0 military strike. the u.s. evidence could be made public today to balance it out. we are going to cover every angel of it beginning with dana top obama officials insisted to lawmakers on the thursday night conference call they have no doubt ba sar assad's regime in syria was behind deadly chemical attacks there. secretaries of state, defense and others backed that up by revealing to lawmakers that the u.s. intercepted communications from a high level syrian official, which clearly indicates they were responsible for these weapons, that according to congressman el yol engel who participated in the call. though obama insists no decisions have been made, cnn is also told they privately made clear to lawmakers that chemical weapons in syria is such a threat the u.s. could engage with or without support from great britain. bob corker emerged from briefings thursday announcing support for surgical proportional military strikes, given the evidence of continued use of chemical warfare. bob menendez reaffirmed his support saying a decisive and consequential u.s. response is justified and warranted. . others argued the president still has to come before congress and the american people before he acts. >> it's up to the president to sell this to the american people. >> reporter: this attempt to consult with members of congress didn't leave everybody satisfied and that's really an understatement. several republicans said that what the administration said was far too vague especially when it comes to plans for military action. there could be several reasons, these members were back home in their districts and states and some on cell phones, talking on an unsecured line. anything they were told had to be unclassified. >> sounds like some lawmakers and some of the american public need more information before they're convinced. let's get more on the stunning political defeat in parliament for british prime minister david cameron. the government saying no to any military action. cnn's atika shubert is in london. how significant is this decision by the british parliament? >> very significant, a stunning defeat, 285-272, check out the headlines, this is on every paper out here today, the key word being a humiliating defeat. basically what this means is that britain has been ruled out of taking any military action on syria. cameron has said he literately said "i get that," said he will respect lawmakers' decision and that means president obama will be going it alone without the help of great britain. >> thank you very much for that. interesting contrast there. in the uk they bring in the parliamentary body, they have a vote and it is voted down to take any action. here they do it by conference call, some people can hear, some people can't, it's declassified. are we following it the right way. what we're doing now is now giving way to the question of when. barbara starr, what do we know in terms of particular timing here? >> chris, the u.s. navy has five destroyers equipped with tomahawk unmanned cruise missiles off the coast in the eastern mediterranean. they could be ready to fire within minutes of order from the president. it awaits a presidential order. they feel the intercepts definitely link it to the regime, a key question was bashar al assad's hand on the button. they say that's too classified to reveal at this point but it doesn't matter, that they believe they have the firm evidence the regime was behind it, so it's simply awaiting a decision by president obama to do this. there's something much deeper unfolding beyond syria at this point, the use of chemical weapons and the president feels the obama administration feels they have to respond to this as bad as it is for syria that this is an historic atrocity, you can't let it go unanswered, you can't let the world see the united states just sit by and have people killed by the use of chemical weapons. chris? kate? >> all right, thank you very much, barbara. it's interesting, last thursday we weren't hearing that at all from the president of the united states. he was saying international law, the need for a coalition, let's be careful. we don't know what happened and what the right response is. now all of a sudden it seems you have to go and attack. >> the only question that seems to remain is when and how. >> a hard shift. >> let's find out what's happening inside syria this morning. fred pleitgen was the only western network reporter in the country this week. he's now in beirut. what is the latest from there? >> reporter: hi, kate. it seems as though the syrian regime is presenting their side of the story today, the defense minister came out in a call with the iranian defense minister and said the syrians have evidence it was the rebels who used chemical weapons on the battlefield, something they've been saying for quite a while. the u.s. doesn't believe that but what's going on today is that it's the final day of the weapons inspectors working on the ground and today they are actually in the government-held part of damascus and they're visiting a military hospital there that allegedly has some of these victims from the government side of these chemical weapons atacks, they're talking to them, visiting that hospital and after that saturday the weapons inspectors are going to leave the country. the latest that i have from on the ground in damascus, they say people are nervous about potential u.s. strikes. lot of people are stocking up on food, brought their families and children to nearby lebanon. people aren't fleeinging in great numbers, waiting to see what happens and also apparently a lot of military movement on the ground, the military moving hardware around possibility to try and avoid u.s. air strikes. kate? >> the latest we're hearing is the u.n. weapons inspectors expected to be pulled out possibly tomorrow, so we'll have to see what they find and what that means for any military action. fred, thank you so much for bringing that to us from beirut. coming up later on "new day," we'll speak with retired marine corps general anthony zinny and the options the u.s. has for carrying out a military strike. we're going to stay on the story but we have news of a blockbuster settlement that may close the legal fight over head injuries in the nfl now. the league agreeing to pay $765 million to more than 4,500 former players and their families. let's bring in andie scholes with "the bleacher report." is this a good settlement? how is it being received? what does it mean? >> it's good they got it done now. this case could have dragged out for years. by settling it the dark cloud around the league goes away and the players who have concussion-related injuries will get the help they need. for years the nfl and its retired players have been at odds how to address head injuries on the field. thursday it ends the fighting and puts money toward medical exams, legal compensation, legal fees and medical research. here's thousand breaks down. >> i think it's a good day for thousands of football players who are dealing with different afflictions from playing the game of football. >> reporter: num ruls prominent players like hall of fame winner tony dorsett and the family of junior seau are part of the case, it clears the nfl from having to admit any liability or brain-related injuries were caused by football. many consider that a huge win for the envelope and its owners. >> they're almost certainly going to be able to eliminate any future lawsuit from former players about head injuries. >> reporter: while $754 million seems like a big number some think the players could have done better considering last year alone the nfl had a revenue of $9.2 billion. >> you consider the potential risk the nfl had of going to trial, the potential exposure was in the billions and that's a conservative estimate. >> the agreement is in the hands of judge anita brody who must approve the deal. former players can still voice their opposition. only players who have retired by the time the concussion settlement is approved, but all retired players involved in the lawsuit or not can take a baseline test and chris it's those test results that will be used to determine the amount of money they will receive from this settlement now and in the future. >> andy, thank you very much. appreciate it. have a great weekend, by the way. >> you, too. >> very confusing because when you don't know enough about what caused the concussion and what the damage is, when you can't prove it, you don't know how to value it and you also don't know how to use that science to stop it on the field so who knows. >> it's one thing to have a settlement to pay it out but it's that looking forward what does this mean for the game and how can we make it safer if we can. >> that's right. >> it's still a lingering question. >> we want to talk about this more so later on "new day" we'll have former nfl running back clinton porter, great for the broncos and redskins, wearing his redskins jersey. he sued the nfl over concussions, he knows the game and the toll concussions can take very well so we'll get his perspective. one thing on everybody's mind today, labor day weekend, folks are hitting the road this labor day weekend. aaa says 34 million americans will be traveling more than 50 miles from home, up more than 4% from last year so we've got all these angles covered. indra pedersons is here with your holiday forecast. let's get straight to indra, what is the forecast? >> you can tell i'm already nerve to us tell everyone. there's one place that will get better, the midwest, temperatures that are 15 to 20 degrees above normal are going to start to cool, here is the difference between saturday and sunday, it's thanks to a cold front, those temperatures dropping 15, even 20 degrees. unfortunately there's a cold front we're also going to be talking about showers and only gets worse as the weekend continues. here is what it looks like today. as we go in through tomorrow the ohio valley you'll start to see some showers. there are two cold fronts so it gets worse as we go in through, yes, saturday in through sunday, notice we start to see the northeast and mid-atlantic starting to go down in the southeast and sunday into monday is when it gets the toughest, we merge the two systems together to get just what everyone wants is rain right on labor day forecast. you're welcome. >> need to know it, though. thanks so much. we'll check back in. >> labor day all about the working man and woman. problem is that's who's going to be most affected by gas prices. christine what do we know about the cost it will fill up to make the drives this weekend? >> last year was the most expensive labor day ever for driving and this year it will be a lot better. you have about 20 cents lower the average price of gas compared with last year and that's why aaa says more people will be on the road, $3.83 last year so you're getting a little bit of a break this time around. this is why the lower gas prices are why more are expected to be driving. 4.2% more will be headed out and 29.2 million in a car, average distance about 594 miles. aaa says the best time to leave for your weekend, en route by 1:00 p.m. yesterday, but gas prices will be better this weekend. >> all right, so indra petersons failed us on the weather, christine romans gave us good news for business, now we'll roll it to michaela and see if we can keep it positive. one each way. you make the decision whether or not the news is good for the weekend. >> actually we have some progress to report on the fire conditions out in california. >> good. >> firefighters are seizing on the cooler conditions and calmer winds there to keep that rim fire from moving deeper into yosemite national park, and evacuation advisory lifted in northern california, fire crews are tightening their grip on the fire. close to 200,000 acres have burned so far. straight or gay the irs will recognize your marriage, a new policy allows any legal lly married couple will allow them to file jointly. a new report in "the washington post" offering more detail about the raid that killed osama bin laden, it says forensic intelligence agents working in afghanistan confirmed his identity eight hours after he was killed using dna from his corpse. "the post" information is based on data from leaker edward snowden. friday marks san diego mayor bob filner's final day in office at 5:00, city council president todd gloria will take over as interim mayor and a special election is set for november 19th. gloria allred is celebrating his last day, she represents several women harassed by filner. new york is a great place but it took a couple of kittens to shut down the subway, service came to a halt thursday for 90 minutes as they looked for the fugitive fee lines, the rail could be deadly to an unsuspecting cat. at first there was no luck finding the kittens but they were found hours later and taken to a local animal shelter. it would really anger commuters, but come on, look at that face. >> got to save the kittens. good stuff. >> and they did. that's some good news. we'll take a break here on "new day." when we come back the weekend come up all about the working man and woman. fast food workers walk out over money. they're not the only ones pushing for higher wages. the question is will this day of action make a difference? we'll tell you about it. also ahead a popular pill getting a new warning, bright red lettering on a bottle of extra strength tylenol. its maker says it's all about preventing overdoses. we'll get into that coming up. when we made our commitment to the gulf, bp had two big goals: help the gulf recover and learn from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. i can tell you - safety is at the heart of everything we do. we've added cutting-edge technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a state-of-the-art monitoring center, where experts watch over all drilling activity twenty-four-seven. and we're sharing what we've learned, so we can all produce energy more safely. our commitment has never been stronger.