President Obama will visit the site of the Twin Towers Thursday for the first time as president, just days after a U.S. military operation killed al Qaeda leader—and 9/11 mastermind—Osama bin Laden. Obama will visit with families of the victims of the terrorist attack, White House officials said. Since bin Laden’s death Sunday, crowds have gathered to celebrate. Obama last visited ground zero during the 2008 campaign, and since then has drawn criticism from some families of victims due to his support of the "ground zero mosque," an Islamic cultural center located a few blocks away. Obama has marked the 9/11 anniversaries in Washington since taking office.

A U.S. official said Monday that the “mother lode of intelligence” had been seized during Sunday’s raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound. Navy SEALs grabbed personal computers, thumb drives, and electronic equipment during the raid that killed the al Qaeda leader. The official said “hundreds of people” are exploring the data, and intelligence operatives in Washington are excited to find out what is there. “It is going to be great, even if only 10 percent is actionable,” the official said. Other details emerged about Sunday’s raid, including how team reported the capture with the pre-arranged signal “ Geronimo!”

Is it necessary to show the public photos of Osama bin Laden's dead body, or is it morbid? The White House is debating whether or not to release photos of the al Qaeda leader's corpse. The photos would be released to allay public anxiety and squash conspiracy theories that the terrorist is not dead. "There's no doubt it's him," said a U.S. official who has allegedly seen the pictures. But the other side of the debate is that the photos are grisly and graphic, displaying a gaping hole above his left eye where brains and blood can be seen. In 2003, the U.S. government released pictures of Saddam Hussein's dead sons Uday and Qusay Hussein, but only after their bodies had been worked on by a mortician.

Syrian forces have arrested an estimated 2,434 people in the crackdowns on protesters in towns from the besieged coastal city of Daraa to the outskirts of the capital, Damascus, and security forces say there are another 5,000 missing. “They’ve arrested people left and right, random arrests… Anyone between the ages of 18 and 45 they could put their hands on was arrested,” said Daraa resident Ayham al-Zoghbi. On Monday, Syrian police arrested leading activist Dina Jawabra in her hometown of Daraa—with witnesses saying she resisted arrest and eventually was forced into a car at gunpoint. Since Syrian tanks stormed Daraa in late April, electricity and phone lines have been cut and residents have been afraid to leave due to fear of sniper attacks.

Does it count as a farewell speech if no one comes out to see it? Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada apologized Monday for having an extramarital affair with a former aide to an almost empty Senate chamber. Ensign announced last month he would be resigning effective May 3, making Monday his last day in the Senate. Ensign confessed to having the affair with Cynthia Hampton in June 2009, a former member of his campaign staff, and during the scandal, his parents reportedly provided Hampton with $96,000 “gift” and helped Hampton’s husband find a lobbying job. The Senate has since opened an investigation into his actions. Ensign said Monday he hoped he would be remembered by his legislative career rather than the scandal. Only Ensign’s family, friends, and staffers turned out for the speech, with one being spotted wiping tears, although Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware was seen writing remarks on a separate matter during the speech.

In the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death at the hands of U.S. forces, a triumphant Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a warning on Monday to terrorist groups throughout the world, in particular the Taliban in Afghanistan and al Qaeda. “You cannot wait us out, you cannot defeat us, but you can make the choice to abandon al Qaeda and participate in a peaceful political process," Clinton said at the State Department. She added, “This is America… we persevere, and we get the job done.” Clinton also said that the U.S. must capitalize on the death of the most wanted terrorist in the world to “renew our resolve and redouble our efforts” in the war on terror because “the battle to stop al Qaeda and its syndicate of terror will not end with the death of bin Laden.” Clinton also noted that the timing of bin Laden’s death coincides with an interesting time in the Middle East, as democracy movements spread like wildfire across the region. “At a time when the people across the Middle East and North Africa are rejecting the extremist narratives and charting a path of peaceful progress, based on universal rights and aspirations, there is no better rebuke to al Qaeda and its heinous ideology."

The killing of the world’s most-wanted terrorist, 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, ignited celebrations all over the world. For the wife of Gary Weddle, a 50-year-old teacher from East Wenatchee, Washington, it meant her husband would finally shave his beard. Weddle vowed nearly 10 years ago to not shave until bin Laden was either captured or proven dead. Initially, he neglected to shave because he was caught up in the tragic news, and then, he made his pledge. “I wanted him to get rid of it, but it was his vow,” Weddle's wife Donita told The Daily Astorian. “I was willing to look past the beard because I love him.” As soon as the Weddles heard the news, Gary found scissors and a razor, and, in front of friends and neighbors, cut the beard and was shaving his stubble even before President Obama addressed the nation about bin Laden’s death. “He looks 10 years younger,” said Donita. “It’s a very happy moment for us.”

Researchers said Monday that Chicago Bears star Dave Duerson had developed a disease from brain trauma that has been found in more than 20 deceased former football players. Duerson died via a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Feb. 17. Many people believe that his deteriorating mental state came from brain trauma from his time in the NFL. Duerson shot himself in the chest, writing in his suicide note,  “Please see that my brain is given to the NFL’s brain bank.” His death rattled the football community. Despite recent advances by the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University and other research institutes, the brain trauma incurred by football players remains irreversible.

Not everyone can take the high road: Rush Limbaugh mocked President Obama in his radio show Monday, saying Obama had nearly botched the Osama bin Laden’s capture and only initiated the mission as a re-election ploy. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we need to open this program today by congratulating President Obama,” Limbaugh said at the beginning of his show. “President Obama has done something extremely effective, and when he does, this needs to be pointed out.” Limbaugh also said Obama made the entire rescue mission about himself and said the president wouldn’t let the military use traditional bombing—thus nearly causing the capture not to happen. Further, Limbaugh said, if Obama “were a shoo-in for re-election, Osama bin Laden would be alive today.” Despite the sarcastic tone, many thought Limbaugh was serious at first.

Talk about timely. In recent weeks, The Hurt Locker’s Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow has been casting an independent film with the working title Kill bin Laden, about the hunt for the 9/11 mastermind and al Qaeda terrorist leader. For the film—centering on an earlier unsuccessful mission to kill bin Laden as he hid in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan—Bigelow is collaborating with The Hurt Locker’s journalist-cum-screenwriter Mark Boal. Deadline reports that Megan Ellison, daughter of Oracle Chief Larry Ellison, is ready to fund the film, and Bigelow and Boal have approached Joel Edgerton ( Animal Kingdom) to star. Meanwhile, Paramount Pictures optioned Jawbreaker back in 2006—a book by U.S. intelligence operative Gary Berntsen about the unsuccessful December 2001 U.S.-led military mission to kill bin Laden. The project had stalled, with Oliver Stone at one point interested.

Bin Laden's Pakistani protectors may have known of his whereabouts, argues The New Yorker's Steve Coll, saying evidence suggests he was being kept under state control. Abbottabad is a military shelter in Pakistan, an area that has been owned and controlled by the Pakistan army, and a city known for housing the Pakistan Military Academy—their equivalent to West Point. It is hard to believe that bin Laden's palatial hideout could have been built and occupied by the al Qaeda leader for six years without army men noticing. Coll argues that Pakistan will deny this, and that there is not enough conclusive evidence to prove the case. But obvious questions beg to be answered: Who owned the land on which bin Laden's compound was built? Who installed its incredibly sophisticated security systems? Who else lived there and are there witnesses who could testify about possible visitors plotting other terrorist attacks that have taken place since 9/11? But given that the U.S. needs to cooperate with Pakistan and its neighbors on matters such as nuclear warfare and withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, it's not likely that the Justice Department will push for an investigation.

Osama bin Laden was a big name in terrorism and al Qaeda's well-known leader, but few know of his equally powerful right hand man, the terrorist network's Egyptian deputy Ayman Al-Zawahri. While it's too early to tell exactly how al Qaeda would handle a transition of power, terror specialists believe al-Zawahri would be his likely successor. Al-Zawahri became a Jihadist activist when he was just a teenager and later went to Afghanistan as a doctor to treat Islamists fighting off Soviet forces. Bin Laden and al-Zawahri met in the late 1980s, when al-Zawahri reportedly tended to bin Laden's battle wounds in the caves of Afghanistan. The jihadist doctor immediately befriended the jihadist Saudi millionaire, and their bond was the foundation for the al Qaeda terror network. When the U.S. pushed al Qaeda out of Afghanistan in 2001 following the September 11 attacks, al-Zawahri played a crucial role in keeping the terror network together. In a 2001 treatise, al-Zawahri pronounced a long-term strategy for the jihadi movement—to inflict "as many casualties as possible" on the Americans.

Maybe those Facebook investors looking to dump their shares don’t know what they’re doing? The Wall Street Journal says that Facebook’s earnings are growing quickly enough to potentially justify a $100 billion IPO—double the $50 billion valuation that was estimated when Goldman Sachs invested in the social network earlier this year. The new figure, if realized, would make Facebook larger than both Amazon and Cisco; it is based on the $2 billion the company is on track to earn in 2011. Facebook, however, has not announced plans to go public.

U.S. officials have confirmed that they have identified Osama bin Laden's body in Afghanistan with DNA tests, and reports say that they got the match from a grisly source: his dead sister’s brain. When bin Laden’s sister died from brain cancer a few years back in Boston, the FBI immediately put a warrant claim on her body so that it could later be used to identify the al Qaeda leader were he ever captured. ABC News reported that her brain was preserved and that both tissue and blood samples were taken from it to compile a DNA profile. In addition to the DNA samples, a national security official told CNN there were many confirmations of bin Laden's identity, including "facial recognition work."

Matt Lauer, meet your new co-host: NBC is expected to announce on Monday that Ann Curry will replace Meredith Vieira on Today. Curry, currently the show’s news anchor, will likely take over in June; Natalie Morales, who hosts the 9 a.m. hour of Today, will then replace Curry as news anchor. NBC is making the decision, in part, because it is the one expected from the audience. Today is the most profitable news program on television, bringing in $200 million a year in profit according to one executive’s estimate.

In a briefing on Monday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that the United States’ anti-terrorist specialists and networks are doing everything they can to step up security measures on American soil and abroad, girding against a potential backlash. Speaking on behalf of the president, Carney reiterated how important it was for America to foster its “strategic relationship” with Pakistan. He added that Pakistan officials were grateful that the raid on bin Laden’s home was accomplished without any Pakistani casualties outside of the compound. He also said that though the two countries do not always see eye-to-eye, it’s important that the U.S. continue “a dialogue with our Pakistani colleagues, who are as much if not more on the frontlines of the war against terrorism [as us].” As for Obama’s reaction to the momentous news, it was simple: “We got him.”

Speaking to 60 Minutes on Sunday night, CBS News reporter Lara Logan gave the most detailed account yet of the sexual assault she suffered in February while covering the protests in Egypt’s Tahrir Square. She says she was stripped of her clothing by a mob after she was separated from her team. "I didn't even know that they were beating me with flagpoles and sticks and things because the sexual assault was all I could feel, their hands raping me over and over and over again,” she said. “They were trying to tear off chunks of my scalp . . . not trying to pull out my hair, holding big wads of it literally trying to tear my scalp off my skull." She adds, "I was in no doubt in my mind that I was in the process of dying.” She was rescued by Egyptian women. When CBS News Producer Max McClellan discovered Logan, he thought her legs were broken. "It was like she had been through some sort of grinder," he said.

It turns out that the attack on Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad was live-tweeted by a Pakistani man—although he didn’t realize the significance of the events he witnessed. Sohaib Athar, an IT consultant, tweeted at 1 a.m. local time Sunday that a helicopter was overhead, a “rare event” for the location. “Go away helicopter – before I take out my giant swatter :-/” he tweeted; then, “A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S”. Soon, he began piecing things together: “the few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani…”; “Since taliban (probably) don’t have helicpoters, and since they’re saying it was not ‘ours’, so must be a complicated situation#abbottabad.” After concluding that the helicopter noise and President Obama’s address “are connected,” Athar was annoyed: “I guess Abbottabad is going to get as crowded as the Lahore that I left behind for some peace and quiet. *sigh*”. And after discovering he had thousands of new followers, he wrote, “Uh oh, now I’m the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it.”

Now on to the Royal Honeymoon: The Daily Mail says Prince William and Catherine will honeymoon in mid-May on an “exclusive island in the Indian Ocean,” although the paper says it has opted to not publish the island’s name. The paper says the island is in almost “complete isolation,” with only a handful of luxury villas, each of which has its own butler. After the honeymoon, however, the couple could face an extended separation, as William will report to the Falkland Islands for 10 weeks of helicopter training.

Osama bin Laden has been buried at sea after the U.S. figured no country would be willing to accept his remains. His corpse was handled in "accordance with Islamic practice," a White House official tells Politico, which includes burial within 24 hours of death. He died from two bullet wounds to the head after a firefight early Sunday in a mansion compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan where he had been hiding. Navy SEALs raided the complex, killing bin Laden, one of his sons, two couriers, and one woman whom an al Qaeda member used as a human shield.

Quentin Tarantino has handed in a final draft of his next film, Django Unchained, to Weinstein Co. The film’s title references both Sergio Corbucci’s original Django and Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django, which, not coincidentally, features a cameo from Tarantino. It will also feature Christoph Waltz, the Austrian actor who broke through in Tarantion’s last film, Inglourious Basterds. He’ll play the partner of Django, a former slave who sets out to save his wife from a plantation owner.

President Bush broke his post-presidency silence in Texas to hail the death of Osama Bin Laden as a “momentous achievement.” “This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001," Bush said in a statement. "The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done." President Obama called President Bush at 9:04 p.m., before the official announcement of Bin Laden’s death, to tell him of the news. The two spoke for four minutes. Bin Laden’s May 1 death comes exactly seven years after Bush’s “Mission Accomplished speech” (and, coincidentally, on the same day as the announcement of Hilter’s death.)

Osama bin Laden was not hiding in a cave, as was popularly imagined, but a mansion just two hours from Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. How did we find him there? After the September 11 attacks, the U.S. began gathering intelligence on bin Laden’s couriers. Six years later, in 2007, the U.S. learned the name of one man of particular interest; when they found his base of operations in Abbottabad in August 2010, “we were shocked,” one security official tells MSNBC. It was a mansion roughly eight times larger than any other home in the area, surrounded by 12 foot by 18 foot walls, no Internet or telephone service, and no windows facing the road. Residents there burned their trash. It was “custom built to hide someone of significance,” and intelligence soon revealed that, in addition to the courier and his brother, a third family was living there that matched the profile of bin Laden’s family. This conclusion was reached in February, and President Obama held five meetings in March to plan for the operation before giving the order on Friday.

As predicted, not everyone is rejoicing in Osama bin Laden's death. The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas condemned his killing by U.S. forces and hailed bin Laden as an "Arab holy warrior." The Palestinian Authority was not of the same opinion, saying that the death of al Qaeda's leader was "good for the cause of peace." Hamas has clashed with new Islamist groups in the Gaza Strip, thinking them too moderate and has thus turned to extremists like bin Laden for inspiration. Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, told reporters that his people viewed the killing of bin Laden as "a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood."

After Donald Trump was skewered by President Obama and Saturday Night Live head writer Seth Meyers at the White House Correspondents' Dinner Saturday night, the real-estate mogul and host of NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice is now on the offensive, first calling Meyers a “stutterer,” and now firing back at late night talk-show host David Letterman for saying Trump’s prolonged attacks on Obama have begun to “smack of racism.” In a letter to the host of CBS’ Late Show with David Letterman, Trump wrote, "I was disappointed to hear the statements you made about me last night on your show that I was a 'racist.’ In actuality, nothing could be further from the truth and there is nobody who is less of a racist than Donald Trump.” The Donald added, “Based upon your statements, and despite the fact that we have always done so well together, especially in your ratings, I am canceling my May 18th appearance on your show. Additionally, please inform your staff that I will likewise not do the 'Top Ten' list that they had been trying to set up.”

New details are emerging on the brazen U.S. mission that took down Osama bin Laden. A team of Navy SEALS was flown from Afghanistan for the mission. The day of the mission, MH-60 helicopters took off from Ghazi Air Base in Pakistan to Abbottabad about 30 miles from the center of Islamabad. It is not clear how the helicopters evaded the Pakistani air-defense network. The CIA knew by February of this year that Osama bin Laden was living at the compound in Pakistan. To prepare for the mission, a replica of the compound was built in order for the team to carry out practice raids, which were performed in early April. Once the raid began, it lasted about 40 minutes and in the end 22 people were killed or captured. During the gunfight, bin Laden was killed by two shots to the left side of his face. His body was placed aboard one of the choppers with the returning soldiers.

Next up: The Washington Post is reporting that the soldiers who killed Osama bin Laden also discovered intelligence materials that might reveal the location of Ayman al-Zawahri, al Qaeda’s Egyptian deputy and bin Laden’s most likely successor. “That’s where we’re going next,” one U.S. official involved in planning the operation told The Washington Post.