In the digital afterworld, you are your data. You fed the internet your photos, your emails, your videos, your posts and comments. Now someone is feeding you back.

We are not talking about old‑fashioned memoirs or home movies. We are talking about interactive replicas built out of whatever you left in the public record: a chatbot that answers like your mother, a hologram that jokes like your grandfather, a voice that sounds like your favorite deceased singer.

Happy Friday in New York City on the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, where, despite weeks of controversy, Mayor Mamdani did attend the commemoration ceremony this morning, along with a number of ex-presidents and other prominent elected officials. President Donald Trump attended a separate ceremony at the Pentagon.

This year, aside from marking a quarter-century since the attacks, is especially momentous to the survivors and first responders who were at the World Trade Center that day and in the months that followed. Organizers at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum added a seventh moment of silence to the annual ceremony in honor of those who have since died from illnesses linked to exposure to toxic dust and debris.

The addition comes just days after the Mamdani administration released 170,000 files of previously unavailable records showing that the city knew about the health risks associated with harmful air quality in the aftermath of the attacks — including airborne carcinogens like asbestos and silica, as well as microscopic concrete and glass particles — but misled the public about the dangers.

Over the past 25 years, more people have died from disease related to the attacks than died on the day itself. According to the CDC, an “estimated 400,000 people were exposed to toxic contaminants, risk of physical injury, and physically and emotionally stressful conditions in the days, weeks, and months following the attacks.”

Immediately following the attacks in 2001, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Governor George Pataki pushed to return to business as usual, reopening Lower Manhattan and urging workers to return. In 2002, when parts of Downtown Manhattan were still covered with debris, Mayor Michael Bloomberg repeatedly assured the public that air quality around Ground Zero was safe, despite strong evidence to the contrary.

“People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air," Mayor Mamdani said at a press conference. “And then, when they began to contend with the symptoms of the illnesses that followed, the government that had not hesitated to send them into harm’s way was nowhere to be found.”

Americans commemorated the 25th anniversary of 9/11 on Friday, remembering the shock, the dead and the sweeping consequences of the al-Qaida attacks on symbols of U.S. might and prosperity.

The milestone anniversary brought memorial rituals — wreath-laying, flag-flying, moments of silence, vigils and readings of victims’ names — and volunteer projects in tribute to a day that about half of U.S. adults remember as the most historic event of their lifetime, according to a new poll. On Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida extremists hijacked four commercial jets and crashed them into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Elsie Caldwell carried a photograph of her son Kenny Caldwell to the trade center to hear his name and all the others read aloud Friday morning. She last spoke to him that morning a quarter-century ago.

“Mom, I just want to let you know that I love you,” Caldwell said he told her in a final phone call. She is one of many relatives of victims whose remains never were recovered.

Read on to learn more.

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