Contributing Writers

Yemen is at risk of spiraling back into all-out war as Houthi forces and Saudi Arabia exchange new strikes amid a fight over control of the key Bab el-Mandeb strait through which much of Saudi oil passes on its way to world markets. The Houthis, the Iran-allied force also known as Ansarallah, has seized Yemen’s entire Red Sea coastline from the Saudi-backed Yemeni government. The United Nations says the latest escalation has displaced 86,000 people in Yemen as the U.S.

Did Saudi Arabia play a role in the planning and execution of the September 11 attacks of 2001? That question was raised immediately after the attack, when 15 of the 19 hijackers were revealed to be Saudi citizens, and it has only grown louder in the 25 years since as more evidence emerged of the attackers’ connections to Saudi figures inside the United States.

A quarter-century after the September 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States, a group of victims’ families is continuing a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia to hold the kingdom accountable for any role it played in the planning and execution of the plot.

The film NAZA, which documents the Israeli military’s use of secret AI-powered systems to deliberately and systematically target and massacre civilians in Gaza, won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival Saturday. The film was directed by Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham and filmmaker Rachel Szor, both of whom won an Oscar for the documentary No Other Land in 2025 along with Palestinian co-directors Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal.

We look at how post-9/11 policies and the so-called war on terror reshaped the country and the world with two Columbia faculty members who convened a two-day symposium on “The Forever War and the First Amendment.” The symposium brought together journalists, scholars, lawyers and activists to explore the legacy of the “war on terror,” specifically focused on the impact on democratic rights, including the freedoms of speech and the press.

Friday marks 25 years since the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Around 3,000 people were killed that day, and nearly 10,000 more have died in the years since from 9/11-related illnesses connected to the collapse of the twin towers.
In 2001, Democracy Now! was a radio show broadcasting from the attic of Downtown Community Television in Chinatown, just blocks away from ground zero.

As part of our weeklong coverage marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks and the launch of the United States’ so-called war on terror, we take a look at the human, financial and environmental costs of U.S. military intervention around the world with Neta Crawford, co-founder of Brown University’s Costs of War Project. Researchers at the Costs of War Project estimate that nearly a million people have been killed as a direct result of U.S.

“The ‘war on terror’ was always a construct to be waged, never quite to be ended.” We discuss the origins and impacts of the global “war on terror,” launched by the U.S. government in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., with Spencer Ackerman, author of Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump.

We look at how post-9/11 policies and the so-called war on terror reshaped the country and the world with two Columbia faculty members who convened a two-day symposium on “The Forever War and the First Amendment.” The symposium brought together journalists, scholars, lawyers and activists to explore the legacy of the “war on terror,” specifically focused on the impact on democratic rights, including the freedoms of speech and the press.

Friday marks 25 years since the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Around 3,000 people were killed that day, and nearly 10,000 more have died in the years since from 9/11-related illnesses connected to the collapse of the twin towers.
In 2001, Democracy Now! was a radio show broadcasting from the attic of Downtown Community Television in Chinatown, just blocks away from ground zero.

As part of our weeklong coverage marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks and the launch of the United States’ so-called war on terror, we take a look at the human, financial and environmental costs of U.S. military intervention around the world with Neta Crawford, co-founder of Brown University’s Costs of War Project. Researchers at the Costs of War Project estimate that nearly a million people have been killed as a direct result of U.S.

“The ‘war on terror’ was always a construct to be waged, never quite to be ended.” We discuss the origins and impacts of the global “war on terror,” launched by the U.S. government in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., with Spencer Ackerman, author of Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump.

As part of our weeklong coverage marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks and the launch of the United States’ so-called war on terror, we take a look at the human, financial and environmental costs of U.S. military intervention around the world with Neta Crawford, co-founder of Brown University’s Costs of War Project. Researchers at the Costs of War Project estimate that nearly a million people have been killed as a direct result of U.S.

“The ‘war on terror’ was always a construct to be waged, never quite to be ended.” We discuss the origins and impacts of the global “war on terror,” launched by the U.S. government in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., with Spencer Ackerman, author of Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump.

We look at how post-9/11 policies and the so-called war on terror reshaped the country and the world with two Columbia faculty members who convened a two-day symposium on “The Forever War and the First Amendment.” The symposium brought together journalists, scholars, lawyers and activists to explore the legacy of the “war on terror,” specifically focused on the impact on democratic rights, including the freedoms of speech and the press.

Friday marks 25 years since the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Around 3,000 people were killed that day, and nearly 10,000 more have died in the years since from 9/11-related illnesses connected to the collapse of the twin towers.
In 2001, Democracy Now! was a radio show broadcasting from the attic of Downtown Community Television in Chinatown, just blocks away from ground zero.

As part of our weeklong coverage marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks and the launch of the United States’ so-called war on terror, we take a look at the human, financial and environmental costs of U.S. military intervention around the world with Neta Crawford, co-founder of Brown University’s Costs of War Project. Researchers at the Costs of War Project estimate that nearly a million people have been killed as a direct result of U.S.

“The ‘war on terror’ was always a construct to be waged, never quite to be ended.” We discuss the origins and impacts of the global “war on terror,” launched by the U.S. government in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., with Spencer Ackerman, author of Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump.

In the five years since the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan following the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, millions of Afghan refugees have been forced out of neighboring Iran and Pakistan, where they had been living and “dumped at the border” without immediate access to food, water or shelter.

Almost 25 years ago, just days after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, President George W. Bush addressed the nation, making the case for war against al-Qaeda, whose leader, Osama bin Laden, was based in Afghanistan. “I sensed that something like this was not going to go unpunished,” Afghan American New Yorker and women’s rights activist Masuda Sultan told Democracy Now! at the time. Within a few weeks, the U.S. invasion began.

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.