03/15/2026: Choke Point, Laser Focus, Growing Up Behind Walls
60 Minutes
CBS News
3.8 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 16 March 2026
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Even in its weakened state after two weeks of war, Iran maintains its chokehold on one of the most important shipping channels in the world: the Strait of Hormuz. Correspondent Cecilia Vega reports on the unprecedented closure of the 21-mile-wide waterway, which has stranded roughly 700 cargo ships and oil tankers in the Persian Gulf - increasing gas prices to their highest level in years.
Iran has made extensive use of cheap drones in the war to menace the U.S. military and allies in the Persian Gulf. One emerging counter-drone solution is laser systems. Correspondent Lesley Stahl visits one Pentagon contractor developing such a system to explore how advanced lasers work and whether they are ready to be deployed.
Sixteen years after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the government has all but collapsed and gangs battle for control of the capital Port-au-Prince. Correspondent Anderson Cooper visits an orphanage in the besieged city where children have been sheltered from the violence for more than four years. Run by bestselling author Mitch Albom, the organization Have Faith Haiti takes in vulnerable children and, with an emphasis on education and faith, gives them a chance at an extraordinary future.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Your favorite true crime series, 48 Hours, is back for a new season, and so is the official |
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| 0:42.0 | This was the scene this past week in the Strait of Hormuz, |
| 0:47.3 | a narrow stretch of water where Iranian attacks on tankers and cargo ships have choked the flow of oil and threatened to hold the global economy hostage. |
| 0:55.9 | This is the mother of all choke points. |
| 0:58.6 | We could be looking at the highest gas prices |
| 1:00.4 | ever paid in this country. |
| 1:01.6 | If we don't open Hormuz to the free flow of traffic, yes. |
| 1:08.6 | They call it asymmetric warfare. Iranian attacks with cheap low-tech drones across the Persian |
| 1:16.2 | Gulf, while the U.S. tries to shoot them down with anti-missile interceptors that cost millions. |
| 1:26.5 | Could this weapon be the answer? |
| 1:28.3 | The cost per shot goes from $4 million a shot to less than $5 a shot. |
| 1:35.3 | It's rare you hear about something good happening in Haiti. |
| 1:41.3 | But tonight we want to take you to a small oasis where children may be growing up behind walls, but hope is very much alive. |
| 1:50.0 | Do you get greeted like that every time you come? |
| 1:52.0 | Pretty much. |
| 1:53.0 | Yeah. |
| 1:54.0 | It's an orphanage called Have Faith Haiti that's run by best-selling author Mitch Album and his wife, Janine. If you give them something |
| 2:02.0 | beautiful and calm, they'll aspire to those things. And that's what I think you see with our kids. |
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