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when the police officer said, we found your husband's dna, that must have hit you as quite a shock. >> it was a shock that they'd been looking all these 22 years. >> not many are aware, but more than 1,000 families still wait for word of a missing loved one from 9/11. and the work to identify their remains has never stopped. >> these remains went through every possible thing that could destroy dna at ground zero, making this not only the largest forensic investigation in the history of the united states but the most difficult. >> some of these world trade center remains have been tested how many times? >> 10, 15 times. >> without a result? >> without a result. >> but if there's dna, we're going to find it. we're going to find it, we're going to generate a profile. may take us a while. [ stopwatch ticking ] and action.

fade in. >> name an a-list star of the stage or screen today, odds are blooming good they've come from the land down under. >> you can't be ceo because you killed someone. >> there are a lot of you, aren't there? >> yeah, there's a few of us out there. >> fewer people in texas. >> really? stop it. really? >> you guys are doing pretty well for yourself. >> not so bad, not so bad, huh. [ stopwatch ticking ] >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bill whitaker. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm sharyn alfonsi. >> i'm jon wertheim. >> i'm cecelia vega. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories and more tonight on this special 90-minute edition of "60 minutes." [ stopwatch ticking ] (♪♪) with wet amd, i worry i'm not only losing my sight, but my time to enjoy it. but now, i can open up my world with vabysmo.

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this past week, republicans won the house majority, and president-elect trump made nominations to his cabinet. some nominees appear to have no compelling qualifications other than loyalty to trump. the nominees are senator marco rubio for secretary of state, pete hegseth to lead the 3 million people of the department of defense. he's a combat veteran, most recently a morning show host on fox news with no government experience. former congressman matt gaetz for attorney general in charge of law enforcement. gaetz has been investigated by republicans for alleged drug use and sex with a minor. gaetz denies those allegations.

former congresswoman tulsi gabbard for director of national intelligence. she sought a pardon for edward snowden, who leaked u.s. secrets and now lives in russia. and robert kennedy jr. for secretary of health and human services, a skeptic of vaccinations. it's up to the new republican majority in the senate to decide whether these nominees are equipped to represent the american people. it seems hard to remember when america was united. but recently, we were reminded of such a time, the morning of september 11, 2001, when all americans pledged to persevere together. nearly a quarter century ago, the new york city office of the chief medical examiner made a promise to identify the remains of the lost souls of 9/11. not many are aware, but that

work has never stopped. today more than 1,000 families still wait for word, and you're about to meet two for whom the promise was kept. the most recent identification came this past december, when ellen niven was decorating her christmas tree. two police officers came to her door with news of her husband john, who had been missing 22 years. >> john was my husband. i met him when i was 24 years old and had moved to new york. incredible person. described by people who knew him as a gentleman, very old school, old soul, wonderful father, very happy when we had our young son and spent a lot of time with him. great friend to a lot of people.

>> john niven was a 44-year-old insurance executive bound for his office on the 105th floor of the south tower, as the terrorist attack began. >> the first building was hit. john was in the second building. >> the south tower, yes. >> and he had an opportunity to call you? >> yes. he said, hi, honey, it's me. if you hear anything on the news, don't worry. i'm okay. it was the other building. >> in the other building, a different family tragedy was unfolding. 25-year-old haberman, andrea l., had just received a visitor pass on her first trip to her company's headquarters on the 92nd floor. back home in chicago, andy, as her family called her, had just

been fitted for her wedding dress. in wisconsin, her mother, kathy, was watching the news. >> i was shocked, and i ran upstairs to wake up gordy to tell him. and then i came back downstairs just in time to see the second plane hit. >> that was united flight 175, as gordon haberman joined his wife. >> i threw a cup against the wall. i remember that. thing is, we didn't know what tower she was in. we didn't know where she was. >> the search for andrea haberman, john niven, and nearly 3,000 others would become the passion of dr. charles hirsch, the city's chief medical examiner. he raced to the base of the burning towers with a team that included a young scientist named mark desire. >> both towers were standing.

they were on fire. we parked our truck. we set up a temporary morgue and began to preserve the evidence. wasn't long, i received my orders. i picked up the gear box and the south tower crashed. the plume. you could see the steel and fire coming down. i thought this is it, this is how i die. >> the south tower, with john niven inside, foundered after 56 minutes. >> as you're running away from the collapsing south tower, you were heading for a door in an adjacent building and then you got blasted off your feet. >> yeah, just knocked me right out of my shoes. never made it to the door, but it was enough to get me through the -- partially through the window, which really would save my life. if i was on the outside, everything that came in across my legs would have taken me out.

>> the medical examiner's team survived. that's mark desire in the middle in the green shirt. the north tower in the distance is minutes from collapse. andrea haberman is inside. her parents, her sister, julie, and fiance, al, drove 16 hours to manhattan, where they picked up a list of hospitals. >> but with those lists of medical centers, kathy and i split up and julie and al checked the west side of broadway, and we took the east side. 32 different medical centers, working our way down towards manhattan and ground zero. of course, the answers were -- >> no. >> -- no. >> no. for andrea haberman and thousands of others, manhattan was papered in pleas for the

missing. and longing remained after hope had washed away. >> everybody has a flyer. everybody is looking for their people. >> families lined up at a national guard armory and waited hours to give dna samples to the medical examiner. >> 17,000 -- 17,000 reference samples, tooth brushes, razors, hair brushes, anything that the person touched when they were alive. if we couldn't get one of those samples, what living relatives do we have? moms and dads, kids. >> there was a dna swab done of my young son jack's cheek. you filled out descriptions. you gave photographs. we filled out many, many forms. >> they swabbed yourson's cheek for dna. >> yes. >> how old was he? >> 18 months.

>> his father was among those entombed in a mountain of misery. nearly 2 million tons of debris were searched by hand for human remains. after a year, they thought they had found everything. but then in 2006, there was a shocking revelation. bone fragments on the roof of a building across the street from ground zero. the medical examiner sent anthropologist bradley adams. >> we ended up going through the whole rooftop, and we found over 700 small bone fragments on that rooftop. and then we ended up -- you know, obviously if there's remains there, we need to search other areas. so, we went through every floor of that building, even to the point of having vacuum cleaners and vacuuming up dust and debris. >> the remains on the deutsche

bank building were from american airlines flight 11. the discovery prompted a new search for clues at ground zero. >> computer floppy disks or golf balls or parts of office furniture that would be buried there. and if you're seeing that, then you know there's the potential there could be human remains mixed in with this world trade center debris. >> five years after the attack, brad adams began collecting 18,000 tons of excavation material over the course of a year. 75 anthropologists washed it through screens. >> how many human remains did you find in that project? >> there was the 700 on deutsche bank and then over 1,000 more were found during the sifting operations. >> altogether, the total world trade center remains came to 21,905.

>> the recovery efforts had been monumental, and there was an unprecedented event. as you know, this is the greatest mass murder in the history of the united states. >> today dr. jason graham is new york city's chief medical examiner. he inherited this promise made by his late predecessor, charles hirsch. >> as long as there are families who are continuing to seek answers, this will continue. >> what's the scope of what's left to be done? >> there were 2,753 victims, homicide victims. 60% of those individuals have been identified. 40% are left to be identified. >> 40% comes to 1,103 victims with no identified remains. >> so these are the steps, once remains are received. >> putting a name to those remains is the job of the last

original member of the medical examiner's 9/11 team, mark desire, now assistant director of forensic biology. >> these remains went through every possible thing that could destroy dna, from jet fuel to diesel fuel, mold, bacteria, sunlight, all kinds of chemicals that were in the building, insects, heat, fire. all these things destroy dna. everything was present at ground zero, making this not only the largest forensic investigation in the history of the united states but the most difficult. >> some of these world trade center remains have been tested how many times? >> 10, 15 times. >> yeah. >> without a result. >> without a result. >> but if there's dna, we're going to find it. we're going to find it, we're going to generate a profile. it may take us a while. >> all remains today are bone. in a demonstration with animal bone, desire showed us new technologies that make

breakthroughs possible. they include this cryogenic grinder. filled with liquid nitrogen at 320 degrees below zero. >> the early days of 9/11, 2001, we were doing this all my hand with mortar and pestle. >> with high speed vibration, individual cells in the deeply frozen bone shatter. a chemical process releases their dna. >> equipment like this has taken it to the next level, given us so much more access to cells. we need as much dna as possible because these samples have hardly any. >> other innovations chemically amplify dna revealing more information from the smallest fragment. >> some as small as the size of a tic tac. we've been able to get dna from those and generate a dna profile. >> samples are tested every week with advanced technology. jhn niven's bone fragments, 15 in all, had been tested for years.

then last year, the lab made a perfect match to the swab of the cheek of his infant son, taken 22 years before. first notifications are made in person. >> and the police came to the door, and my first reaction was - i said, is it my son. and they said, no. everything's okay. and these two wonderful, really kind policemen said, we're here to deliver you the news. and they had a letter that your husband's dna has been discovered. >> when the police officer said, we found your husband's dna, that must have hit you as quite a shock. >> it was a shock that they'd been looking all these -- all these 22 years. i thought that that door had long been closed. >> why open the door at all?

it turns out many families don't want to know. when we come back, why others, including andrea haberman's family, are eager even now for every revelation. [ stopwatch ticking ] (♪♪) the retirement you've always imagined, is well within reach. (♪♪) a steady stream of protected income can be just what you need to stay in the moment. for nearly 160 years, generations have put their trust in pacific life's strength and stability. because life isn't about what tomorrow brings. it's what you do with it. ask a financial professional about pacific life. (♪♪) reminder, bent finger appointment. i don't want to wait or have surgery for my dupuytren's contracture. i want a nonsurgical treatment. and if nonsurgical treatment isn't offered? i'll get a second opinion. take charge of your treatment. if you can't lay your hand flat, visit findahandspecialist.com to get started.

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about half of 9/11 families have told the medical examiner that if their loved one is identified today, they don't want to know. time has lightened their burden of grief. but the other half still hope for word. few understand this mix of emotions like dr. jennifer odien. she's the medical examiner's world trade center anthropologist, a scientist, and something of a counselor to those still hoping for the promise. >> shock i would say is the first response typically just because of how many years have gone by. they weren't necessarily expecting to get that new identification.

any identification for some families, they weren't expecting it. and after that, it tends to be emotional, some grief. now, all the memories, everything is coming up about that. >> can you give me a sense of how many families you're in touch with? >> hundreds. >> hundreds? >> yeah. >> what memories have some of these families shared with you? >> some of the memories are that last phone call that they received or the last birthday they had or, you know, a vacation. but a lot of it has to do with that last contact, whether it was in the morning before they went off to work or if they had called while they were in the towers. >> a vital part of your job is to listen. >> yes. >> and i listen as long as they'd like me to. we had phone calls sometimes, and they'll last an hour, and i will stay on and listen and talk to them. when they have questions, i'll answer. but a lot of times, they just

want to speak to someone. >> i talked to dr. odien, jen, who was wonderful and so kind and so nice. >> ellen niven spoke to jennifer odien this past december when the remains of her husband, john, were identified for the first time. >> so, i heard nothing about john's remains for 22 years. so, we just assumed that there was nothing. we buried a box of mementoes, photographs, and a letter that i wrote, a drawing my son had done. and then nothing. >> she remarried and had two more boys. her son, jack, was 18 months old when his father died. now age 24, jack let his mother tell the story of how his father's identification struck them differently. >> for me, it was very sad.

for him, it was uplifting in a way to realize that people had been working all that time to find any piece of his dad. and that of all the people that were blessed by this break through, that it was his dad, you know? and that meant so much to him. so, it was really moving to see how moved he was. so many people who have met john or had even not met john reached out to us, emails, letters, phone calls, to me and to jack. and i think that for jack, it really brought to life so many descriptions of his father that as a young man he could now really appreciate. so, it was a great remembrance, john being able to be back in a lot of people's minds. >> as remains are identified, the folders get bigger and bigger because we keep adding all the information for those

remains. >> jennifer odien adds new identifications to the dm files. no one knew what to call 9/11 the day it happened, so the m.e. settled on disaster manhattan. there's one folder for each murder victim, 2,753. >> this is an inventory of all of the remains found for this one person. >> correct. >> such things here as rib, vertebra, sternum, found over months and years. >> correct. >> this indicates that about 50% of this body was recovered. >> roughly. and it's a very rough estimate. we're trying to identify how much has been identified. how much of that individual is there, what are the chances more remains will be identified. these are questions families will ask. >> families have a choice. they can ask a funeral home to pick up a remain vacuum packed

like this, labelled with an american flag. or they can leave the remain in the custody of the medical examiner. >> i tell them that they don't have to make that decision right now. they can call back in a month, a year, two years, ten years, and we can then have those remains transferred over to the funeral home that they choose. >> you are keeping track of the remains that precisely? >> oh, absolutely. we know where every single remain is. >> how do you do that? >> we have numbers associated with all remains. every remain that was recovered has a specific unique number associated with it. >> number 18,756 is the most recent remain of andrea haberman. >> oh, andrea. >> the habermans have asked to be told of all new identifications. for them, each reminder of their daughter is a steppingstone through a void. >> isn't that beautiful? >> that gordon haberman calls, missing.

>> it's hard to describe missing to other people, but it's -- it's deep inside you. there isn't a day that i or we don't think of her. >> help me understand what it means to you to have had andrea's remains identified. >> if andrea could face what she had to face, how could i not want to know what happened to her? >> today he's 73. his relationship with the medical examiner has spanned 11 notifications plus the amazing discovery of the relics of andrea. >> when you went through these things for the first time, what did you see? what did you think?

>> how terrible it must have been. >> we met gordon haberman at the national september 11th memorial museum at ground zero. with the help of the museum staff, we saw artifacts from andrea's purse, which are archived, cataloged, and handled like antiquities. he received them in 2004 from the nypd in a meeting with officers and a priest. >> they wanted to know if i needed any help processing that. and i was actually more concerned at that time how i'm going to keep these from my wife. >> he feared his wife's pain, so he locked the bag in a desk drawer, which he did not open for seven years.

in 2011, they donated to the museum the collection of a quarter century ago. >> this is the phone that we kept calling. >> her flip phone. >> it didn't work. >> a pager, driver's license, and the last photo of her life, the visitor i.d. that captured andrea's spirit minutes before she was gone. >> that was our andrea. and she was going to go on to do great things. and she wanted grandchildren. her house was such a pride. she loved her house so much. >> you can see it in her smile. >> oh, yes. >> you can see it in her face. >> yes. >> he brought andrea's identified remains home to wisconsin. but he believes her other remains, still unidentified, are in the museum behind this wall and a verse by the poet virgil.

no day shall erase you from the memory of time. many museum visitors don't realize, but this is the outer wall of the medical examiner's repository for 9/11 remains. >> we're in what was the basement of the north tower. >> yes. >> and this is completely out of the path of the museum. it's hidden around the corner. >> yes. >> next to the repository, this is the entrance to the office of the chief medical examiner family reflection room. the room and repository have never been seen by the public. families only can call a number on the door, which summons an escort, often dr. jennifer odien. >> so, the visits are different every time. some families are very emotional and i'll sit in with them for an hour and just hear stories and i'll walk around with them until i know that they're okay. and then i leave the room

completely so they have the space to themselves. >> this must be a burden to you? >> i don't consider it a burden. it's tough. i definitely have moments of feeling very emotional and needing to step back. but when i talk to a family and they say thank you, how grateful they are for our continued work, a question i've answered helped them in some way, it makes it all worth it. >> gordon haberman invited us inside as his guest. no camera, but we were allowed to record the audio. we found a small sitting room and a window into the repository for human remains. >> the window we're looking through looks like it's about five feet wide and three feet or so tall, just a single window. and a single wooden bench in front of the window. >> with permission, we gave our notes to an artist, who sketched

the view through the window that joins the family room to the repository. a loved one sitting on the bench sees a deep, austere, white room with rows of dark wooden cabinets, eight feet tall. they hold about 10,000 remains, both known and unknown. it is, in a sense, a private national shrine. >> why do you come here after all these years? >> i feel close to my daughter. she wasn't meant to be here, but she's here. >> the repository in the museum, which stands between the reflecting pools, seems like the right place, ellen niven told us, for her husband, john. >> have you been here often? >> oh, i've been here often. >> she has visited the pools over the decades to run her fingertips over her lost husband's tribute.

and yet she is surprised how the endless effort to actually find him allowed her to feel once again the embrace of a nation's devotion. >> my first reaction was to tell people, did you know that all this time they have been sifting through these remains and researching and researching for over 20 years? what an incredible thing, you know? john had another moment in all of our lives. so, that was something i'm incredibly grateful for. [ stopwatch ticking ] >> scott pelley on the 9/11 family's quarter-century search for closure. >> there is hope and i never give up hope. >> at 60minutesovertime.com, sponsored by pfizer. how do you keep your voice sounding so...

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ore, but it's easy to make the case that australia's leading export is acting talent. how has an island of only 27 million people minted nicole kidman hugh jackman, mel gibson, margot robbie, chris hems brthd, russell crowe, naomi watts, to say nothing of so many oscar directors and crew. we headed to the bottom of the globe to explore the aussie takeover. we met stars, we heard theories, and in a quiet sydney neighborhood impossibly far from hollywood, we found a place that pumps out talent. >> scene, london's west end. it's theater district. sorry snook is fresh off her emmy-winning breakthrough role. the vicious, yet vulnerable daughter in the hbo show, "succession." >> if only i could remain always young. >> for her next act, she's upped the degree of difficulty and

pivoted from tv to live performance, playing all 26 roles in oscar wild's, "the picture of dorian gray," the theatrical sensation coming soon to broadway. >> it's not unheard of for someone to have a successful run in tv or film and go do theater. i'm not sure i've seen someone do 26 roles in theater at once? what are you thinking? >> it's an incredible play. incredible opportunity to be able to play so many different roles and so many characters. also, the best writing in the world, what do you do next? something has to be out there to challenge you. and this is the challenge. >> if it's an unusual bid of career management, it's also on brand as the kind of daring move you would expect from a modern australian star. >> what is going through your head during this performance with all these marks and lines and angles?

>> nothing, which is quite nice. >> really? >> yeah, the focus required is a kind of state of meditative flow, in a way. because if i'm sitting there going, oh, am i on my mark? then the next line happened. if i'm thinking about anything else, i'm stitched up. >> stitched up, that's aussie for being in a jam. didn't know sarah snook was australian. >> you're a masochist and everyone know it. >> if you can't guess by the accent, you may have guessed by simply playing the percentages. name an a-list star on the screen today, odds are blooming good they've come from the land down under. >> there are a lot of you. >> there's a few of us out there. >> here's this country. fewer people than texas. >> is it, really? really? >> the ratio. >> you guys are doing interpret pretty well for yourselves.

>> jake. >> yes, they are everywhere, these aussies, filling up imdb pages and call sheets. >> this is what i was supposed to do. >> they brought us her and him. >> don't touch my things. >> him too. >> heroes -- >> upon this moment -- >> and villains. >> why so serious? >> earning top billings. >> career actors. >> earning top awards. >> thank you so much. i have such appreciation. >> thanks very much. i'm an australian who played an australian. >> aussies, they've become to hollywood what kenyans are to marathoning, wildly overrepresented. and not just in front of the camera. >> and action. >> take filmmaker baz luhrmann,

a singular creative force, a genre himself. he spoke to us in an undisclosed location where he was scouting his next film. >> it's come to the point there are so many australian performers and actors, behind the screen, screenplay writing and directing, but particularly with actors, even i have to be told, you know x is australian. oh, i didn't know that. because they are really everywhere. now, nida was a really big part of that. i think it kind of set the culture and set the attitude. >> nida, the national institute of dramatic art. think of it as the juilliard of australia. >> up through the sky. >> its rise to prominence marks a major plot point in the aussie cinematic invasion. the acceptance rate is nearly 2%. naomi watts and hugh jack man

were among those declined. baz luhrmann was class of 1985. sarah snook, class of 2008. one of only 24 admitted students that year. at nida, snook received training in the classics, experimental theater, and picked up hacks. >> i was told to ask you about how you cried during chekhov during the three sisters performance. >> who told you that? >> we do our research. we do our research here. >> yeah. there were a few of us who were nervous about having to, you know, instantaneously produce tears. so, we were very cheeky, and we put tiger balm on a little handkerchief. and when we were behind a screen, weld put the tiger balm on our eyes so they would look very upset and to cry. >> you can't because you killed someone. >> at less risk to her health, there she also learned to mask that charming aussie accent. >> how often do you get, she's australian? >> i do, yeah, frequently.

>> is that something they taught you at nida at all? >> yeah, accent work at nida. british accents, american accents. >> i think that's one more thing you've got to think about, not just your lines. >> no, i know. that was the thing on the show, we always had to -- there was often times where we had to improvise. so, i had to try and think in an american accent as well, which is tricky. >> luhrmann, too, still leans on his nida training. >> the national institute of dramatic art, the drama school i went to, i mean, i do remember one thing, and i think it's an australian attitude, which is, don't wait for permission to be told that you can act. we were taught to devise things. we were taught not to sit around and, okay, there's the part, you may be in it. we were taught to make up story, get with friends, make a show, create something. i had an idea that i would take the greek myth and with a bunch

of friends, devise it and set it in the world of ballroom dancing while i was at the national institute of dramatic art. that little play went 30 minutes. it was called "strictly ball room." >> within a few years, luhrmann had turned that little play into a worldwide film, a cult hit with all aussie cast and crew. that was 1992. then australia was still a theatrical outback of sorts. true, errol flynn was born in tasmania, but australia's contribution to the silver screen extended to not far beyond this. >> that's a knife. >> then the talent started filtering out. >> mel gibson. cate blanchett. >> because nobody admits anything they've done! >> toni collette. >> baz luhrmann's wife, the four-time oscar winning costume

producer, another winner. >> help us understand where nida fits into the broader entertainment industry. >> that can do, will tell, don't wait for permission attitude that nida instilled in the very first graduates, that spilled out into the kind of larger sense of what it was to be, you know, a performer in australia. you know, just throwing yourself off the cliff and flying. >> we didn't want it to be -- >> in sydney, we found the godfather, the guru. now 92, john clark was nida's all-powerful director for 35 years starting in 1969. he set a goal from the start, developing and unlocking a distinct aussie mode of acting, marrying the theater of london with hollywood gloss. >> we thought the method acting was having such an influence,

and everybody was emoting, and the style of acting was terribly emotional and lacking in skill and imagination. so, we thought, no, we've got to find a way of doing it that takes the best of america and the best of britain but allows our own national characteristics to develop. >> what makes australian acting unique? >> skill, confidence, courage, and an enjoyment of the body. nida has never encouraged self-indulgence or show-off acting. the actors who have done well in hollywood, they're not acting with a capital a. they are playing characters with such conviction and with such truth, without what australians would call decoration of bull [ bleep ]. >> beautiful. >> it's straight down the middle, and they do their

homework. they're highly intelligent. >> mr. anderson, welcome back. >> and they know who the person is they're playing. >> like what i've done with the place? >> in addition to running nida, john clark cofounded the sydney theater company, a harborside band box where nida students can launch careers and established stars can come back home to get back to basics. yet another supporting role in this story, aussie soap operas. seriously, don't judge. the soaps enable actors to sharpen their skills day in, day out, before their call ups. >> did the -- talk to you. >> australia has all these institutions, nida, sydney theater company, what contributions did they make to this overrepresentation of aussies we see? >> good training grounds. great training grounds for international work. there's a way you can test yourself in australia.

you can fail safely in a way. to see your limits and grow. >> snook grew up as a typical aussie free-range kid. >> you're telling me about your upbringing, riding a bike in the national park in southern australia with kangaroos. >> i feel that's a real grounding force in my life, having that independent play in risky areas. that breeds a lot of self reliance in a kid. >> these experiences you had on the other side of the world, actually really help you. >> yeah. they build your character so that you can play other characters. >> for all of the pathways and infrastructure, there's something else about aussies, and there's probably a lesson here for all of us. simply put, they're the anti-divas, doing drama, not bringing drama to work. >> the think i respect about the australian actors i love overseas, there's a bit of an understanding that it's all oftentimes smoke and mirrors and it's fun and it's a game.

you know, it is profound in some ways, but it's also silly. chris hemsworth has a great tongue and cheek attitude about it all. and also baz luhrmann, his films tend to have a cheeky wink to the audience. >> the phrase in heavy rotation w kept hearing, those aussies, they take the work seriously. they don't take themselves particularly seriously. >> that's it. that's what it is. much better way of saying what i just said. >> i feel deeply -- >> finally, about that distance, baz luhrmann believes that the remoteness of australia, a place where actors can stretch their talents and horizons beyond the gaze of hollywood pacemakers is, in fact, a blessing. >> the one thing that everyone agrees about australia is that it's far, far away. and i think that the idea of being in a movie or in a play on broadway or in a television show in hollywood, is still a romantic notion. it's still a privilege. it isn't a job.

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for your whole life ahead. tonight, once again, "60 minutes" expands to 90 minutes. after the break, we'll travel halfway across the world to the tiny himalayan kingdom of bhutan, a place of stunning beauty and a government that prioritizes happiness. bhutan's mountains and its unique buddhist culture, colorful clothes, and spirited traditions make it seem like something out of a fairy tale. but then why are its young people leaving? >> you called it existential. >> it is an existential crisis. >> i'm lesley stahl. can ancient tradition meet the modern world and leave happily ever after? our story when "60 minutes" returns. [ stopwatch ticking ] unitedhealthcare knows you've got your whole life ahead of you.

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it sounds like something out of a fairy tale, a beautiful remote land with an enlightened king adored by his subjects, a place with tall mountains, lush forests, flowing rivers, and clean air, where happiness is valued above all else. we're describing the tiny kingdom of bhutan wedged between china and india in the himalayan mountains, a place so fiercely protective of its unique buddhist culture that for a long time, it sealed itself off,

didn't admit tourism until the 1970s, and didn't introduce television until 1999. a place that chartered its own path to development when its king coined the phrase, gross national happiness, and made maximizing it the nation's top priority. but when a fairy tale kingdom meets the modern world, a storybook ending is far from certain. >> sunrise over bhutan's dasho pass, a place so calm, so transcendent, you feel you've landed in another time. buddhism is the national religion here. we found bhutanese, especially older men and women, spending hours spinning prayer wheels full of buddhist scriptures and

prayer flags fluttering on hillsides and in forests, turning nature itself into a shrine. bhutan's capital city, thimphu, still has no traffic lights. the old and the new mingle in peaceful coexistence here, even on the nation's roads. >> bhutan's story, in one word, is survival. >> dasho kinley dorji ran bhutan's first newspaper, then served as a government minister. >> we were and still are very nervous population between india and china. in the old days, what bhutan did is we hid in the mountains. >> you hid from these two giants. >> yes. >> you were afraid they'd gobble you up? >> oh, yes, yes. we don't have military might or economic force. so, bhutan's strength was going to be its identity, to be different from everyone around us.

we wear different clothes, we construct buildings in a traditional architecture, an identity based on our culture. that was our strength. >> and that culture remained strong. thousands of bhutanese gather for seasonal religious festivals with songs in the national language, dzongkha, and centuries-old dances and costumes. this is not a tourist-focused spectacle, though foreigners are welcome. this is clearly for the bhutanese, who come dressed in their finest. >> tell us about what you are wearing because this is the traditional dress for a man. >> my wife said, it's the men who wear the skirts in this country, showing our knees. this is called a gho, and it's colorful using natural dye. >> it's very old fashioned.

>> we came to realize that, you know, what we had in the past, what is old is actually very valuable. >> ghos also double as athletic wear for bhutan's national sport, archery. they're using traditional bows and arrows made of bamboo shooting at a target a football field and a half away. >> oh, he hit it. he hit it. >> so, what you're going to see is the two teams dancing now. >> they dance? >> they dance and they sing. >> rabsel dorji, who once worked at the u.n., was a teenager when television came to bhutan 25 years ago. >> i remember fixing the antenna in my house for my mom to watch. >> i wonder how rapidly change has come here. it's almost head spinning. >> my father, my late father, when he was growing up in the

'60s and '70s, bhutan was -- there were no roads in the country. he had to travel two or three days on horseback to get to school. >> bhutan was and is today, many families still live in multigenerational farmhouses. the country was unified by the man who became its first king in 1907. his sons and grandsons, who bhutanese refer to as the second, third, fourth, and today fifth kings have reigned since. but it was the fourth king who, as a young newly crowned ruler in the 1970s, really set bhutan on its unique path to modernity. he was flying home from the summit of non-aligned nations in cuba and landed at an airport in india since bhutan still didn't

have one. >> indian journalists met them at the airport, and the first question was, bhutan is our closest neighbor. we know nothing about bhutan. what's your gross national product? the king said, actually in bhutan, gross national happiness is more important than gross national product. >> it just came out of his mouth like that. >> so, sexy headline. >> sexy headline that got international attention. >> bhutan is putting before us a framework for a new economic paradigm. >> the u.n. convened a special meeting in 2012 and adopted a resolution, urging others to follow bhutan's lead. >> so, tell me about -- >> and in bhutan, it became the primary responsibility of government, led today by prime minister tshering tobgay. explain gross national happiness.

what is it? >> the last 300 years we've been obsessed with growth. gross national happiness acknowledges that growth is important, but it must be sustainable. it must be balanced by the preservation of our unique culture. people matter. our happiness, our well being matters. everything should serve that. >> so, every five years, surveyors travel throughout bhutan, measuring the nation's happiness. they ask about education level, salary, material possessions, do you have negative thoughts, positive thoughts, how much time do you spend working, praying, sleeping? the results are analyzed and factored into public policy. >> but people here don't walk around smiling and laughing all the time. they look, to me, like people everywhere. >> gross national happiness -- >> yeah. >> -- does not directly equate

to happiness in the moment. one happiness is fleeting. it is emotion, it is joy. the other is contentment, to be happy with life, to be happy with one's self, and that's what gross national happiness is all about. >> it's also about nature. by law, at least 60% of the country must remain under forest cover. and with most of its energy coming from hydroelectric power, bhutan was the first and today one of the only countries in the world to be carbon negative. it earns foreign revenue selling excess hydropower to india and from tourism. but there are limits. >> you have all these gorgeous mountains, but you don't allow mountain climbing. >> yes. >> that really surprised me. why not? >> for bhutanese, it's very easy to understand. the mountains are sacred. >> the mountains are sacred. >> sacred, home of deities.

we don't climb all of it, those sacred. nature, it's not something to conquer. it's something to be respected. >> school is taught in english and is free, as is health care. major accomplishments in a country still considered a developin nation. oh, and there's one more thing, that king, who introduced gross national happiness, 25 years later decided that happiness required another big change, the right to elect a parliament and prime minister. >> bhutan is the only country where democracy was introduced in a time of peace and stability, where democracy was literally gifted, imposed on the people -- not just gifted because the people didn't want it. >> no one was clamoring for it. it wasn't the french revolution. there was no revolution.

he just decided. >> as a reporter, dorji covered the king's travels to all over bhutan. >> the only consultation i saw was people begging him not to do this. >> people did not want democracy? >> yes, yes. and they're pleading. very articulate arguments of why. they looked around the world, their horizon was india, nepal, bangladesh, pakistan. democracy. which is really synonymous with violence, corruption. so, they say, no thank you. we don't really need that. we are fine. >> he defied the people and imposed democracy. >> yeah. you couldn't argue with him. he had arguments like you leave the small country in the hands of one man whose chosen by birth and not by merit. one day we'll have a backing. >> and with that, the fourth

king abdicated at just 51, passing the crown to his 26-year-old son, the fifth and current king. bhutanese headed to the polls for the first time ever. the result is hard to wrap a western head around. a democracy, where the king is universally adored -- that's him swearing in the prime minister, and the two work together as partners, quite the happily ever after ending, except this would would-be fairy tale has an unexpected plot twist. young bhutanese are leaving the country in record numbers. >> this is a very difficult situation for bhutan. >> you called it existential. >> it is an existential crisis. >> when we come back. [ stopwatch ticking ] if you're living with dry amd, you may be at risk for developing geographic atrophy, or ga.

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[ stopwatch ticking ] so, how did bhutan, a country that prioritizes its people's happiness, find itself with so many of them leaving? well, it started with covid, which hit bhutan's economy hard, shutting down tourism.

and recovery has been slow. many bhutanese, with their excellent english, found higher-paying jobs in australia, even doing menial labor. word spread on social media, and now a devastating 9% of the country's population has left, most of them young. bhutan's government has mobilized, with the king launching a bold, high-stakes plan, and something of an experiment. can he create a place where development and wealth can coexist with sacred values? >> a lot of people with skills, people in my age group. >> namgay zam is a journalist who used to anchor bhutan's nightly newscast. >> there are just two of us left in the country, editors, graphic designers, sound people. yes.

>> they've left the country? >> they've left the country. >> outside bhutan's airport we saw what looked like a sort of picnic but was actually a good-bye. >> the whole family often goes to the airport. >> often several generations. >> we're very close to our families, so when someone lives so far away, they don't know when the next meal together with the family will be. there's another advantage where you can see the plane takeoff, so many of the family members will wave them good-bye and see them off. that's a very emotional experience. >> so many of your people are leaving. i have to ask you this. has gross national happiness been a failure? >> gross national happiness has succeeded. >> but if people are leaving -- >> i am 58 years old. in my generation, the term has

transformed from a medieval society literally with no roads no clean drinking water, life expectancy in the 40s, very few schools. what you see today, we have free education, free health care, where life expectancy is now crossing 70 years old, where our economy, while it's still small, has been growing on average of about 6%. and it's growing without destroying, undermining culture. so, by these measurements, i would say gross national happiness has succeeded. as a matter of fact, perhaps it has succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. >> meaning he believes it's ironically the success of gross national happiness that has made bhutanese young people sought after abroad. >> we have to lure them back. and the only way to lure them back is by good, well-paying jobs. >> so, he's trying to attract

more business and tourists to bhutan, highlighting landmarks, like this centuries-old suspension bridge, part of an ancient 250-mile trail from one end of the country to the other. >> originally this was a highway. >> now restored to welcome trekking tourists. >> and near the bridge at twilight, one of the most beautiful buildings we'd ever seen built in the 1600s. but tourism can only do so much. and bhutan's king knows it. so, while he never gives on-camera interviews, he did grant us a royal audience to share what might be called an enlightened hail mary. he's decided to create a new city in southern bhutan with different rules from the rest of the country, an attempt at a new model of robust economic development still true to bhutanese values.

he's calling it the mindfulness city. and to design it, he turned to danish architect, bjarke ingles. >> there is a reason to do something out of the ordinary. >> ingles is known for his innovative buildings, like this new york city skyscraper. >> what's the biggest challenge here? >> the big question is, can you create a space for economic activity in the future without sacrificing the values and cultural riches that they have today? you have 34 rivers. >> as ingles showed us in these renderings, the new city will have neighborhoods nested between the many rivers connected by a series of unusual bridges. >> we got the idea that the bridges could be the public buildings. >> this is a bridge? >> this is a bridge that is also a kind of buddhist center. this is a health care bridge. it actually has health care facilities on either side of the road. this is a university bridge.

>> all built with local materials. this will be the downtown, no skyscrapers. to see the site, we flew about an hour south of the capital, leaving behind those sacred himalayan peaks for bhutan's tropical lowlands. and we climbed to a lookout where there wasn't much to see. >> this is empty right now. you're going to have a whole new city here. >> our guide was dr. lotay tshering, a former prime minister who the king has tapped to govern the new city. he told us it will be built in phases over the next two decades, with no polluting industries allowed. >> we have lots of wildlife. >> you have elephants? >> yes. >> and sure enough, we spotted this family a few hours later just off the side of the road.

as habitat shrinks elsewhere, more elephants and even tigers are finding new life in bhutan, and the new city will have wildlife corridors to protect them. >> the king has said, the future of bhutan hangs on this project. it's huge. >> doing the way we had been doing is not enough anymore. bhutanese, when we say we follow the principles of gross national happiness, we do not mean we are happy with less. that's what i feel. we're human beings. we also want more. we also want to be technologically high standard. we want bhutanese to be heading multimillion dollar companies, multinational companies, but following a philosophy of gross national happiness. >> how is that supposed to work? well, this bhutanese team is collaborating with experts around the world, seeking investors for what's sure to cost in the billions. the city will have its own legal

framework modelled on singapore's and will offer plentiful, clean, hydroelectric power they hope will draw technology companies, especially a.i. >> so, imagine this is the upper part of the river. >> to capture that hydroelectric power -- >> and then this is roughly 500 feet. >> -- ingles has designed a colorful dam that's also something you can walk down. >> all of these little diamond shapes are actually stairs. and you get this experience. so, you're standing at the top of the dam looking down. and then you can see this major roof is the temple. >> a temple? >> a temple. >> on -- >> on the face of the dam overlooking the river and the valley. >> i bet the king loves this. >> ingles presented his plans to the king and the king to the nation last december. >> on december 17, the national day of bhutan, they fill a stadium, a sports stadium. so, when you go to that stadium,

it looks like a quidditch match. and the king basically speaks to his people. >> his topic, the mindfulness city and his hopes for the opportunities it will create to keep bhutanese in bhutan. namgay zam, meanwhile, had different plans involving australia. >> you thought about leaving. >> oh, i didn't just think about leaving. like, everything was underway. >> but then she went to hear the king that day. >> and he did one thing he had never done before. he asked people to help him directly, and he said, will you help me. and there was shocked silence. even for me, i was like, did he just ask us to help him? and he said, will you help me a second time. [ speaking in a global language ] >> and there was a resounding yes, and i said yes. and i came and i told my husband, i said, we can't leave. he said, why? i said, i signed an official contract with his majesty

because i said yes. >> you're so sophisticated, you're worldly, and yet your king asked you to help -- >> i was not the only one. there were, like, 30,000 people there. and i felt like he asked me. >> she's decided to stay. and instead it was the king and his family who went to australia just last month to bring his vision to 20,000 bhutanese who live here now and who he's hoping to one day lure back home. >> if we succeed, we can show that you can create a city that does not displace nature, that is anchored and rooted in the local heritage and culture, and that still allows for prosperity and growth to happen. that is a challenge that a lot of places in the world are struggling with. >> culture, tradition, modernity, if this remote fairy

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i'm lesley stahl. we'll be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes." [ stopwatch ticking ]