What we're watching: Tuesday, June 21, 2011 – Leaving Afghanistan...lots of GOP 2012 candidates...$1 robbery to get prison care

OBAMA TROOP DRAWDOWN ADDRESS - President Barack Obama is expected to announce a plan on Wednesday that would result in the 30,000 U.S. "surge" forces being withdrawn completely from Afghanistan by the end of 2012, an administration official told CNN. The time frame would give commanders another two "fighting" seasons with the bulk of  U.S. forces still available for combat operations.

An estimated 100,000 U.S. troops are serving in Afghanistan, some 30,000 of which are part of the so-called surge ordered in 2009 in a bid to control the rising violence. Obama is mulling how many troops should be withdrawn this summer and by the end of the year.

Acknowledging it is out of the ordinary for city mayors to take a stand on military policy, the U.S. Conference of Mayors passed a resolution Monday calling for an early end to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. "This is not a war resolution," said the newly elected president of the group, Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. "What we wanted to make clear," he told reporters afterward, is that "the best way to support and honor those troops is to give them a job when they come back home."

POSSIBLE WAR POWERS VOTE – GOP legislators return Tuesday from a long weekend in their districts and might vote this week on measures to restrict funding for the Libya mission to protest what some say is President Barack Obama's violation of the war powers law. Obama is in a standoff with House Speaker John Boehner over the issue.

HUNTSMAN JOINS 2012 RACE – He's a motorcycle-riding Mormon who speaks fluent Mandarin, a soft-spoken father of seven with eclectic political connections. Jon Huntsman is a former two-term Republican Utah governor and former ambassador to China for President Barack Obama, whom he once described as a remarkable leader. Therein lies a primary problem - as in campaigning during the primaries.

ATF ACTING DIRECTOR MAY RESIGN – Kenneth Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, is expected to resign under pressure, perhaps in the next day or two, in the wake of the controversy over Operation Fast and Furious, two senior federal law enforcement sources said Monday. In the operation, straw buyers were allowed to purchase illegally large numbers of weapons, some of which ended up in the hands of cartels in Mexico.

Meanwhile, a newspaper columnist known for writing about corruption and drug violence was slain early Monday — along with his wife and son — by gunmen who broke into the family home as they slept. Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco was shot to death in the port city of Veracruz, the latest of nearly 70 Mexican journalists slain since 2000 and the second to be killed in Veracruz this year. The Los Angeles Times reports that the press in Mexico has increasingly become a target of warring drug cartel factions and corrupt local governments.

THE $1 ROBBERY TO GET PRISON CARE – A 59-year-old man has been jailed in Gastonia, N.C., on charges of larceny after allegedly robbing an RBC Bank for $1 so he could get health care in prison. Richard James Verone handed a female teller a note demanding the money and claiming that he had a gun, according to the police report and ABC News.

MORGAN TO APOLOGIZE – Comic Tracy Morgan returns to Nashville on Tuesday to apologize to those he offended when he went on an anti-gay rant during a stand-up comedy routine. Morgan will be in the city with members of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) to deliver a face-to-face apology to people who were in the Ryman Auditorium and to work with the Tennessee Equality Project, GLAAD said.

"By not only apologizing, but sending a message of support for gay and transgender people, Tracy will help many realize that no one should be treated differently or subjected to violence," GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios said. Morgan is a star of the hit NBC sitcom "30 Rock" and a "Saturday Night Live" veteran.