60 Minutes - 04/27/2025: NIH, Evidence, The Land of Declining Sons

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

In its ongoing mission to shrink the federal government, the Trump administration has cut more than a thousand jobs and billions in research grants from America’s crown jewel of medical research - the National Institutes of Health. While other administrations have tried to downsize the NIH before, leaked Trump administration documents show plans to reduce the NIH budget by more than 40 percent, sending shockwaves throughout the scientific community. Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi sits down with the former director of the NIH, Dr. Francis Collins, as well as a researcher and an NIH insider who all say these measures could jeopardize the health of Americans for generations to come. Evidence has emerged that could change our understanding of the 9/11 terrorist attacks more than two decades ago. A 60 Minutes investigation has found that crucial information, initially turned over to the FBI shortly after the attacks, was never shared with the bureau's own field agents or senior intelligence officials. Correspondent Cecilia Vega reports on this evidence, which has come to light amid a lawsuit against the Saudi government filed by families of the nearly 3,000 victims and includes a video of a Saudi national filming the U.S. Capitol, thought to be al-Qaeda's fourth target. The world’s population may have recently surpassed eight billion, but it’s a misleading figure. Growth is unevenly distributed, and many countries are experiencing a decline in population—in some cases, steeply. Consider Japan. The country with the fourth largest economy is now facing a rapidly declining birth rate, and a population projected to shrink in half by this century's end. Correspondent Jon Wertheim reports from Japan, examining how these demographic changes are affecting the country and its culture. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's get you this navy one, and for me, this soft beige one. Deal so good, everyone approves. Only at HomeSense. Why do fintechs like Float choose Visa? As a more trusted, more secure payments network, Visa provides scale, expertise, and innovative payment solutions. Learn more at visa.ca slash fintech. InTech. Tonight, you will hear from scientists and researchers about the Trump administration's plan to cut the budget at the National Institutes of Health and how those cuts could impact the health of Americans for generations.

Clinical trials for Alzheimer's disease or cancer that may take three or four years, you can't just go in and decide, I'm going to shut those down and maybe I'll try something else. Those are people's lives at risk. This video of a Saudi national filming the U.S. Capitol, its security posts and nearby landmarks, was taken in the summer of 1999 and turned over to the FBI after 9-11. But it was never shared with the Bureau's own field agents or top intelligence officials.

A lot of people will see this video for the first time and think, how is it remotely possible that it's just coming to light now? Could it really have been sitting in an evidence locker room all of these years? Ichinono, Japan, sits regally wedged between mountains an hour and a half west of Kyoto. Its listed population, just shy of 50. But if it seems like more, it's for good reason. The village comes embroidered with 40 lifelike puppets.

In the middle of town, on a playground, pedaling off toward the woods. It's lonely here. Back in my day, the village was full of kids. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. Back in my day, the village was full of kids. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi.

I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Nora O'Donnell. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories and more tonight on 60 Minutes. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders.

Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. Earlier this month, a Trump administration plan to cut the National Institutes of Health budget by more than 40 percent was leaked to the press. The preliminary budget sent shockwaves through the nation's health agency, but also the wider scientific community that relies on the NIH to fund research. Since January, 1,300 NIH employees have been fired, and more than $2 billion in research grants canceled. It's all part of the administration's effort to shrink the federal government,

an effort led by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Tonight, you will hear from an NIH insider about the immediate impact of the cuts on research and patients. But we begin with Dr. Francis Collins, the longtime director of the agency. He told us why he abruptly left the NIH and why he fears aggressive downsizing could impact the health of Americans for generations. When you're talking about medical research, when you're talking about people's lives, when you're talking about clinical trials for Alzheimer's disease or cancer that may take three or four years, you can't just go in and decide, I'm going to shut those down and maybe I'll try something else. Those are people's lives at risk. Dr. Francis Collins spent 32 years at the National Institutes of Health, serving as the agency's director for 12 years under three presidential administrations.

But he says even he was unprepared for the speed and severity of budget cuts at the NIH. Give me a sense of what it was like inside the NIH as these cuts started rolling out. Almost immediately after inauguration, there were statements made that you were not allowed to, for instance, to start any new projects. The ability to order supplies was cut off. Eventually, it was started back up again, but then they put a $1 limit on what you could order. There's not much you can order for $1. Today, we celebrate a major landmark in biology and medicine. Collins joined the NIH in 1993 to lead the Human Genome Project and later directed the agency's development of new tests, therapeutics, and vaccines during the pandemic. Still, he says, even after COVID, most people

don't know what the NIH does. The National Institutes of Health, NIH, is the largest supporter of biomedical research in the world. What are some of the medical breakthroughs that people might not be aware of that came through the NIH? Deaths from heart disease are down by 75% in the last 40 years.

That's NIH. Deaths from stroke are down about 75%. That's NIH. HIV, AIDS, where that was a death sentence. Now, if you have access to those antiretrovirals, NIH and drug companies came up with that, you have a normal lifespan. The NIH is headquartered on this sprawling 300-acre campus in Bethesda, Maryland. It's home to the largest clinical research hospital in the world and 27 research institutes and centers. The leaked budget draft includes a plan to consolidate those 27

institutes and centers into eight and eliminate four, including the Institutes on Nursing Research and Minority Health. If approved by Congress, it would be the largest budget cut by an administration to the health agency, but not the first. Most recently, Presidents Bush and Obama made smaller cuts to the NIH, which currently has a $47 billion budget. But Collins says the bulk of that budget, more than 80 percent, goes to researchers off campus. Most of that goes out to the universities and institutes all over the country.

They're the ones that do the work, but they get the funds from NIH by writing very compelling grant applications that go through the most rigorous peer review system in the world. Some of those researchers' work lines America's medicine cabinets, such as statins, antidepressants, and new forms of insulin. A Journal of the American Medical Association study found that between 2010 and 2019, 99 percent of FDA-approved drugs had ties to research funded by the NIH. Every dollar that NIH gave out in 2024 to a grant is estimated to have returned $2.46 just in a year. That's a pretty darn good return on investment. But not good enough to escape the crosshairs

of the Trump administration's sweeping budget cuts. In February, Dr. Collins decided to leave the NIH. It just became untenable. I was, as every other scientist in that circumstance, not allowed to speak in any kind of scientific meeting or public setting. You don't think if you would have stayed there, you would have been in a better position to fight for the scientists and the work? I don't think it would have helped. I would have been pretty much in a circumstance of not being able to speak about it. We innovate together! We innovate together! With the exception of a series

of rallies, most scientists connected to the NIH have remained quiet. Some, like this physician scientist who still works at the agency, fear their jobs or research may be targeted for speaking up. He asked us to conceal his identity. I've never seen the morale of an institution or any place change so abruptly to where we feel fear. It began, he says, in February, when more than 1,000 probationary employees were placed on leave. When that happened, that first hit, what was the reaction like immediately and in the office the next Monday? Tears.

Everybody trying to assess damage, who's been fired, who hasn't been fired, what do we do? And then an immediate sort of assessment in the clinical center, okay, can we still take care of patients? And our research participants, is it still safe? No one thought before they fired the people that dealt with the patients that maybe they shouldn't be fired? This didn't come from within NIH. It came from outside.

They don't know what these people do. This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy. As Doge dismantled parts of the agency, employees told us work on child cancer therapies, dementia, and stroke slowed or stopped because critical lab and support staff were let go. NIH employees shared these photos. They say even after a six-week spending freeze at the agency was lifted, some shelves and refrigerators that held supplies for trials and patients remained empty because much of the staff that procured those supplies was fired. You can't run an organization as complicated as NIH without a support system.

Doctors and nurses and scientists can't function without a lot of other resources. They need an entire support infrastructure, and that has now been decimated. Some of the fired employees have been brought back. Others are still being paid, but not allowed to work. This doesn't feel like a strategic plan to reorganize and make the NIH better and more efficient. It feels like a wrecking ball. Typically when a company has layoffs, they talk about restructuring.

There'll be a new structure and this is how it's going to work. Is there a structure in place right now for the NIH? Not that anybody shared with no idea. You know, making the organization better, everybody is for that. There's no question. But again, this is not more efficient. It is infinitely less efficient right now because you can't get anything done. The confusion in Bethesda has also paralyzed many of the 2,500 universities and institutes that rely on the NIH to help fund their research. So far, nearly 800 grants have been terminated, some on HIV and AIDS, trans health, and COVID-19, after researchers were told their work was no longer

an agency priority. And last week, the NIH signaled that more cuts could be coming. It announced that any university with a DEI program or that boycotts an Israeli company might not be awarded new NIH grants for medical research, and that existing grants could be terminated. Kristen Weinstein, Ph.D.: Without NIH funding, I would not be where I am today. Kristen Weinstein is a wife, mother, and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Washington. She hoped to continue her research on cancer and autoimmunity after graduation. And now, what are you thinking about your future?

Yeah, it's in some ways bleak. Nationwide there is a hiring freeze at virtually every major academic university. And even if I did happen to secure a position, now the funding is so uncertain, I don't know if I would have funding to actually do the research that I was hired on to do in whatever lab I join. We're very seriously considering at this point leaving the United States. Weinstein has met with faculty at universities in Europe and spoken to labs in Canada. She's not alone. A survey of 1,600 scientists and graduate students reported 75% are considering leaving the U.S. to work. Australia, Europe and China have already boosted recruitment efforts, hoping to capitalize on the potential brain drain.

I grew up with this notion that if I studied hard, I would be able to pursue whatever my interest was. How can I believe in the American dream when I would have to leave my own country to pursue my career? The uncertainty has also created concern for Beth Humphrey and her daughter Laura. Beth was diagnosed with Alzheimer's last year. It was devastating. There is no successful treatment, and it is ultimately terminal. Where is the llama? The 68-year-old grandmother joined an NIH-funded Alzheimer's study run by Duke University and the University of North Carolina.

Now, the Trump administration wants to restrict how much universities are reimbursed for overhead costs, which critics argue act as a slush fund for schools. 22 states, including North Carolina, are suing. Universities warn that policy could lead to billions in losses and would have a dire impact on life-saving trials and research. If the funding is cut, what does that mean to you? What's next? That would be very disappointing to me.

This is not a partisan issue. Disease doesn't know your party affiliation or your socioeconomic status. And everyone in America knows someone who has been affected by Alzheimer's. Earlier this month, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya took office as the new director of the NIH. Bhattacharya, a former Stanford professor whose research focused on the economics of health care, has said he was smeared by other academics after he argued against broad mask mandates and lockdowns during the pandemic. I'll foster a culture where NIH leadership will actively encourage different perspectives.

Dr. Bhattacharya declined our request for an interview, but at his Senate confirmation hearing, he outlined his plan for the agency. If confirmed, I will carry out President Trump and Secretary Kennedy's agenda of committing the NIH to address the dire chronic health needs of the country with gold standard science and innovation. One way the NIH will carry out that agenda, Bhattacharya says, is by creating a new database to study chronic disease. The NIH will also invest $50 million to study autism, in response to a request by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has clashed with scientists on the topic for years.

This past week, Dr. Bhattacharya told agency advisors he's working hard to undo some of the recent, quote, disruptions at the NIH, and called that draft proposal to cut its budget by 40 percent the beginning of a negotiation. Didn't Suck is learning about history. I do that through storytelling. History That Doesn't Suck is a chart-topping history-telling podcast chronicling the epic story of America, decade by decade. Right now, I'm digging into the history of incredible infrastructure projects of the 1930s, including the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, and more. The promise is in the title, History That Doesn't Suck. Available on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Evidence has emerged that could change our understanding of the 9-11 terrorist attacks more than two decades ago. It was turned over to the FBI in the weeks after 9-11, but our reporting has uncovered

it was never shared with the Bureau's own field agents or top intelligence officials. Why, after all these years, is this crucial information just surfacing? The evidence is coming to light as part of a long-running lawsuit against the Saudi government by the families of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks, and it includes a chilling video of a Saudi national filming the U.S. Capitol. A voice on the video says in Arabic, I am transmitting these scenes to you from the heart of the American capital, Washington. This video, recorded in the summer of 1999,

was unsealed in federal court last year as part of the 9-11 family's lawsuit accusing Saudi Arabia of providing crucial support to the hijackers. Exhibit A in their case, the man who made the video, Omar al-Bayoumi, who asked a bystander to film him in front of the Capitol. The FBI says Bayoumi was living in the United States on a student visa and being paid by a Saudi aviation company in California, despite not showing up for classes or work. Investigators say, in fact,

Bayoumi was an operative of the Saudi intelligence service and had close ties to two of the hijackers. The video was filmed over several days. Bayoumi recorded entrances and exits of the capital, security posts, a model of the building, and nearby landmarks. Bayoumi points out the Washington Monument and says, I will get over there and report to you in detail what is there. He also notes the airport is not far away. What I see Bayoumi doing is going out and making a detailed video record of the Capitol

from all its sides and then conducting that 360-degree panoramic view. Richard Lambert is a retired FBI supervisor who led the initial 9-11 investigation in San Diego, where Bayoumi and the two hijackers lived prior to the attacks. He's now a consultant on the case filed by the 9-11 families. If you've ever flown into Washington, D.C., one of the first things you see on the horizon is the Washington Monument. So if you know where your other targets are, it helps guide you to your intended target. Federal investigators believe the hijackers on Flight 93, which crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, planned to hit the U.S. Capitol as their likely target. In the video, Bayoumi references a, quote, plan. You said that in the plan.

What plan? What do you think he's talking about? I think he's talking to the al-Qaeda planners who tasked him to take the pre-operational surveillance video of the intended target. So this video is taken in late June and early July of 1999. What does that timing tell you? Well, that means it was taken within 90 days of the time when senior al-Qaeda planners reached the decision that the capital would be a target of the 9-11 attacks.

That's when Osama bin Laden decided to approve the so-called planes operation, proposed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9-11. During a raid on Bayoumi's UK apartment about 10 days after the attacks, British police discovered the Capitol video, along with about 80 other tapes and a trove of documents now being used as evidence in the family's lawsuit. This internal FBI report dated October 11, 2001, shows that copies of all recovered exhibits were sent to FBI New York via Federal Express, but the Capitol video never made it to the San Diego field office. I had not seen that video. Retired FBI special agent Danny Gonzalez, one of the lead 9-11 investigators in San Diego,

says he never knew about the video during the 15 years he worked on the case. He is also a consultant for the 9-11 family's lawsuit. Not only did I not know, all of the case agents in San Diego didn't know, and the case agents in New York didn't know. And we're talking about the Joint Terrorism Task Forces that not only have FBI, but we have other state, local, and federal agencies. They did not know either. How's that possible?

I don't have that answer, and that angers me. When I saw that video, I knew exactly what it was. Did you need this information to do your job? Absolutely. He believes he could have used the Capitol video to build a case against Bayoumi. I would have taken it to the United States Attorney's Office, who was requesting from us, the FBI, anything that we had they wanted to look at. Meaning what? That they would have filed charges, that they would have indicted?

What would your hope in that be? It was a terror investigation, but it was also a mass murder. In your view, this video was so significant that it should have gone all the way to the top, to the White House. I think it should have because it's the Capitol building. Gina Bennett was a senior counterterrorism analyst at the CIA for 20 years. In the aftermath of 9-11, we were briefing the president and the National Security Council.

We didn't expect that this was a one and done. We expected al-Qaeda to continue to try. So resources were going entirely to trying to undermine any additional plotting. The Saudi government says this is a tourist video, that there's nothing to see here. You don't buy that? No, I don't. Who does a tourist video that is reporting back on, this is where that building is, and here's where the security guards are? Now retired, she was the first person in the U.S. government to warn of the dangers of a

global jihadist movement led by Osama bin Laden. Bennett has no involvement with the 9-11 family's lawsuit and says she, too, was unaware of the video's existence until we asked her to evaluate it. As we discovered, she was not the only one at the CIA in the dark. George Tenet, the CIA director at the time, says he wasn't aware of the video. Same for Michael Morrell, the president's daily intelligence briefer at the time. Does it surprise you that they didn't know about this? It does surprise me, again, because we're talking about the U.S. Capitol, and in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, Bayoumi was a suspect.

A lot of people will see this video for the first time and think, how is it remotely possible that it's just coming to light now? Could it really have been sitting in an evidence locker room all of these years? It seems like a pretty epic failure. I think it's a matter of did they lose the evidence or had they filed it away in a way that it would not have seemed relevant. That I can see. As it turns out, there was more evidence, specifically this airplane sketch and math formula that was also seized from Bayoumi's U.K. apartment and turned over to the FBI in 2001.

It was stashed away for more than a decade until Danny Gonzalez in 2012 got a phone call out of the blue from an FBI evidence technician in Washington. What did they tell you? They told me that they had these boxes with the name of Omar al-Bayoumi written on it. And they were sitting in a warehouse in Washington, D.C., and they were going to relocate these boxes or destroy these boxes. And they wanted to know if I wanted them, and I said, absolutely.

But as one of the lead investigators into these attacks, did you have any idea that this sketch had even existed before you got that phone call? No, I didn't. He had aviation and aerospace experts analyze the equation for the FBI. Their conclusion? A pilot could use it to calculate the rate of descent to hit a target on the horizon. In 2004, the 9-11 Commission produced what was at the time considered the definitive account of the attacks. Its executive director, Philip Zelikow, told us he was also unaware of it during his investigation. So were former senior U.S. intelligence officials we spoke to. As for Bayoumi, who was never charged with the crime

and moved back to Saudi Arabia after 9-11, he was asked about the sketch as part of the lawsuit in a 2021 deposition. He confirmed the sketch was his, but said he remembered little else about it, including his handwritten notes that say, height of the plane from the earth in mile, and distance from the plane to horizon. When pressed about it, he came up with a far-fetched explanation. Perhaps this was an equation that we studied before in high school, and I was trying to remember whether I'm going to be able to figure out and solve it or not.

And what is an equation for? I don't know. It's just a matter of just equation. There's no proof that Bayoumi shared the equation with any of the hijackers. What we do know is that he met the first two to arrive in the U.S. nearly two years before 9-11. Bayoumi claims he met them in a chance encounter at a restaurant here on Venice Boulevard in Los Angeles.

He then helped them move to San Diego, finding them a place to live in his own apartment complex, co-signing the lease and helping them open a bank account. He even threw a party, which he also videotaped, capturing one of the hijackers on camera. He then introduced them to others who helped them obtain government IDs and enroll in English classes and flight schools. Bayoumi and the Saudi government say his actions were innocent, the result of a remarkable series of coincidences. Isn't it all possible in your mind that Bayoumi wasn't actually involved in all of this? Is pure coincidence, as the Saudis claim?

No. No. I don't believe that for a second. Why not? Could have been a guy who just wanted to help his brothers adjust to a life in a new country. Who else did he help besides those two hijackers? I don't know of any, and I couldn't find any. Omar al-Bayoumi is living as a free man in Saudi Arabia.

What do you think about that? Awful. Awful. He should be here under the court system. The 9-11 Commission concluded that Bayoumi was, quote, an unlikely candidate for clandestine involvement with Islamist extremists. Does that still hold? I think the 9-11 Commission is just not fully informed.

It's not their fault, but it's not fully informed. So all the evidence you've seen, the material support, the Capitol video, the sketch, your conclusion is what? My conclusion is that Bayoumi was an al-Qaeda facilitator. He had sympathies with al-Qaeda, I mean, ideologically, and that he provided substantial support to these two individuals, these two hijackers, without which they may very well have been caught. Bennett says Bayoumi was indispensable to the success of the hijackers' plot because they spoke no English, had little formal education, and no prior exposure to life

in the West. I don't see al-Qaeda as meticulous as it was with its planning, just throwing two operatives that are so instrumental to the success of this operation into a massive city without a soft landing, without a network there to catch them. She says the new evidence raises a lot of important questions. Like what? Who else? Were there other networks? Are any of those individuals still active here or elsewhere in the world? Is there any other evidence that's sitting in a box somewhere or, you know, locked up?

And work from that new information to learn, to learn what you got wrong, to learn how to not get it wrong again. The government of Saudi Arabia has filed a motion in federal court to dismiss the 9-11 family's lawsuit, saying neither the kingdom nor Omar al-Bayoumi had anything to do with the attacks. The judge overseeing the case is expected to rule on the motion soon. As for the FBI, it told us it would not comment on ongoing litigation. The world's population may have recently exceeded 8 billion, but it's a deceptive

number. Not only is growth unevenly distributed, but in so many countries, population is in decline. In some cases, steep, deep decline. Maybe most graphically and demographically, there's Japan. A country that, since hitting a high of 128 million citizens in 2008, has lost population for 15 years running, and is on pace to shrink by half by this century's end, despite government measures to halt the decline. This has huge impacts on the economy, the healthcare system, education, housing, national

defense, immigration, the culture at large. Governments can control interest rates and inflation rates. Stimulating birth rates is far harder. We report from the land of the rising sun, now also the land of declining sons and daughters. Ichinono, Japan, sits regally wedged between mountains an hour and a half west of Kyoto. Its listed population, just shy of 50. But if it seems like more, it's for good reason. The village comes embroidered with 40 lifelike puppets.

In the middle of town, on a playground, pedaling off toward the woods. It's lonely here. Back in my day, the village was full of kids. Shinichi Moriyama is the town puppet master, overseeing the making and then scattering of dolls throughout Ichinono, populating a depopulating village. You say it's lonely here. Are the puppets a way to make things a little less lonely?

Puppets are no substitute for people, of course, but making them cheers us up. This is as good a snapshot as any of Japan's demographic crisis. There are hundreds of communities here fading like Ichinono. Do you think there might come a day when the puppet population exceeds the human population? So, if things keep going the way they are right now, of course our population will decrease.

Maybe it'll go down to 40, or maybe 30. But at the same time, my ability to continue making puppets is finite. So yes, I am deeply worried about the future of our village. Modern Japan sounds like a sci-fi premise. The incredible shrinking country. Go! Go! Tokyo is the world's largest city. And Japan has one of the world's longest

national life expectancies, 85 years. But it's also losing population at a staggering rate. Last year, more than two people died for every new baby born, a net loss of almost a million. Today, Japanese buy more adult diapers than buy baby diapers. Is there a more urgent issue in Japan right now than this demographic crisis? There are climate change, government deficit, but if there's no people living in Japan...

It's all relevant, climate change and government deficits in the military, if you don't have people living here. That's right. The central door is only for the emperor when he… A longtime high-ranking minister in Japan's parliament, Taro Kono was nearly elected prime minister in 2021 and says he intends to seek the highest office again. What does Japan look like if it continues to shrink like this?

There are less and less number of young generation and all the burdens are on the young generation and they won't be able to sustain. So society is going to be breaking up. Economy is going to stagnate. Even for self-defense force, last year we recruited only half of what we need. The Japanese military. You feel it. Declining population is hardly unique to Japan. Name a country outside Africa, and odds are good it's losing people, or about to. In the U.S., the fertility rate is at an all-time low.

Donald Trump has declared the collapse of fertility a crucial threat to the West. Kono wishes his country had been better prepared. Every sector, even in the government, there's a labor shortage. And we really need to invest in technology to replace the human being. But we are still slow to do that. The alternative is to open up the country to foreign immigrants. But there's some psychological barrier to open up the country. What do you mean by that? Well, I mean, the Japanese have been very homogeneous. Many Japanese don't know how to deal with non-Japanese living in the society.

Japan is also the world's fourth largest economy. Can it continue to be a power like that if the population keeps declining? Nope. In part, Japan's declining demographics owes to a spike in the success of women in the workforce. And in Japan, a famously punishing work culture coupled with a men-first social culture makes it all the more difficult to balance career and family, still more so amid a persistently stagnant economy. Up through the 1980s, the bubble years, Japan had omiyai. They had arranged marriage. You know, the corporate guys would marry the office ladies,

and this was all set up. It's gone now. And the office ladies make more money than the corporate guys. So now you have this shift in economics that has not been reflected in social norms. Roland Keltz is a Japanese-American writer. He's married, but he's well aware that he's the exception. In 2023, fewer than 500,000 Japanese couples married,

the lowest number since 1917. I'm not sure other societies in the world have an implosion of marriage. Well, Japan's, I think, ahead of the game. Japan's where we're all headed. You think this is a harbinger? I do. I do.

I think it's a canary in a coal mine. It doesn't help Japan's marriage rates, and therefore birth rates, that a growing number of businesses now cater to the rise of parties of one. I mean, you and I are not supposed to talk to each other over this thing. We met Celts at a ramen joint designed specifically for dining in solitude. There's single karaoke. We visited a bar open only to those arriving stag. There are solo weddings,

replete with professional photo shoots. But that's not all. Lately, alternative romance is highly in vogue. Just as robots today are helping ease some of the national labor shortages, inanimate objects are also making their way into the bedroom. We met Akihiko Kondo, who told us he sleeps alongside the anime character Miku, whom he married in a formal ceremony in 2018. He's one of thousands of Japanese who, unashamedly, say they are in a monogamous romantic relationship

with a fictional character. Staggeringly, or maybe not, almost half of the country's millennial singles ages 18 to 34 self-report as virgins, compared to barely 20% in the U.S. And of course, less human copulation means less human population. AI relationships, they're going to get better and better and better, and they're going to supersede, in some ways, real physical relationships. To foster human relationships, the Tokyo government has taken action.

Yuriko Koike is the city's governor. We are promoting for matchmaking by artificial intelligence. The Tokyo government is playing Omiya, playing matchmaker. That's right. Yes, the Japanese capital city has launched its own dating app. Is it working?

Yes, it's working. And number of application is more than we expected, three or four times. Tokyo is also set to introduce a four-day work week for government employees, designed to help working mothers and hopefully boost birth rates. When the bubble economy was boosting,

there was a commercial advertisement, work 24 hours. But the longer we work, the less children we have. So demography is one of the biggest national issues that we have to tackle. The Japanese government has rolled out a number of programs to address this declining birth rate. Are any of them working?

The total fertility rate for 2024 was reported to hit an all-time low. The continuing slide in the birth rate clearly indicates our current policy isn't working at all. Until last year, Hanako Okada, now 44, was a lawyer in Tokyo and primary caregiver for her two children. Overworked and underfulfilled, she ran for parliament on a platform of trying to alter the culture for women, even breaking down in tears on the campaign trail describing her stress. I remembered how tough it was to raise my child, and I burst into tears. It was overwhelming. And viewers probably thought, I'm a politician who gets what ordinary people have to deal with.

It was effective. She won unexpectedly. And Hanasan, as she's called, is now something of a political change agent. She says confronting the population problem requires not dating apps and shortened work weeks, but a sweeping mindset change. In particular, a rethinking of living in urban areas, as 92% of Japanese currently do. She practiced what she preaches, moving back to her rural hometown of Aomori, a northern prefecture known for its apple orchards,

but one that is rapidly aging, rapidly losing people. Built for 600 students, this Aomori middle school is now only one-third filled. They still learn the traditional shamisen. But there are too few kids to field a soccer team, and a competitive snowball fight means recruiting a visiting ringer. Why'd you return? Aomori is my hometown.

The precipitous drop in population and vitality of this city is deeply troubling, not just personally, but from a national perspective. If our regions collapse, it imperils our country's strength. I thought, we can't allow the situation to go on. You've seen the math, I'm sure. Do you believe Japan can overcome this population crisis? We need to stop the over-concentration of people in Tokyo. In the rural areas, we need interesting jobs with decent pay that allow young people to support themselves.

Her thinking? Once there are more jobs in rural areas, the younger people will come. Once they come and experience the space, the slower rhythms, the quality of life, they'll be motivated to start families. The values of our younger generation are gradually shifting. Tokyo is no longer the be-all and end-all. One such Japanese family that agrees, the Kato's. They recently exchanged city life for this spacious house in Ichinono, land of puppets. Their son Kornosuke was the first baby born in the village in

more than 20 years. We've got a mountain and a river to explore. We make our own toys and grow our own vegetables. For a kid, there's plenty of ways to have fun here. You're happy here? Yes. I truly enjoy this lifestyle. The Kato's hope others will follow, that Kornosuke will have friends and classmates among all the town's dolls. It takes us back to our roots.

I want Japanese people to become more aware of this lifestyle, which is closer to our roots. I want Japanese people to become more aware of this lifestyle, which is closer to our traditional way of living. It might be a traditional Japanese lifestyle, but amid a population decline, it will be in a smaller, lonelier, and fundamentally different Japan. The Last Minute of 60 Minutes. In tonight's last minute, a note on Bill Owens, who until this past week was executive producer of 60 Minutes. He was our boss. Bill was with CBS News nearly 40 years, 26 years at 60 Minutes.

He covered the world, covered combat, the White House. His was a quest to open minds, not close them. If you've ever worked hard for a boss because you admired him, then you understand what we've enjoyed here. Bill resigned Tuesday. It was hard on him and hard on us, but he did it for us and you. Stories we pursued for 57 years are often controversial. Lately, the Israel-Gaza war and the Trump administration. Bill made sure they were accurate and fair. He was tough that way. But our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger. The Trump administration must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways. None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest

journalism requires. No one here is happy about it, but in resigning, Bill proved one thing. He was the right person to lead 60 Minutes all along. I'm Scott Pelley. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.