Contributing Writers

Bob Hennelly, general manager of WBAI Pacifica Radio in New York, broadcast live during the September 11 attacks in 2001 and has been covering developments ever since. He says officials rushed to reopen the city after the disaster, despite the health risks from toxic air and debris around ground zero. “There was no Zoom back then,” Hennelly says. “People were ordered back to their desks in Lower Manhattan, which turned out to be a death sentence.

We speak with Sara Nelson, the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, about how flight attendants were affected by the 9/11 attacks. Nelson was working in Chicago that day, but she lost five of her friends, who were fellow flight attendants, in the attacks. “My handbook is in the 9/11 Memorial Museum, that gave us the exact wrong training for that day. We were told to keep everyone calm, appease the hijackers.

The attacks on September 11, 2001, unleashed a wave of Islamophobia in the United States that resulted in widespread harassment and persecution of Muslim Americans. In addition to vigilante attacks targeting Muslims or those perceived to be Muslim, there was also state repression including police roundups, community surveillance, prosecutions on often flimsy terrorism charges and mass deportations.

Ahead of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has unsealed more than 170,000 pages of records that offer new insights into how the city responded to the disaster. Some of the papers indicate that officials lied about the hazardous toxins that burned and remained near ground zero for months afterward, even as the government assured New Yorkers the air was safe to breathe and rushed to reopen Lower Manhattan for business.

Bob Hennelly, general manager of WBAI Pacifica Radio in New York, broadcast live during the September 11 attacks in 2001 and has been covering developments ever since. He says officials rushed to reopen the city after the disaster, despite the health risks from toxic air and debris around ground zero. “There was no Zoom back then,” Hennelly says. “People were ordered back to their desks in Lower Manhattan, which turned out to be a death sentence.

We speak with Sara Nelson, the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, about how flight attendants were affected by the 9/11 attacks. Nelson was working in Chicago that day, but she lost five of her friends, who were fellow flight attendants, in the attacks. “My handbook is in the 9/11 Memorial Museum, that gave us the exact wrong training for that day. We were told to keep everyone calm, appease the hijackers.

Twenty-five years after the 9/11 attacks, many New York City residents are still grappling with complicated health conditions related to exposure to the toxic air and debris around ground zero.
“We were digging through the pile and using rakes to spread out all the debris to look for anyone’s remains,” says retired New York City firefighter Brenda Berkman.

Twenty-five years after September 11, 2001, more people are believed to have died from cancer, respiratory and other illnesses due to exposure to the airborne toxins than the nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center.

A new documentary titled Top of the World tells the story of Windows on the World, the legendary restaurant atop the World Trade Center, through the eyes of its former employees. Windows on the World served guests for 25 years, until the morning of September 11, 2001, when it was destroyed in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Seventy-nine workers and 91 diners were killed.

We go to Danbury, Connecticut, where residents held a mass demonstration this week to protest recent immigration arrests and to support the city’s immigrant community. Danbury, like many other communities across the United States, has been the target of a spike in immigration enforcement under the Trump administration, including local reports of ICE arresting parents at school bus stops.

Tyson Foods, the United States’ largest meatpacking and processing company, shuttered a beef processing facility in Joslin, Illinois, last month, laying off more than 2,500 primarily immigrant workers “virtually overnight.” Although Tyson Foods CEO and President Donnie King made over $34 million last year, nearly 800 times more than the median Tyson worker, the company cites a historic 75-year low in the U.S. cattle herd as a primary reason for the closure.

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration violated the constitutional rights of international students in seeking to deport them for their pro-Palestinian activism and criticism of Israel.

A special broadcast: Highlights from Democracy Now!’s 30th anniversary celebration at the historic Riverside Church, featuring Angela Davis, Patti Smith, Mosab Abu Toha, Michael Stipe, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Amy Goodman, Juan González, Nermeen Shaikh and a surprise appearance by Bruce Springsteen.

A new documentary titled Top of the World tells the story of Windows on the World, the legendary restaurant atop the World Trade Center, through the eyes of its former employees. Windows on the World served guests for 25 years, until the morning of September 11, 2001, when it was destroyed in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Seventy-nine workers and 91 diners were killed.

We go to Danbury, Connecticut, where residents held a mass demonstration this week to protest recent immigration arrests and to support the city’s immigrant community. Danbury, like many other communities across the United States, has been the target of a spike in immigration enforcement under the Trump administration, including local reports of ICE arresting parents at school bus stops.

Tyson Foods, the United States’ largest meatpacking and processing company, shuttered a beef processing facility in Joslin, Illinois, last month, laying off more than 2,500 primarily immigrant workers “virtually overnight.” Although Tyson Foods CEO and President Donnie King made over $34 million last year, nearly 800 times more than the median Tyson worker, the company cites a historic 75-year low in the U.S. cattle herd as a primary reason for the closure.

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration violated the constitutional rights of international students in seeking to deport them for their pro-Palestinian activism and criticism of Israel.

A new documentary titled Top of the World tells the story of Windows on the World, the legendary restaurant atop the World Trade Center, through the eyes of its former employees. Windows on the World served guests for 25 years, until the morning of September 11, 2001, when it was destroyed in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Seventy-nine workers and 91 diners were killed.

We go to Danbury, Connecticut, where residents held a mass demonstration this week to protest recent immigration arrests and to support the city’s immigrant community. Danbury, like many other communities across the United States, has been the target of a spike in immigration enforcement under the Trump administration, including local reports of ICE arresting parents at school bus stops.

Tyson Foods, the United States’ largest meatpacking and processing company, shuttered a beef processing facility in Joslin, Illinois, last month, laying off more than 2,500 primarily immigrant workers “virtually overnight.” Although Tyson Foods CEO and President Donnie King made over $34 million last year, nearly 800 times more than the median Tyson worker, the company cites a historic 75-year low in the U.S. cattle herd as a primary reason for the closure.

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration violated the constitutional rights of international students in seeking to deport them for their pro-Palestinian activism and criticism of Israel.

A new documentary titled Top of the World tells the story of Windows on the World, the legendary restaurant atop the World Trade Center, through the eyes of its former employees. Windows on the World served guests for 25 years, until the morning of September 11, 2001, when it was destroyed in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Seventy-nine workers and 91 diners were killed.

We go to Danbury, Connecticut, where residents held a mass demonstration this week to protest recent immigration arrests and to support the city’s immigrant community. Danbury, like many other communities across the United States, has been the target of a spike in immigration enforcement under the Trump administration, including local reports of ICE arresting parents at school bus stops.

Tyson Foods, the United States’ largest meatpacking and processing company, shuttered a beef processing facility in Joslin, Illinois, last month, laying off more than 2,500 primarily immigrant workers “virtually overnight.” Although Tyson Foods CEO and President Donnie King made over $34 million last year, nearly 800 times more than the median Tyson worker, the company cites a historic 75-year low in the U.S. cattle herd as a primary reason for the closure.

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration violated the constitutional rights of international students in seeking to deport them for their pro-Palestinian activism and criticism of Israel.

As part of our ongoing series on artificial intelligence, we speak with researcher Shreya Johri, who says AI has the power to revolutionize the field of medicine, particularly in diagnosing patients. Johri is a postdoctoral fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and completed her Ph.D. at Harvard Medical School in 2025. She discusses ways that new technology is improving patient care, but she says AI must be treated like an additional tool and not be given control over patient care.

Ahead of the November midterm elections, Republican officials in the third most populous county of Texas have voted to slash the number of polling sites by nearly one-third. Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth, will have just 224 polling sites for 1.3 million voters. The change was approved in a party-line vote Tuesday, with all three of the county’s Republican commissioners voting in favor and the two Democrats opposing it.

An anonymous federal whistleblower has warned that the Trump administration’s new system for handling mail ballots through the U.S. Postal Service is untested, fatally flawed and likely to lead to a “catastrophic failure” if it’s implemented ahead of November’s midterm elections. This follows President Trump’s executive order in March directing his administration to create federal lists of citizens and to refuse delivery of mail-in ballots to people not on those lists.

Feminist icon Gloria Steinem has died at the age of 92. According to her Instagram page, she died Wednesday “at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her.” Steinem was a tireless advocate for the social, economic and political advancement of women. Steinem co-founded Ms. magazine, the first major publication to be owned, run and written by women.