Saying “the time is right to seek a new challenge,” Joe Daniels announced on Wednesday that he is stepping down as president and CEO of the September 11 Memorial and Museum. Daniels, 43, has held the position since 2006. In his letter to the Memorial board, Daniels said he would remain on the job “to ensure a smooth transition,” which he said he hoped would be completed by the end of the year. More.

President Barack Obama is again facing dissent from within his administration – this time from Attorney General Loretta Lynch - over his plans to shutter the Guantanamo Bay military prison, according to senior administration officials. Lynch, a former federal prosecutor whom Obama appointed to head the Justice Department two years ago, is opposing a White House-backed proposal that would allow Guantanamo Bay prisoners to plead guilty to terrorism charges in federal court by videoconference, the officials said.

A tribute center that's been hosting tours led by volunteers with personal ties to the Sept. 11 attacks is moving and expanding. "Our mission here is to give a voice to those who lost their voice," said co-founder Lee Ielpi, a retired firefighter who had carried his firefighter son's body out of the debris. "Here, it's firsthand knowledge, from the people who experienced it." More.

A new open space of shade trees and benches at One World Trade Center is expected to open next week overlooking the September 11 Memorial reflecting pools and leading to the doors of the new St. Nicholas Church. About 25 feet above the National September 11 Memorial Museum, the new Liberty Park will be home to “America’s Response,” a bronze sculpture depicting a modern Army Special Forces soldier on horseback. More.

Thousands of firefighters in their dress blues stood at attention and saluted Friday as a flag-draped casket passed carrying two tiny vials of blood, the only known remains of a comrade who died in the Sept. 11 attacks. For 15 years, the family of Fire Department of New York Battalion Chief Lawrence Stack was unable to put him to rest with a Roman Catholic funeral Mass because no trace of his body was found in the rubble of the World Trade Center. More.

Inside an opulent palace in Riyadh late one evening in February 2004, two American investigators interrogated a man they believed might hold answers to one of the lingering mysteries of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: What role, if any, did officials in Saudi Arabia’s government play in the plot? More.

A former Guantanamo Bay prisoner transferred to Uruguay in 2014 has vanished and is believed to have quietly slipped into neighboring Brazil, U.S. officials said. Law enforcement is now searching for the former detainee, Syrian national Jihad Ahmed Mustafa Dhiab, in Brazil. “We are coordinating with officials in Brazil and Uruguay to determine his whereabouts,” said one U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive incident.

The Department of Justice announced today that since it reopened in 2011, the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) has paid over $1.52 billion to first responders, recovery workers, and residents who suffered physical harm or were killed as a result of the terrorist-related aircraft crashes of Sept. 11, 2001 or the debris removal efforts that took place in the immediate aftermath of those crashes. More.