NEW YORK RELEASES 170,000 PAGES ON 9/11 TOXIC AIR COVER-UP

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani released more than 170,000 pages of internal documents on Tuesday showing what city officials knew about air toxicity around Ground Zero after the September 11 attacks. The release follows a legal agreement with 9/11 Health Watch, an advocacy group that had compelled the city to make the records public. Mayor Mamdani stated at a City Hall news conference that the documents reveal "what the city knew about the toxic air around Ground Zero, when they knew it, and how they acted to limit liability". The records were released ahead of the 25th anniversary of the 2001 attacks, which killed 2,977 people in the United States, predominantly in the Twin Towers collapse in New York.

The documents include what is described as the Harding Memo, which detailed strategies the city evaluated to limit its legal liability concerning toxic exposure and safety equipment. According to a federal medical monitoring programme, more than 9,400 people have died from illnesses linked to exposure to the area in the years since the attacks. Benjamin Chevat, director of 9/11 Health Watch, stated that "four different mayoral administrations kept from the public, the US Congress, and the City Council documents showing what the city actually knew about the danger of the toxic chemicals in Lower Manhattan and Western Brooklyn", whilst city officials continued to tell the public the air was "safe and acceptable".

The document release resolves the lawsuit brought by 9/11 Health Watch, with additional municipal records expected to be uploaded on a rolling basis. Activist and actor Jon Stewart, present at the news conference, said the disclosure made clear that city leadership knew of the contamination whilst the public was not informed. Mayor Mamdani stated that people became ill "because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air".