Call it Driving While Distracted, or DWD. It may not sound as serious as DWI, but driving and texting or twittering or "just" checking your email is a serious enough issue that dozens of elected officials, transit groups and law enforcement agencies are gathering in Washington today to look at what can be done about it. We hear from Kristin Backstrom of AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, who will be at the conference, New Jersey State Trooper Sergeant Stephen Jones and his daughter Alicia Jones, who admits to texting while driving.

The Department of Transportation is offering a live webcast of the summit. Watch here.

Yesterday, both Sen. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) offered amendments that would have reintroduced a government-run insurance option to the health care reform bill under consideration by the Senate Finance Committee. Both amendments were rejected by the committee. The Takeaway's Washington correspondent, Todd Zwillich, was there for the vote and he joins us to talk about yesterday's rejection by the Senate Finance Committee, the assertion by Sen. Max Baucus' (D-Mont.) that he can count to 60, and whether the public option has any future.

A year after short selling stocks was decried for adding fuel to the fire of the financial meltdown, the Securities and Exchange Commission is considering cracking down on the practice. But some banks are pushing back. Louise Story, finance reporter from The New York Times, explains why.

We revisit your responses to our recent questions: the housing situation in your block, and what you think the biggest "clear and present danger" is to America.

An 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the shore of Samoa and American Samoa early yesterday. The huge earthquake launched a tsunami that has devastated the Samoa islands and killed at least 75 people as it tore through villages and resorts. Ian Cooper has been living in Samoa for the past five years and saw his diving business destroyed by the enormous wave. Meraiah Foley, a reporter for The New York Times, joins us from Sydney, Australia with the local reaction and response.

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[Trailer for "The Founding of the Republic"]

China is celebrating the big 6-0, and what better way to celebrate six decades of Communist rule than with a major motion picture? The film, fittingly titled "The Founding of the Republic," hits theaters across China tomorrow (the official anniversary) and features nearly 200 Chinese celebrities, including international sensations Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Quentin Sommerville, the BBC's Beijing correspondent, gives us a sneak preview.

As the weather starts to cool, but summer's harvest is still available, New York Times food writer Melissa Clark has been inspired to bake. But she hasn't been baking sweets — there are a lot of savory items on her fall menu. She joins us with lots of ideas for using the last of the summer tomatoes and the best of the fall harvest.

Click through to read the recipes mentioned this morning, and read Melissa's article, Ripe for Autumn's Hearth, in today's New York Times.

Trust the doctor, we’re often told. But in the passage of a health care reform bill, it's the lawmakers we have to rely on. We’ve found three members of Congress who are also medical professionals to bring their medical perspective to the health care bill that's making its way through committee. (Today's roundtable is with Democrats; tomorrow we'll be talking with Republican members of Congress.)

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.) has worked as a nurse for 15 years. Dr. Vic Snyder represents Arkansas’ 2nd Congressional district and was a family practice physician for over 15 years. We also speak to Dr. Jim McDermott, Democratic representative from Washington; he's a trained psychiatrist and the longest-serving physician in Congress. (click through for the full interview transcript)

When GM and Chrysler declared bankruptcy, the court allowed them to prematurely end contracts with car dealers across the nation. Today, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) is meeting with auto makers and auto dealers as they try and work out a compensation agreement for dealers left out in the cold. Our Washington correspondent, Todd Zwillich, talks us through the meeting.

Key economic indicators are still giving mixed signals about the recovery of the nation's economy. Housing numbers were up, but now they are down; consumer confidence was rising, and now it's sagging. Adding to the agita, analysts still can't say if we have hit bottom or not. New York Times finance reporter Louise Story tells us what Wall Street is making of the ups and downs in housing and consumer confidence figures.

In the wild world of baseball, the Detroit Tigers and the Minnesota Twins are in an intense race to win Major League Baseball's A.L. Central division. The Takeaway's sports contributor, Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, gives us the latest. We also take a look at the latest in the 2009 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

The man in charge of the military mission in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has said that without more troops, the U.S. mission "will likely result in failure." While no official request for more troops has been made, President Obama has made it clear that he is not wild about the idea, even as he convenes a series of White House strategy sessions to discuss U.S. options in Afghanistan. Today, he meets with his full national security team. Whatever the president decides, he'll need to convince Congress that he's pursuing the right course. We talk with Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, about U.S. troop levels and strategy in Afghanistan. 

A Los Angeles–based clothing company is laying off 1,800 immigrant employees in the coming weeks at the behest of the Obama administration. And it's not just any company — it's American Apparel, a business that has made a name for itself for paying its workers a better-than-fair wage and offering in-factory massages. (And, yes, they have also made a name for themselves with their over-the-top "sex sells" advertising.) Are the layoffs at American Apparel the start of a larger storm to come, in which more companies will be asked to let immigrants go? New York Times immigration reporter Julia Preston gives us the details.

For more, read Julia Preston's article, Immigration Crackdown With Firings, Not Raids, in today's New York Times.

Neil Sheehan, the Pulitzer prize–winning author of "A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam," one of the best documentations of the Vietnam War, has written a new account of the cold war. In "A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon," Sheehan says the decades-long tension between the Soviet Union and the United States was not as glacially still as most people imagine. He says the quiet conflict between the two nations had a fiery heat that most likely would have led to nuclear disaster if it were not for Bernard Schriever, an Air Force general responsible for the creation of the U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile system.