I was just over a year old on September 11, 2001. Far too young to have any memories of my own of the date, but my parents told me their stories several times. I was with my mother visiting my grandparents in Pennsylvania and my father was away on a golf trip in Ireland. When news crossed […]
25 Years Since September 11: Staff Stories: Anna Schumann, 15, Houston, Texas
On September 11, 2001, I was 15, a sophomore in high school, in Houston, Texas. I don’t remember the weather, though my guess is hot and humid. I don’t remember the bus ride to school or first-period geometry, though as a non-math person, I’m sure I thought then that that class would be the worst part of […]
How ‘The Brink of War’ Calls Us to Action
by Emma Sandifer In 1986, with the Cold War winding down and the Soviet Union on its last legs, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev met in a tiny house on the coast of Reykjavik, Iceland, to decide whether there would be peace or war in the world. The new movie, […]
Reflections On My Summer Internship: Lyle Seeligson
by Lyle Seeligson, Policy Intern, Summer 2026 My first conversation about nuclear weapons was with my mother. It was 2008; I had just turned ten years old. She explained that we were in a war in a place called Iraq. She told me how the war had been started because we thought Iraq had dangerous weapons. She said I shouldn’t worry, though — those weapons […]
Plutonium for Private Industry: A Proliferation Problem
By Lyle Seeligson The federal government will soon be handing over nuclear bomb material to private companies. In May, the Trump administration announced its intent to allow nuclear energy start-ups to use the Department of Energy’s excess plutonium pits — dangerous nuclear explosives collected from decommissioned Cold War-era warheads — to make nuclear fuel for […]
