joining me now on the phone, the mayor of massachusetts, denise simmons.that a good suggestion? the congressman is saying there has to be larger conversations about this. >> please repeat the question. you broke up a little bit. >> so sorry. does there need to be a larger conversation to get this past point about the problems that african-american, men in particular, and latino men, men of color face with law enforcement in many places, especially, as the congressman was saying, in the inner city, where he's lived for 30 years in baltimore. >> this is an important segue to what we're doing in cambridge. one of the important things that we, and i as mayor am looking at, getting a group together, not so much opinion leaders, but community leaders to talk about, what is it we can do in cambridge, taking this as a learning moment, and how can we be a better cambridge? how can we be the cambridge we all want and expect cambridge today. i look forward to the work that we have started to do -- we have started to talk about who should be in the room on those early

. >> reporter: cambridge mayor, denise simmons, will continue that conversation in a forum on race, set>> we've all been talking about this. you know, what can we do? how do we not focus on what happened? but what we need to take place so it doesn't happen again? >> reporter: so, while not everyone can go to the white house, plenty of people have something to say. yunji de nies, abc news, cambridge. >>> the cdc is sponsoring its first-ever conference focusing solely on the fight against obesity. three days of meetings titled weight of the nation, start today in washington. and it will highlight progress and problems in prevention and control of beesty. >>> shuttle "endeavour" astronauts are performing their fifth and final spacewalk before heading home. they undocking from the space station tomorrow. a purify system to remove carbon dioxide from the air had shut down. but nasa managed to patch it. >>> this weekend, beaches in southern california were bigger than usual, when tens of thousands came out to see the biggest waves in years and the extreme surfers who ride them. that's are the

. >> reporter: cambridge mayor, denise simmons, will continue that conversation in a forum on race set for thi month. >> we've all been talking about this. how do we not focus on what happened. but what we need to take place so it doesn't happen again? >> reporter: while not everyone can go to the white hous plenty of people have something to say. yunji de nies, abc news, cambridge. >>> in washington, today, a key, democratic conceded that they will need republican help to push president obama's health care overhaul plan through the united states senate. right now, that bill is stalled. > behind the scenes, senator ted kennedy, a man who has called this his life's work, is playing a surprisingly large role, despite his brain tumor. here's john hendren. >> reporter: senator edward kennedy is the missing man in the battle for health care reform. on capitol hill, nearly everyone agrees things would be different if the liberal lion were here. >> he's the only person i know that can corral them and get them to do what's right. he's willing to come to the center. he's willing to make it a tr

i thank you for your time. >> and there you have cambridge's mayor, mayor denise simmons and the man at the podium who started the conference, robert healy, announcing that a committee is being set up to investigate the july 16th arrest of professor gates. but interestingly enough, the committee will not offer a statement on the conduct of the arresting officer, the committee will explore conflict resolution. will conduct focus group meetings with police and cambridge community. so in essence in short this will be used as a learning teaching moment. as you know, the president is scheduled to meet sometime this week with sergeant crowley, with professor gates and the three men will meet at the white house then have a beer, although professor gates doesn't drink beer but the men will talk through the july 16th arrest. and move this forward. close that chapter and move it forward. we'll keep you posted on any developments in this story. >> a big surprise in the latest housing report. my goodness, the commerce department showing 11% jump in sales of newly constructed single family homes.

committee to look at the bigger issues brought about by this incident and the mayor of cambridge denise simmons says she hopes that will lead to a stronger, more unified city, shep. shepard: when do they get they're beer and whether that be a made for tv moment. >> according to the house, president obama wants to sit down with two men, professor gates and sergeant crowley later this week. whether it will be a televised moment, we simply don't know. the bigger question as our own wendell goler pointed out to robert gibbs today is what beer are they going to serve? listen. >> officer crowl solid drinking blue moon we hear professor gates is drinking red stripes or bets. what is the president drinking. >> the president had a buzz wiser at the all-star game. why are you looking at me like that. that's what he drink. >> red stripe, becks? >> what's wrong with budweiser? why do you hate bud riser, wendell -- budweiser. how about you and i will go pick out the beer. we will do the beer run. >> you know, shep, if wendell goler and robert gibbs are doing the the beer run, everything is going to end up f

and i know the district attorney, jerry leone well, i know the mayor, denise simmons, and i know thee commissioner, commissioner hoss, and i think this calls for at least, at the broader level of cambridge, a discussion about how police operate, how communities respond, and this is not a criticism of the witness who called. because she saw something that she thought was suspicious. she described it in ways that the officer never confirmed. the officer never saw two black men with backpacks. it just didn't happen. it's that sort of concern, i think, that means there's a larger dialogue, but no decision has been made to file a lawsuit. i don't know whether one will be made. what we're trying to do now is make sure that professor gates can get back on his stride of finishing this pbs documentary that's scheduled to be released in february. >> charles ogletree, thank you very much. and as we were alluding to earlier, before you joined in, vernon jordan an hour or so ago on msnbc was saying that his concern is not for skip gates, who has resources, who has charles ogletree, whom he can ca

daughter elizabe elizabeth, a writer for the dailybeast.com, and from cambridge, massachusetts, denise simmonsgood morning to you both. >> good morning. >> i want to read one other quote from president obama last night on nbc. >> i think it was probably a pretty straightforward commentary that you don't need to handcuff a guy, a middle aged man who uses a cane who's in his own home. the president is now involved in this conversation. madam mayor, do you feel like your officer responded properly when he went to professor gates' home? >> you know, just recently our commissioner, commissioner haas gave a press conference. in this press conference he talked about just briefly what had happened. what he said is that the police officer followed practices and procedures. he also said out of that is that he would be bringing together a panel of individuals to look at what happened, the practices and the procedures, and then from that make the appropriate recommendations. >> you said you would love to get these two men together. have you had a positive response from either? >> i certainly have had a po

moments ago, we got the take from the mayor, denise simmons. here's what she had to say. what is the reaction to president obama calling your police department stupid? that they acted stupidly in the gates situation? >> i appreciate president obama's remarks. as he mentioned in his professo gates are friends. and he doesn't know all. we are trying to talk to members of the police department to find out what really happened. and see how we can move towards some resolution of the circumstances. >> is it true that you called professor gates to apologize to him? >> yes, i did. i talked to professor gates on monday, to, first, just to see if he was okay. how he was doing. to express my apologies on what i feel is an unfortunate situation. and also, to talk to him about when he got back to cambridge, having an opportunity to sit and talk with him. >> were you surprised to hear the president discuss this in a national press conference last night? >> i was surprised to hear it come up in a press conference in washington, d.c. that i believe was around health care reform. >> you t

. >> cambridge mayor denise simmons did call and told us on the show to apologize.d him to meet with her when he came back to cambridge. >>> also new to morning. police in houston are investigating whether a drive-by shoot that injured two people is a rival between two gangs. it happened at a community rally at texas southern university. witnesses told police a car drove by and started spraying the crowd with bullets. none of the injuries, thankfully, are said to be life threatening. >>> if you're using the e-cigarettes to kick your actual smoking habit, the fda has a worning, government watchdog found carcinogens in these. the nicotine vapors are in them. even though they're touted as, quote, healthy alternative to smoking. the manufacturing had no comment when we called. >>> the fed launched a surprise raid on a houston clinic run by michael jackson's former doctor, the one who was there when he died. could the singer's death be ruled a homicide? ten minutes now after the hour. >>> 12 minutes past the hour. welcome back to the most news in the morning. taking a lo