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CBS News has confirmed that Jennifer Hudson will perform at the State Dinner that President Obama is hosting tonight in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Hudson rose to fame on "American Idol" in 2004, but is also known for her role in the movie "Dreamgirls" in 2006 -- which led to her winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

She previously sang the national anthem at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last year. Like the Obamas, the 28-year-old is from Chicago.

The dinner is scheduled to begin at 8:15 p.m. ET in a large tent on the South Lawn of the White House.

Politics Today is CBSNews.com's inside look at the key stories driving the day in politics. Because of the holiday, the column will not appear again until Monday. Happy Thanksgiving!

**President Holds Final Meeting on Troop Levels

**Said to be Planning to Add 34,000; Announcement to Come Next Tuesday

**Obama Hosting First Official State Dinner

Afghanistan: Following his latest (and apparently final) meeting with his national security team on a new U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan last night, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said President Obama "has the information he wants and needs to make his decision and he will announce that decision within days."

According to McClatchy Newspapers, which cites unnamed U.S. officials, the president will announce that he will send 34,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, slightly fewer than then 40,000 being sought by the top U.S. commander there, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. There are 68,000 U.S. troops in the country now, including the 21,000 already deployed by the president.

The president will make a primetime address Dec. 1 on the Afghanistan decision, CBS News confirmed.

"Obama is expected to announce his long-awaited decision on Dec. 1, followed by meetings on Capitol Hill aimed at winning congressional support amid opposition by some Democrats who are worried about the strain on the U.S. Treasury and whether Afghanistan has become a quagmire, the officials said," reports McClatchy's Jonathan S. Landay, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef.

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In the morning, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will welcome Prime Minister Singh of India and Mrs. Kaur to the White House in an East Room ceremony.

The president and the prime minister will then meet in the Oval Office. They will then hold an expanded bilateral meeting in the Oval Office. Following the meeting, they will hold a joint news conference in the East Room.

In the afternoon, Mr. Obama will hold separate meetings with his senior advisers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Secretary of Defense Gates and the Vice President in the Oval Office.

In the evening, the president and first lady will greet Prime Minister Singh and Mrs. Kaur on their arrival for the State Dinner. The president and first lady will host a State Dinner in honor of Prime Minister Singh and Mrs. Kaur on the South Lawn.

Here is the full schedule from the White House (all times Eastern):

9:15AM: President Obama and Michelle Obama welcome Prime Minister Singh of India and Mrs. Kaur to the White House

10:20AM: President Obama holds bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Singh

10:55AM: President Obama holds expanded bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Singh

11:35AM: President Obama and Prime Minister Singh hold joint press conference

2:00PM: President Obama meets with senior advisers

3:10PM: President Obama meets with Speaker Nancy Pelosi

4:30PM: President Obama and Vice President Biden meet with Secretary of Defense Gates

7:00PM: President Obama and Michelle Obama greet Prime Minister Singh and Mrs. Kaur on arrival for the State Dinner

8:15PM: President Obama and Michelle Obama host State Dinner in honor of Prime Minister Singh and Mrs. Kaur

Gen. Stanley McChrystal may not get everything he wants when President Obama announces his revised strategy for Afghanistan next week, but he may get more help from NATO.

CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante reports Mr. Obama is expected to announce between 20,000 and 30,000 troops will be committed — less than the 40,000 additional troops McChrystal requested.

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institute, said that U.S. allies in Europe may actually provide more soldiers than expected on the Afghan front.

"They certainly have been pushed to ultimately put up more troops," he told "Early Show" anchor Harry Smith this morning.

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney again harshly criticized President Obama this morning, telling a conservative talk show host that the president's much-debated bow to Japan's Emperor Akihito was "fundamentally harmful" to the country and suggesting that Mr. Obama doesn't understand the negative impact of the time he has taken to craft a strategy going forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Weekly Standard reports that Cheney told Scott Hennen that the bow reflected the fact that Mr. Obama "doesn’t fully understand or have the same perception of the US role in the world that most Americans have."

Cheney also said the decision to put Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and other Guantanamo Bay detainees on trial in civilian court was a misguided effort at a "show trial" that will allow terrorists "to stand up and spread the terrible ideology that they adhere to."

And he again made the case that the president's "dithering" on what to do in Afghanistan and Pakistan is hurting the country.

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Members of the Republican National Committee are pushing a resolution built on "conservative principles and public policies" and opposition to "Obama's socialist agenda" that Republican candidates would have to largely accept and adopt if they want the party's support.

The New York Times reports that ten RNC members have signed onto the resolution, which was circulated today. It contains ten principles, among them support for the Defense of Marriage Act, gun rights and "military-recommended troop surges" in Iraq and Afghanistan; opposition to President Obama's health care reform efforts, cap and trade legislation, a card check bill and amnesty for illegal immigrants; and support for "smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes."

Any Republican who breaks with more than two of the ten principles, the resolution says, would be denied

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A Republican political hopeful interested in serving as governor of Massachusetts announced Monday he has chosen Richard R. Tisei, an openly gay state legislator, to be his running mate in the 2010 gubernatorial election.

"Want you to be the first to know: I've chosen State Senator Richard Tisei as my running mate," Republican Charles Baker wrote on his Twitter account. "Excited about this team."

In the photo at left, Baker stands to the left of Tisei outside the civic center in Wakefield, Mass.

Baker is the former CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and a former adviser to two Republican governors. He has known Tisei for years, the Boston Globe reports, and Tisei's years in the state legislature will make up for Baker's limited political experience.

Tisei, who the Globe called an "only-in-Massachusetts character," publicly disclosed his sexuality to the newspaper last week, though it was widely known.

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It's only November, but fears over the H1N1 virus have already hit a fever pitch, with some Americans uneasy about their lack of access to a vaccine that's in relatively short supply.

There are signs, however, that H1N1 may turn out to be less deadly than many feared. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) released a report last week which shows similarities between H1N1 and other strains circulating in the population since 1988. According to the NIH, healthy adults may have a degree of immunity that can blunt the severity of an H1N1 infection.

Quest Diagnostics, which provides clinical laboratory services globally, also released a report last Friday stating that rates of infection by the H1N1 virus may have peaked in late October due to the impact of H1N1 vaccinations and changes in physician test-ordering practices.

So how bad is this pandemic really turning out to be? Some medical experts are calling for officials to inform the public that, despite the hype, the worst-case scenario has not, and likely will not, come to pass.

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Former CNN television personality Lou Dobbs has said in recent days he is considering running for public office, and this morning he suggested he would consider a run for the highest office in the country.

"What's so crazy about that?" Dobbs responded when an anchor with Washington's WTOP radio station laughed about the possibility of Dobbs running for president in 2012. Politico's Glenn Thrush has a recording of the radio interview.

Dobbs said that he has had discussions about it and that he is, for the first time, "actually listening to people about politics."

"I don't think I've got the nature for it, but... we've got to do something in this country," Dobbs said. "I think that being in the public arena means you've got to be part of the solution."

Dobbs added that he is reaching out to Latino groups, the Chamber of Commerce and "all of the groups with whom I have been in an ongoing debate... to try to bridge some of these conflicts and try to create solutions."

Latino groups have long charged that Dobbs' show on CNN was racist in its emphasis on illegal immigration and cheered his departure from CNN.

Dobbs earlier revealed he is considering a Senate run in New Jersey.

President Obama's bow to Japan's Emperor Akihito in Tokyo earlier this month ignited anger from some conservatives who complained, in the words of blogger Donald Douglass, that the United States "now willingly prostrates itself before the rest of the world."

Now the president is responding – kind of. The Atlantic quotes "a US government official who was on the trip" who says the president was left "speechless" by the controversy.

"Obama's attitude was, this is an elderly gentleman in a country where this kind of greeting is customary," said the official. "It does not seem extraordinary to show this kind of gesture to him."

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