Over 300,000 people have visited the Sept. 11 museum since it opened little more than a month ago, exceeding expectations, officials said this week. Organizers see it as a strong start for the ground zero museum, which had faced questions about its $24 ticket price. The attendance total has topped projections by about 5 percent since the institution opened to the public May 21 and to 9/11 survivors and victims' relatives six days earlier, President Joe Daniels said.

As the days following 9/11 turned into passing years, park rangers at the Flight 93 National Memorial began to face an unplanned challenge. Parents reliving the tragic day terrorists attacked the nation were approaching park staff, asking them to explain the sometimes dark, difficult subject matter in a way their young children would understand, park Superintendent Jeff Reinbold said. In most cases, the youngsters weren’t alive the day Flight 93 crashed, killing its 40 passengers, he said.

The Mercer Island Fire Department will this Thursday, June 26, receive artifacts from the September 11, 2001 bombing of the World Trade Center — a part of the floor and ceiling sections of one tower garage, and a post between the two that will eventually be incorporated into an art installation and placed in front of the newly remodeled Fire Station 92. A small ceremony will be held at 4 p.m. at the North Fire Station. More.

Advocates for 9/11 responders are calling on the state and its Workers' Compensation Board to vigorously track down World Trade Center volunteers who might have been wrongly denied benefits.

US Senators Richard Burr (R- NC), Ranking Member on the Veterans Affairs Committee, Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), a member of the Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Committees, introduced a resolution to recognize Veterans Day, November 11, 2014, as a special “Welcome Home” commemoration. More.

Ridgefield firefighter Lt. Rom Duckworth remembers first meeting fellow firefighter Christopher Blackwell at the beginning of his career in 1990. He remembers getting the call to go down to Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2001 and he remembers the gradual realization that his comrade, who worked for the Fire Department of New York, wasn’t coming back from the destruction. More.

A House Republican committee voted to extend a post 9/11 program that helps property owners in New York insure against terrorism — but Democrats say the measure is flawed and will raise insurance costs. Democrats on the House Financial Services all voted against the measure that would extend the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. More.

Three years ago, the first pieces of the grand plan were laid: Two vast, deep, black pools where the Twin Towers once stood. Now the fences around the eight-acre Memorial Plaza have come down and the 9/11 Museum has opened. More.