. This is a little different, a little bit more low-key. And yeah, that's okay.
You meet people where they are. At 66, Rahm Emmanuel says his fight.
now and in the future, is bigger than him. and his party. You put in this Riverwalk expansion. Yeah. Seems like a perfect place to announce your presidential campaign.
We could do it right here on Sunday morning, but it ain't going to happen.
Okay? I'm at a point in my life where I'm going to leave it all on the field. I think this is a great country. I am the son and the grandson of an immigrant. I think being an American is winning the lottery ticket of life.
And I look at a country that I know, that I love, and the passion. that has lost its nerve. has basically raised the white flag, and I'm not about that. Given that this is a great country, given everything that I have, sure, could I hang up the jersey? That's not what I'm about.
For a visit to a small but shiny corner of cowboy culture. Ian Lee wants us to buckle up. Yeah. Bull riding is an eight-second argument between man and nature. Nature usually wins.
40 men, all tougher than the leather on John Wayne's boots, gathered in Fort Worth this past spring for the Professional Bull Riders World Championship.
So yeah. It's a chance at glory. Money, and most of all, this gold belt buckle, says 2016 winner Cooper Davis. I'm wearing the 2016 PBR World Championship buckle. It's the buckle that means the most to me.
You're really sacrificing your body for the buckle. Yeah, you are. I mean, I've broken so many bones. I broke my neck, my collarbone, had total reconstructive shoulder surgeries. Cooper.
Davis! He needs to get out of here! But at the end of the day, I wouldn't change a thing. From ball riding. to barrel racing.
Trophy buckles are the currency of cowboy culture. Each tells a story of grit, accomplishment and honor. I talk about the code of the West. When you put on your buckle, it isn't a costume, it's not a uniform. There's a responsibility and an understanding that.
You can be trusted and Your word means something. Flint Rasmussen earned his gold buckle with a microphone and a barrel as one of the field's top rodeo clowns. If I'd have taken my hat off in that clip, I had a little side feather. And somewhere between the jokes and the dirt, he became one of the sport's great observers. Can anyone wear a belt buckle?
I think anybody. can wear a buckle. But when you put it on you need to understand your buckle probably isn't the same as ours and we know that. You're wearing a buckle right now. I am.
And I noticed it has Steamboat, the horse that represents Wyoming. I know you didn't win that buckle, but I know that you have a sense of pride in the state, so it means something, and I respect that. The cow folks are shooting for $100,000 in prize money. Just the thing to pay off old hospital bills. The exact origin of the rodeo trophy buckle is hard to lasso, but we know it dates back to the 1920s, right around the same time Levi's added belt loops to its 501 jeans and began awarding its own buckles.
The bigger the prize, the bigger the buckle. Hell of a ride. Let's get you paid. Hollywood would take it from there, popularizing the Western buckle for dramatic. And comedic effect.
That's some buckle you got there. Thank you, sir.
Some people think the bigger the buckle, the more it means. That is not the case.
So bigger is a better. Bigger is not necessarily better. It's the meaning.
Some of the finest buckles are forged here at Montana Silversmiths. Think of it as Tiffany's for those who wake up at 5 a.m. to feed the horses. Their workshop in Columbus, Montana turns out a full line of fashion buckles and fine jewelry, but it's the championship buckles that carry the weight of gold and a century-long tradition. This particular figure on this buckle I probably had 80 hours in carving that figure.
You can see I've got every individual hair. on that ball. It really kind of brings it to life. It does, yes. Master engraver Justin Deakin designs every championship buckle along with his son Travis.
A big thing in our engraving world is flow. All things flow. Scrolls flow, designs flow, everything flows. Machine isn't gonna recreate flow. you can glean a lot from a person from what's on that bell buckle.
Cowboy business card. Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah. The craft takes years to learn. Decades to master and is getting harder to pass on. It takes a massive amount of dedication and frustration. We're always trying to get new people to come in.
Man, it's tough. You know, nobody really wants anything to do with it. Their most ornate buckles can cost as much as a new pickup truck. This year's for the Professional Bull Riders World Champion is a $60,000 showpiece of gold, silver, and diamonds. The dream!
has become a reality. It would go to 20-year-old John Krimberg, who weathered eight seconds of horns, hooves, and havoc. To win the Super Bowl of Bull Riding. I saw you up there with a million-dollar check. What means more to you right now, that check or this buckle?
This buckle. We love it. This is it right here. It's showing how much I love it. Among this elite group of cowboys, there's a joke.
with a grain of truth. I put my pants on one leg at a time like everyone else. I just hold them up with a gold buckle. Mm. It's the middle of August, and as we've told you, in much of the country, it's hot.
And naturally, many of us reach for our shorts. But exactly how did this article of clothing become so essential? Mo raka has the long and the shorts of it. Two million and a half people is the estimated number at Coney Island during the heat wave. The summer of 1936 wasn't just hot.
It was dangerously hot. Heat sweeps the nation and costs a thousand lives. At least 5,000 people ended up dying from heat-related causes. New York City, Baltimore, Columbus, Ohio, Lexington, Kentucky, Minneapolis. I mean, cities were hammered.
Jeff Williams is the author of The Summer of Death. about that great heat wave. For weeks, weeks, some cities were 100 degrees or over. There were records that were hit and still have not been broken. Since air conditioning wasn't in most homes, many people resorted to sleeping in movie theaters or even outdoors.
All day you're suffering, and then you can't sleep. And this would go on day after day after day. This was the kind of heat that changed the way people lived. And during an otherwise buttoned-up time in America, it changed the way they dressed. When the business girl arrives at the office, she takes her things off.
But in the New York heat wave, she takes off more things than usual. The big chief in this office doesn't mind. In fact, he rather likes it. He says it's healthy for the girls and the men work for less money. Grown-ups wearing short pants in the summer, no big deal, right?
But in some places around the country you are flirting with the law. Were you aware that shorts were such a controversial issue in the city of Yonkers? No, I was not.
So they're called shorts. Like jeans and shorts. I understand. In Yonkers, New York, where Mike Spano is mayor, wearing shorts wasn't once just taboo, it was illegal. The summer before the heat wave in nineteen thirty five, Yonkers Alderman William Slater led the City Council to ban, among other things, halter tops and shorts from the city's streets.
Violators could face a one hundred fifty dollar fine and thirty days behind bars. William Slater seemed to care so much about stopping people from wearing shorts. Do you think at home he was wearing shorts, actually? Is that usually the case? Always.
Always in case. At one point, there were ten police officers assigned to the Anti-Shorts Patrol.
Now, is that a responsible allocation of resources? Absolutely not. But on June 21, 1936, two reporters from the New York Daily News decided to test the law. After arriving in Yonkers wearing shorts, they were carted away by police. They asked that they be arrested.
a little bit of public disobedience because they wanted to right what they saw as a wrong. Love it. It's so American. They were fined ten dollars, but after a lengthy court battle their conviction was overturned and the law thrown out. In nineteen thirty seven a new modesty ordinance was passed, but that too was short lived.
It was scandalous to show legs during certain eras. Erin Black teaches costume design history at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. This is a pair of what were called pumpkin hose or pumpkin breeches. During the Elizabethan era, she says, men wore these with stockings. They kept their poofy shape because they were stuffed with sawdust and horse hair.
And in the summer in England, bugs thought it was a great place to live.
So you could have an infestation problem in your pumpkin house. By the late 1800s, the only people wearing shorts were young boys. But during World War I, British soldiers stationed in sweltering Bermuda liberated their lower legs. The soldiers would take their army knife and cut their own pants off at the knee. Wow.
And thus was born Bermuda shorts. The invention of Bermuda shorts is also a climate story in a sense, right? Correct. They couldn't stand the heat. They had to do something.
Women, of course, had to wait longer to go shorter. You're my little pin-up girl. The popularity of World War II pinup girls like Betty Grable helped. And by the 1950s, shorts were short. We wear short shorts.
Hot bands. This change. James Brown song came out in 1971, but it was a disco, Black says, that made hot pants high fashion. And we cannot ignore actress Catherine Bach, who of course played Daisy Duke.
Someday the mountain might get them, but the law ever will. I mean, that was a phenomenon. Yeah, absolutely. And we still call them Daisy Dukes, right? If your city clerk showed up wearing Daisy Dukes, How would you react?
Beans my little brother? I would laugh.
So Vincent Spano is your little brother? Vinny's my little brother. And if anybody would wear Daisy Dukes, it would be Vinny. Hehehehe These days shorts are worn just about everywhere, even at work, even by Mayor Mike Spano in the city where they were once forbidden. And in Ohio, they are worn regularly by writer Jeff Williams.
Oh, I love them. I mean, I have thought so many times that if I went back to 1936. That summer, I would have been doomed. Indeed. This summer's weather has given us a lot to complain about.
But we can all be thankful. for shorts. Steve Hartman this morning has the story of some students saying goodbye to a lot more than summer. For incoming freshmen here at Bishop Kelly High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It's hard to imagine a more mortifying first day.
All the seniors surrounding your car and not letting you out until you do one thing. We hold the car. We hold the car door. Yeah. Preventing it from opening.
It's like initiation, like we all did it. Could you think of anything more embarrassing to initiate kids into high school? That's why it's perfect. What the freshmen are asked to do. is just give their mom a goodbye kiss.
It can also be a dad or guardian. Point is, someone needs to be publicly thanked with a peck on the cheek. Oh, the horror. How embarrassing was that? Your car starts thumping out of your chest.
I'm not a very huggy person. But the kids all knew this was coming. In fact, it's now a 26-year tradition. Before this, the seniors still greeted freshmen on day one, but back then, the welcome. was a little more biting, more like pranks.
until the class of two thousand one decided to be kinder. while also making the newbies feel just a little bit uncomfortable. I mean, I wouldn't have wanted to kiss my mom. As a freshman, school president Sister Mary Hannah says she can relate to the reluctance. but says that rule, to honor thy mother and father.
made the top ten list for a reason. And you know who the happiest people are in this whole thing? Who? Mothers. This is a big moment for them, especially if it's their first child or their last child.
So emotional. I was crying yesterday and all morning, and she asked me not to cry during the drop-off.
So I think I did okay. The moment you drive off after dropping underscores when it hits you. He gave me that kiss. And I saw him leave and that meant I have to let go. It is a passage.
Tears are flowing. Which is why here at Bishop Kelly, they celebrate that milestone. That sweet fleeting moment between a parent And a child and a couple hundred screaming seniors. Yeah. More than 50 years after they started making music, the Eagles remain one of the hottest tickets around.
Their residency at Sphere in Las Vegas, which began in 2024, is breaking records. And that's where Tracy Smith caught up with Eagles co-founder, Don Henley. Uh The nighttime lights of Las Vegas are too bright to let you see the stars, but sometimes you can find them under one dazzling roof. Oh no. Down the highway.
One of the greatest old school bands on earth, the Eagles, are in residence at the state-of-the-art Las Vegas Sphere, led by the band's co-founder Don Henley, along with longtime guitarist Joe Walsh and country legend Vince Gill. One writer said, and I'm going to paraphrase this: there's one thing in America that people agree on, or seem to agree on, and it's the Eagles. I don't know if I would agree with that. I guess we're kind of a staple. Our first record came out in 72.
So it's, you know, it's been a miraculous run. To keep the sun. And it got even more miraculous this past January when one of those Eagles albums from the 70s, their greatest hits 71 to 75, was certified quadruple diamond, the first to sell more than 40 million copies, cementing its place as the best-selling album of all time. Shout out. Greatest Hits is kind of a misnomer.
It should just be called their best songs. Because Every song on that album was not a great hit. You know, there are a couple of songs on that album that didn't break the top 30. But they're good songs. Desperado, for example, was never released as a single.
Not by us, nor by Linda Ronstadt. Desperado. Why don't you come to your senses? And Henley says the album wasn't even their idea. It was basically forced on them by the record company execs.
You didn't want to make a greatest hits album. No, we didn't have any way to to stop them except just to complain. And you complained? We complained. Oh, yeah.
It's documented. You mentioned Desperado wasn't a hit. I want to go back and talk about that song a little bit. That was the first time that you wrote a song with Glenn Fry. That's right.
Did you immediately click as songwriting partners? Yeah, I think we did. He was great. Uh we used to call him the Lone Arranger. The Lone Arranger.
Because he was so good at arranging songs. Eagles co-founder Glenn Fry died 10 years ago at age 67, but his legacy is larger than life. Fry's wife Cindy helped create this. The Eagles' third encore, an almost life-size model of the key places in the band's history, including a mock-up of LA's Troubadour nightclub, which includes a real working bar. What was your drink of choice back in the day?
We were trying to be macho back in the day, so you would have a shot of tequila and chase it with a Doseki's beer. You know, which was pretty stupid, yeah. I truly were taking the net. Mm-hmm. These days, Henley's pre-show routine is a bit more sensible.
So you're doing sit-ups before you go on stage. Before the show, yeah. And that's my warm-up. I don't do voice exercises because That doesn't help. tightening the abdomen.
It's where I sing from.
So I sing better if I keep that in shape. Oh, interesting. You gotta keep your abs in shape for your voice. Yeah. I mean, I don't have a six-pack or anything, but there's one under there somewhere.
Yeah. Uh Mommy. Peace for One of the emotional highlights of the show is the moment where Glenn Fry's son, Deacon, takes the stage in his father's spot, often with his father's guitar, and sings his father's songs. What's it like now to sit there and see Deacon Fry where Glenn used to be? Good.
I burst with pride. You know, I I almost got tears in my eyes the other night. Was there any sort of internal debate about going on after Glenn died? Yes. I didn't think it was feasible.
That's how we thought about it. Then I said to them, I said, well, I'll only do it if we can get Glenn's son. to be in the band. That was your condition. Yeah.
Ooh. And at the Vegas Sphere, Dad is looking down. A father of four himself, Don Henley has always had a rich life outside the band, and he recently co-produced a PBS documentary with filmmaker Ken Burns about Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau was trying to make sense of life. He lived exactly the way he wanted to live.
There are so many parallels to what he was seeing during his time and what we're seeing now. You know, as Mark Twain said, history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. I think that's That's what's happening now. You can What's happening now for the Eagles is more live performances. They've extended their run here into next year using technology that didn't even exist when they first started making music together.
The sound system is like nothing on the planet. There are about 167,000 speakers. In that dome. Is that intimidating? It was at first.
Good God they can hear all the mistakes. Uh The Eagles' current tour is called The Long Goodbye, and Don Henley says this time he means it. Cheers. I feel like we're getting toward the end. And that will be fine too.
So, what if people say, we want more eagles after this? I guess they'll just have to listen to the records. Are there ever times that you have to kinda psych yourself up to play the songs that you've played for 50-some years now? Yeah. Yeah, like every night.
Every night. You know, it's not about. us. It's about what they mean to the people we're playing them for and therefore you have to play them every night with your heart in it and you do it because of those people out there. What makes us happy is that we make other people happy.
We say that music is medicine. And people need some medicine right now. the sun We saw The world feels the same. They say there ain't no cure for the summertime blues, but maybe uncovering a few secrets of nature can do the trick. And it turns out there's an app for that.
as David Pogue will show us. We share our planet with maybe 10 million species of plants, animals, birds, fish, fungi, and bugs.
Alright, so camera. I'm learning their names with a free phone app. called iNaturalist. Take a picture. American holly?
Yeah. Like Christmas holly? Yeah. And it's weird because it doesn't have any red berries on it this time of year.
So people would go under there and kiss? Oh, that's mistletoe. Help me, oh app! Scott Laurie is the executive director of iNaturalist, a non-profit. Apparently, a lot of people use his app.
Currently we have about six million people using the platform every month. Has any normal person ever made a really cool discovery? Yeah, I mean, it happens all the time. Almost every month we get a new species described. A new species?
Yeah. I mean, one of my. favorite stories is there's this guy in in the Andes and this weasel jumped into the cabin window, right? Running around, knocking things over. He grabs his camera, first ever photographs of these species and they happen to be sitting on a toilet in this cabin.
Okay. I'm very proud to say that hashtag toilet weasel was trending on Twitter after that. Yeah. But it turns out that this app has a stealth function. It can share your photos with scientists.
It's not just a photo, it has a date, it has a location. Turns out that most data for most species on the planet now is coming from this little app. There's more of that data than the scientists and the explorers? Yeah, we're getting hundreds of thousands of species a year.
So far, iNaturalist fans have made more than 340 million sightings in all 197 countries. They let scientists see what's happening to life on Earth. Oh, I know what this is. Invasive species, lanternfly, freaking everybody out, no natural predators, taking over the East Coast. Yeah, so this is its native range here in East Asia, right?
Oh, that's right, they came from China. Yeah, exactly. You can see the invasive species coming in over time. But it's not just about species moving. It's also about species disappearing.
The best predictions now are that we're going to lose about one in three by the end of the century. With all due respect, why should we care about obscure species bugs that we've never heard about in the first place?
So analogy I like is that the Earth is this plane that we're in mid-flight. Every time a species goes extinct, that's like us popping a rivet off.
So at some point, the whole wing is going to fall off, but we don't exactly know which rivet, which species extinction is going to drive that.
So the first thing we need to do is stop popping rivets off. This app is especially fun to use with other people. iNaturalist fans do like to party.
So what we're going to do here is called a bio blitz.
So we're going to split into two groups of experts and try to see how many species we can find in one hour here. A Bio Blitz is a friendly, timed competition. This one is being hosted by someone who knows a lot about nature. Martha Stewart. At her home in Bedford, New York.
Wonderful.
Well, good luck. Everybody ready? Please find hundreds. Exactly. We'll do our best.
We'll do our best. What's that one? That I don't know. You take this, the green false Hellborn. That is a stilt-legged fly.
Veronica aficionalis. That is so nice. You think somebody else collected that? There's a lot of little Veronicas growing all the way up this road. No, I think you probably discovered that in North America right now.
Spiders are the funniest thing to be so scared of. That is beautiful. You have marbled orb weaver. What does iNaturalist call? Eye friend is a brown belted bumblebee.
Isn't that beautiful?
So that's a native pollinator.
So you're attracting all these native pollinators. I am so generous. If you don't touch them, then they keep their antenna outside they look a little bit cooler. Yeah. There's another snail right here called an Oval amber snail.
Yeah. Hey, you know what I see in here, guys? Crayfish. Crayfish? Yeah.
Oh, good. I feel like I'm nine again. In one hour, our little group had identified 458 different species. But here's some of the places where we went. Each one of these markers is an observation.
Yeah, let's see who wants.
So these are the top observers.
So whose bug's gone wild? Oh, that's you.
So you got 73. That's pretty good. And these are just some of the observations that we saw. Look at this beautiful little moth right here. little assassin bug.
different kinds of uh snails and Butterflies. Each one of these observations will give us a snapshot of all the different plants and animals that are here and the kind of habitat that you've provided for all these species on your farm here. They had not yet said thank you. For Scott Laurie, it never gets old. People are like, wow, I'm actually part of the solution.
By me taking this photo, I'm helping science. I'm helping us protect these species that I share the planet with. Martha Stewart would agree. I was amazed at how little you needed the app. I mean, you knew every damn bug and leaf.
But that's because I've lived here now for more than 20 years, and yet the app. really teaches me the botanical names, the biological names of the bugs and the butterflies. I learn something new every day. The end of summer approaches. Time to catch up.
And to begin with, an apology. Yeah. A few weeks ago, we got this note from Robert Morrison from New York's Metropolitan Opera. He wrote, the great mezzo-soprano Mignon Dunn was included in your In Memoriam segment.
However, the photograph shown was one of soprano Birgitt Nielsen. Your program is one of the few that I watch anymore. I hope you'll make a correction to honor this remarkable artist. Correction made. Our apologies for the mistake.
And our thanks to you, Mr. Morrison, for watching.
Next, it's that time of year. Reruns are a staple of summer television. Our program is no exception.
Some of you have written complaining about that. Just keep in mind that our hard-working staff needs a little vacation time too. and that our new rerun-free 48th season is just five weeks away. Finally, a note of thanks to all of you for your outpouring of support for Autumn Mowry's Candlepin Bowling Alley in Ellsworth, Maine. The subject of Lee Cowan's story last weekend.
When I'm having a really good day, I will come back here and go. Let's go, we got this. Autumn says she was stunned by your generosity. But we weren't. our thanks to all of you for your donations and for watching so loyally each weekend.
reruns and all. Thank you for listening. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning. Lioness, the hit original series from Taylor Sheridan, is now streaming on Paramount Plus. I'm scared, Ko.
Scared how it became that world. The world didn't become this. It's always been this way. Starring Zoe Seldana. Keep running!
Michael Kelly. You tried to touch us here. It's a two-way street, buddy. With Morgan Freeman. The callout from this is limitless and Nicole Kidman.
This isn't the end of a fight. This is the start of one. Lioness, new season now streaming. Only on Paramount Plus. Mm-hmm.
