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Afghanistan options narrowed to four

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama is considering four options for an Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy in discussions with his advisers, a White House spokesman said.

Obama met with his security team Wednesday in the Situation Room, the White House said.

In another major development Wednesday, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan is said to have expressed concern to Obama about sending more troops to the region until the government in Kabul deals with corruption and mismanagement.

Previous media reports indicated five options were on the table. Although the options aren't being developed, one has become fairly fleshed out, CNN reported Wednesday.

That option calls for sending about 34,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, deployed mainly in the south and southeast, where much of the fighting is, a senior administration official and U.S. military official independently confirmed for CNN. The plan reportedly would include three Army brigades, a Marine brigade, a headquarters element and support troops.

The other options, the Pentagon official said, would be "different mixes," or "different components of it."

Obama also is expected to discuss the kind of cooperation the United States could expect from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the type of civilian support the United States would be willing to provide and the kind of support the United States could expect from other countries, the administration official told CNN.

"The president will have an opportunity to discuss four options with his national security team," Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters.

Gibbs said the timeline for Obama's decision remained fluid.

"Anybody that tells you that the president has made a decision or ... 'tentatively agreed to' doesn't have, in all honesty, the slightest idea what they're talking about," Gibbs said during Tuesday's briefing. "The president has yet to make a decision."

The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan has expressed concern about sending more troops to Afghanistan until the government in Kabul can clean up corruption and deal with mismanagement that has helped the Taliban regain strength, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Citing senior U.S. officials, the newspaper said Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry registered his concern in two classified cables to Washington within the past week.

Eikenberry was the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007. He retired from the military in April when he was sworn in as ambassador.

In the cables to Washington, Eikenberry said Afghan President Hamid Karzai had engaged in erratic behavior and senior Afghan government officials were corrupt, the Post reported.

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Search resumes for serial killer's victims

CLEVELAND, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- FBI agents Wednesday resumed their search for more bodies in around the home of suspected Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell.

Agents said they would use thermal imaging equipment to look for more buried bodies in Sowell's yard and the area around his house, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported.

The newspaper said city crews cleared brush and debris from the area in preparation for the search. So far, authorities have discovered the corpses of 11 women on the Sowell property.

Authorities say Sowell is being held on $5 million bond on five counts of aggravated murder.

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Man allegedly threatened abortion clinic

EUGENE, Ore., Nov. 11 (UPI) -- An Oregon man has been charged with making threatening phone calls to Planned Parenthood threatening to blow up its clinic in Eugene.

Federal investigators say Gregory Paul Freeman, 56, of Eugene also made anti-Semitic calls to the president of the University of Oregon and a Masonic lodge, The Portland Oregonian reported. He was charged Monday in a criminal information with the threat to Planned Parenthood.

The investigation began when David Frohnmayer, a former state legislator and attorney general who now heads the university, got an anti-Semitic message on his home phone in late 2008. That call and others to Frohnmayer and a Masonic lodge were traced to a local number, and when Eugene Police Officer Dallas Hall called the number she got a message back telling her not to call the number again.

"And in the meantime, you go down and blow up an abortion clinic," she was told

Planned Parenthood received a call Dec. 30, 2009, from someone who said, "Uh, please go ahead and dial the, uh, United States of America, because I'm going to burn your abortion clinic down because you are a baby killer and you hate babies."

Freeman has not been charged with the other calls.

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Presbyterians vote to ordain lesbian

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Leaders of the Presbyterian Church in San Francisco have voted to ordain the first openly homosexual minister in the denomination.

After several hours of debate, the San Francisco Presbytery voted 156 to 138 Tuesday to ordain Lisa Larges, whose ordination had been blocked for more than 15 years because she is a lesbian, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

"Change is happening in the churches," Larges said after the vote. "People are realizing that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have long functioned as contributing members of their faith traditions. It is time to tell the truth -- we are all created in God's image."

Tuesday's vote still could be appealed. If it is not, the path is clear for Larges to be formally ordained as a minister.

The national Presbyterian church bans the ordination of homosexuals, though regional presbyteries may consider individual cases. The Presbyterian church has openly gay ministers, but they revealed their sexual orientation only after being ordained.