Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe SEPT. 11 REPORT A joint congressional panel approved a report detailing its investigation into the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and Washington that killed almost 3,000. Advertisement The report -- which will be released in edited form Wednesday -- is expected to explain the failure of U.S. intelligence to detect the attack, United Press International reports. Details on the report -- which is expected to include recommendations on how to prevent future terrorist attacks -- were not released, but in a series of interviews, senators say the attacks appear to have been preventable. The panel held several hearings last fall that revealed a series of indications al Qaida was interested in using either planes or commercial airliners as weapons against ground targets. At the time of the hearings, lawmakers on the panel complained these indications seemed to have been ignored by both the CIA and the FBI in the years prior to the attacks. Advertisement -- Do you think the intelligence communities could have connected the dots and prevented the attacks? -- Do you think the intelligence communities can prevent possible future attacks? (Thanks to UPI's P. Mitchell Prothero) LOTT APOLOGIZES FOR THURMOND REMARKS Incoming Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., is apologizing for his comment that the nation would have benefited by electing segregationist presidential candidate -- U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., in 1948, UPI reports. "I want to say this about my state: when Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either," Lott said at a party marking Thurmond's 100th birthday. Thurmond had temporarily left the Democratic Party to protest President Harry S. Truman's anti-segregationist policies. "A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past," Lott's apology reads. "Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement." -- Does Lott's remark wash away attempts by the Republican party to lure minorities to the party? Advertisement -- Some have called on Lott to resign. Should he? (Thanks to P. Mitchell Prothero) PRIESTS CALL FOR LAW'S RESIGNATION A group of Roman Catholic priests are demanding Boston Cardinal Bernard Law resign, saying they have lost confidence in him as a spiritual leader. The archbishop is meeting with Vatican officials in Rome. They reportedly were discussing options, including filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a way to deal with clergy sex-abuse lawsuits that threaten the financial survival of the Archdiocese of Boston. Law's possible resignation also was expected to be on the agenda, though a Vatican spokesman says only the cardinal came to Rome "to inform the Holy See of various aspects of the situation in his diocese in Boston." "It is with a heavy heart that we write to request your resignation," the clerics wrote in the letter signed by 58 of the 500 active priests in the archdiocese. The letter says Law's position "is so compromised that it is no longer possible for you to exercise the spiritual leadership required for the church of Boston." -- Do you think Law can "no longer exercise spiritual leadership?" -- Will the Vatican be influenced by what priests or parishioners in Boston think? Advertisement (Thanks to UPI's David D. Haskell)
