Father Henry Willenborg holding his son on a family vacation.

Eliza Browning
AC360° Associate Producer

Twenty-two-year-old Nathan Halbach is dying of brain cancer and may only have weeks to live. The priest who celebrated Nathan’s baptism is still around, but he won’t be presiding over Halbach’s funeral. That priest is Nathan’s dad.

It turns out Father Henry Willenborg really is a father, but a secret one. When his son, Nathan, was born he wasn’t ready to leave the priesthood so a confidential agreement was drawn up between him, the mother and the Franciscan Order of the Catholic Church. The Church would financially support Nathan and his mother and everyone would keep quiet.

But nobody anticipated that Nathan would become ill and would need so much medical support. His mother talks to Gary Tuchman about the arrangement made more than 20 years ago. So did the Church cover up the fact that a priest fathered a son? Don’t miss this special report tonight.

President Obama heads to Asia today, after rejecting all of the options for a new strategy in Afghanistan that were presented to him by his national-security team yesterday. He says there needs to be an exit strategy, that the U.S. troop commitment cannot be open-ended and that he wants to see revisions to the current options on the table.

We also learned of reports last night that the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, expressed deep reservations about sending troops to the region given what he referred to as corruption in the country. This comes in opposition to the recommendation from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander on the ground. So that means two top U.S. representatives in the region have conflicting points of view. What message does that send about the strategy?

The Obama Administration expects to announces rules for the 'Race to the Top' competition, wherein winners will claim a share of $4 billion in funding set aside for education under the federal stimulus. Will this be the real reform that American schoolchildren need?

A new federal study shows that nearly one-third of states lowered their academic proficiency standards in recent years – a move that helps schools stay immune from sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law. But lowering standards also confuses parents about how childrens' achievement compares with students in other states and countries. The Department of Education study found that 15 states lowered their proficiency standards at the middle school level in basic subjects from 2005 to 2007. Three states in particular – Maine, Oklahoma and Wyoming – lowered standards in both math and reading at the fourth and eighth grade levels. Were schools allowed to lower standards? And why? Randi Kaye is keeping them honest tonight.

Today is Charles Manson’s 74th birthday. Ted Rowlands speaks to two people who serve as Manson’s conduits to the outside world. They even moved to Corcoran, Calif. to be near him. They share recordings of their phone calls with Manson and paint a picture of a man who’s spent nearly four decades behind bars for one of the most notorious crimes in U.S. history.

The CDC is expected to release new numbers on the number of people who have died from H1N1 since April. It's the first time they're counting deaths with complications related to the virus.  It's expected to be quite a lot higher than originally estimated. Does this mean H1N1 is more lethal than we thought? Or is this just an accounting change?

And a certain Street is celebrating its 40th anniversary this week. We won't give it away but just know that Anderson will be visited by a very special guest tonight to honor this  occasion.

What else are you following today? Let us know and see you at 10 p.m. ET.