Five Sunday Morning stories worth lingering over this week
It’s CBS News Sunday Morning with Jane Pauley time — and this round of INYIM picks is exactly why the show remains one of television’s great little escape hatches. We pulled five stories built to fuel the brain, the imagination and a little casual-whimsy Sunday wandering.
This week’s INYIM five zigzag through Philadelphia and beyond: the overlooked art of picture frames, the fearless architecture of Frank Furness, the nationwide pushback against AI data centers, the Gilded Age grandeur of Ardrossan, and the twisty history of one of Philly’s most essential foods — the soft pretzel.
Discover More
Sunday Morning, The INYIM Way
Keep wandering after the five. CBS has more Sunday Morning stories waiting, while our Philly-inspired picks below make for an easy little rabbit hole of their own.
Some links may be affiliate links. INYIM may earn from qualifying purchases.
1. “Framed” Puts the Art Around the Art in Focus
We’ll admit it: picture frames are exactly the kind of thing we can stare at for far too long once somebody tells us what we should be looking for.
A Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition put the spotlight on a rarely appreciated component of art: the frames bordering the work. Faith Salie explores the history of framing and talks with curator Tara Contractor and frame conservator Chris Ferguson about a craft that can be every bit as intricate as what sits inside it.
It’s a delicious reminder that sometimes the supposedly supporting player has been quietly doing half the visual work all along.
2. Frank Furness Built Philadelphia Like He Had Something to Prove
Philadelphia architect Frank Furness, a former Army captain during the Civil War, translated a certain fearlessness into designs that refused to behave politely. Over the course of his career, Furness designed roughly 1,000 buildings, developing a muscular visual language of oversized arches, asymmetrical facades and eccentric decoration.
Sunday Morning national correspondent Robert Costa tours Furness’ Philadelphia with architectural historian and Wall Street Journal critic Michael J. Lewis, examining why a once-dismissed architect has steadily earned a serious reappraisal.
For anyone who has ever looked at a beautiful old building and wondered why nobody makes them quite like that anymore, this one hits the spot.
3. The AI Data Center Boom Is Meeting Real Resistance
This is where the Sunday wander gets considerably more serious. To fuel the extraordinary computing demands of artificial intelligence, technology companies are building enormous numbers of data centers across the United States — and communities asked to host them are increasingly asking what they get in return.
Robert Costa examines the construction drive and the growing debate around land, water, electricity, local utility costs and the character of communities confronting proposed developments. CBS reported more than 4,000 data centers operating across the country when the segment aired in April 2026.
It’s the kind of story that cuts straight through the glossy “AI is the future” shorthand and asks the less glamorous question: what does all that computing power physically require, and who lives next door to it?
4. Ardrossan Is a Main Line Time Capsule of Grandeur
Then Jane Pauley takes us somewhere we would very happily lose an afternoon: Ardrossan, the sprawling Georgian-style estate on Philadelphia’s storied Main Line.
The roughly 750-acre property is a surviving example of Gilded Age-inspired opulence, a place where architecture, family history, landscape and a very particular slice of American aristocratic life remain unusually tangible.
It’s history, design and real-estate nosiness all at once — an extremely respectable way to spend a few Sunday minutes.
5. Soft Pretzels Remain One of Philadelphia’s Essential Foods
Finally, food — because no proper Sunday Morning wander should end without something we suddenly want to eat.
The twisty, chewy, salty soft pretzel is deeply tied to Philadelphia, and Center City Soft Pretzel Co. turns out tens of thousands of them in a week. Correspondent Susan Spencer checks out the city tradition, its production and the enduring allure of a food that does not need to be complicated to be perfect.
Watch CBS Sunday Morning Explore Philadelphia’s Soft Pretzel Tradition
Susan Spencer visits Center City Soft Pretzel Co. in the CBS Sunday Morning segment “Soft pretzels, an essential Philly food,” published May 17, 2026.
Source: CBS News Sunday Morning.
