>> welcome to al jazeera and this special news hour. i'm john siegenthaler in new york. the focus is on syria and the major decision facing president obama. it's a decision that could have a tremendous impact on the united states and the world. how will the u.s. respond to the use of chemical weapons in syria? and is president obama about to launch a military attack? we heard some tough talk from the administration today. here's what vice president biden had to say. >> chemical weapons have been used.

everyone acknowledges their use. no one doubts that innocent men, women and children have been the victims of chemical weapons attacks. in syria. the president believes and i believe that those who use chemical weapons against defenseless men, women and children should, and must, be held accountability. >> the of -- accountable. >> the vice president making it very clear the administration's intentions. pathy culhane describes why the president has been hesitant to get involved. >> the president will respond to this the use of chemical weapons in syria. but the goal is not to get rid of syrian president bashar

al-assad but to send him a message. >> regime change. >> they say no decision has been made but they say most likely it will involve cruise missiles not chemical weapons stock piles. a limited strike is unlikely to change the direction or the mowments in syria. >> in terms of shifting momentum on the ground it's not likely. i think that targeted strikes are really more powerful in terms of the signaling that they achieve. and the sending a very strong message, that the use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated. >> many believe the president left himself little choice but to respond. this was one year ago. >> a red line for us is: we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. >> president obama has been hesitant to get involved in syria. the majority of the american people don't want it. and former ambassador robert

hunter says the administration is afraid of who could come to power if assad falls. >> then what happens? who replaces that? what happens to the aloites, is there a bloodbath does al qaeda and the affiliates claim the upper hand? i think the idea is to calibrate a military action, not -- enough to seend message but not to send the men on the ground. if there's somebody who can do that i've not met that person. >> the administration is about to tell the american people why they need to get involved. it will declassify some of the evidence that proves the assad government is responsible for the attack trying to make the argument that the world needs to do something but only to a opinion. patty culhane.

al jazeera washington. >> mike, the administration direction has changed drastically, what happened? >> that is a testament to not only the power of the images, the horrific images but the testament to the power and ability to distribute those images. remember this happened last wednesday. thursday the president gave an uf statement that says we need to act within the auspices of international law. then the need for international inspectors, then the images continued to pour in. the international investigators set, assad needs to let the investigators in. the administration says there is little doubt that assad was responsible then yesterday we heard that extremely strong statements from secretary kerry in part to galvanize public opinion where he called it a moral obscenity and culminated

by today where joe biden said there's no doubt the assad regime is responsible. >> mike, the american people are wary of any military involvement in syria. how does the president sell this military action? >> what's important to keep in mind john, this is the second time this year that the obama administration has judge assad to have deployed these chemical weapons. the president has been very hesitant to get involved in the course of the three years of civil conflict under withering response from john mccain on capitol hill. there has been this hesitancy and obviously a war weariness on the part of the american public. i think a good gaining of where the milk stands -- gauge of where the public stands, the point might be academic bit that point john. >> mike thank you. momentum for military

intervention, is building in syria as well. president says he's ready to punish those who gassed sifnlings and the british government recalled people to placement. >> david cameron cut short his summer holiday and returned to london to decide what action britain should take on syria, and he decided placement to do the same. >> yes it is my notion to put forward a motion in placement so members of placement will be able to vote. obviously this is a developing situation, decisions haven't been taken but we shouldn't stand by when we see this massive use of chemical weapons. the appalling levels of suffering. >> so crucially mps will get to decide on any military involvement, clearly david cameron is gambling that

placementarians, more importantly that they might be prepared to commit u.c. personnel -- uk personnel and hardware to a u.s. led campaign. but some aren't so keen. >> we were told saddam hussein had wmd. placement want to ask the questions, can these claims be verified and debate the consequences of going alone without the u.n. which is what washington and placement want to do. >> the noises are getting louder. >> the chemical mess in syria cannot be left without a response. the despictable decision to gas innocent. >> the u.s., the u comfort and france are well aware that russia and china would likely veto action if it went before the u.n. security council.

alternate frameworks are being examined. yet to be decided proposals on thursday but if the talk coming from washington is to be believed the bombs could be falling by then. rohery challenge, al jazeera london. >> james baye joins us from the u.n. what are you hearing there james? >> well john you heard all that tough talk coming from washington, london and paris. diplomats you speak with here say yes, maybe president obama hasn't made his decision yet but it is hard to back down now and really they believe it's not a question of any morp, if there is an operation, a strike that takes place in the coming days without the authorization of the u.n. security council and that raises questions about its legality.

the syrian foreign minister gave his first reports of the growing possibility of an imminent strike by the u.s. and its allies. >> we are all hearing the drums of war around us. if they want to launch a war in syria i think the pretext of chemical weapons is fragile. it is a false pretext. >> russia an the iranians are saying military action conducted without the u.n. security council would be a breach of international law. >> we hope that the american and the european leaders all make remarks about them have enough wisdom, especially seeing that the u.n. security council has issued no permissions in this regard and apparently is not going to issue any. >> a u.n. spokesman was asked about this and was quick to dodge the question. >> i wouldn't speculate on what

hypothetical military action would look like. we have no way of knowing. >> john in the last couple of hours i was wandering into the security council of the united nations, the place where these big decisions are normally authorized. it was completely empty, wasn't sitting, no one was talking about syria. but the scenes behind the united nations, calls being made, those key to making these disurgses the uk france and the u.s. are trying to build a coalition, trying to make the point that even if they don't have the approval of the security council there is a moral authorizessation of this because an international norm has been crossed and chemical weapons have been used. >> james bays, thank you very much. well syria is slightly larger than north dakota. it sits at the edge of the mediterranean sea. turkey on the north iraq to the

east and jordan on the south. its population 22 million, its capital dmas cuss and its president bashar al-assad. john, we're hearing that bashar al-assad's brother is running things behind the scenes. what can you tell us? >> i know and who knew? i mean who knew there was a brother potentially behind the scenes running things. i suppose most people haven't given this much thought. here he is, he's maja al-assad. he hasn't been seen in public for the best part of the last year and those people who think they might have seen him flitting around in damascus say he might have had an injury to his hand or his leg and the feeling out there at the moment is that it may be that it was this man, mmentaja al-ass ad who was behind the attack.

>> not the president? >> not the president. here you have a situation of i won't say the good brother and the bad brother but you know the idea. >> there was another brother who was groomed to be president right? >> basil, this guy died at a car crash. driving a mercedes at top speed to the airport, hit the reservation and died snanlt. that means bashar al-assad was never groomed to be the president, when he was called to lead in 2000 he was an eye doctor, in london, by all accounts a very likable man. their father, hafas al-assad, was a very bad man, the syrian army nearly leveled the town. when bashar took over they

thought it would be all right. he has the support of the military, the police and the government, the support of the russians, a very complex relationship between syria and russia. he has the support of the alloites, secret kind of religion that is allied to the shia religion but they all support this man . if you have a situation where he was to be deposed in some way by this attack that may or may not be coming then i think he would just simply be replaced by somebody else who represents the hierarchy i just spoke about. if their goal is regime change, if that is what it is down the road then that opens up a whole new scenario because then you open up the al qaeda people that are part of the rebels in running the country. that may be something is a road they don't want to go down because they simply know the devil they know is better than

the one they don't, that is bashar al-assad. it's a very complex country. >> john, thank you very much. what are united nations inspectors looking for on the ground? hamash is a weapons expert. >> first of all i think most inspectors will get this clipped to their belt which will identify a chemical agent, test for a nerve agent, tell you whether it is serin or vx or a blister agent like mustard gas. it seems the most logical at the moment a nerve agent was used and probably serin. we have a very simple device that will work with antibodies,

will identify eight pathogens, ananthrax, ricin and plague. the answer to protect civilians is very straightforward. we start off with a one size fits all rest operator that will be put on in a couple of seconds. this will give you comprehensive protection against some chemical webs. allied with that is basic advice. ideally you should move upwind because the gas will be moving rapidly down wind and you should move to higher ground. these come in clouds and in theory, if you hold your breath for 20 or 30 seconds get to higher ground and get out of that cloud and there is a chance you will survive. the planning that went into this attack seems to be in detail. which again is pointing to the regime, to blow the windows and

doors out so the chemicals can more easily get into the buildings. then the chemical bombardment which forced people into cellars, it's heavier than the air, deployed a couple of hundred feet above ground, and finds its way down, increasing the casualty count and then we're hearing reports that the syrian army followed up in those areas once they new that the chemicals would have lost their effect. >> in our coverage of syria continues from state college pennsylvania we're joined by richard butler, the former chief weapons inspectors in iraq and president and ceo of pioneer consulting group. let me start with you mr. ambassador. will the inspectors presenting a preive report -- comprehensive

report even be possible at this point? >> it will be difficult. they were kept away for five days and the chemicals degrade, they leave traces of their having been there but the second day would be best. they have tissue samples, urine and blood and the reports are that the syrian authorities wouldn't let them exhume bodies and wouldn't be available the tissue samples and i think too they're allowed to take only limited quantities of blood and urine. so i'm a little bit pessimistic about the possibility that the u.n. team will be able to bring back, as detailed or as conclusive a report as we would have hoped. and i want to emphasize this: i know aki selstrom the leader, very well, we have worked together in the past, the they are men and women of

extraordinary ability, determination and integrity. i'm sure the same is true today. no matter how good they are they need proper access in a timely fashion and i think that's being denied them. so i'm not terribly optimistic that the report will be as comprehensive as we would like it to be. >> and as i understand it the inspectors have been asked to determine whether or not chemical weapons were used not who fired chemical weapons if they do find chemical weapons were used. so what does that do to help the united states in its effort to try to gather allies to support some sort of military response? >> i think you've just drawn a crucial distinction between two things. the question, the first question that needs to be answered, is, those pictures that we saw and the numbers of dead and injured that doctors without borders for example presented to the world, was that the result of the use

of chemical weapons? now there seems to be a fairly widespread consensus from the evidence that's available now, even before the u.n. report comes back, the picture seems very clear. the chemical weapons do certainly appear to have been used. but the second question, the one that you distinguished from the use of weapons as such, was that of their provenance. where did they come from and who authorized or directed that they be used? and in my mind, that now has become the crucial question in determining what action should be taken, if this global norm against any use of chemical weapons has been violated. which appears that it has. that is, who violated it? who's to be held responsible? and we're here already, a widespread argument developing, on one end of the spectrum the russians and others saying under

no circumstances is there evidence that the u.n. directed this and on the other end of the spectrum u.s. and other representatives france for example have virtually said that they are completely satisfied that this was directed by the assad government. i hear that repeatedly, just a few moments before coming to the studio, you reported it, the vice president of the united states set he was completely satisfied that this was directed by the assad government. i respect him, i respect and know joe biden. he may be completely satisfied. but i want to make this point. his being completely satisfied is not the evidence being made to the world public. if it is the case that that evidence exists the united states and others and all people who are interested in this terrible problem, need to have it demonstrated not just stated but demonstrated. that it is beyond doubt, incontrovertible, that this was

directed by the syrian regime. >> this is an important point. >> if that proves to be the case then whole issue of what action needs to be taken gets to be a whole lot clearer. >> right but that said, if the inspectors can't do their work and by the way, they were unable to go on site today because the syrian government could not assure their safety. how account u.s. make a decision like this when we may not get a report? >> well, with profound difficulty. i go again to your really crucial distinction. it seems almost certain, you know, pretty credible, let's say it's clear, that chemical weapons were used, okay? i'm prepared to say that it has all the appearance of that, okay? but what we don't yet know, and it would be best we could verify that with a bit more hard evidence. but let's say that's a given. what we don't know is who directed that action? and that's crucial to

determining what punishment as i think joe biden called it and the french ministers have been saying, there must be a consequence, a price to be paid be for having done this. in principle i agree with that. because the norm of nonuse of chemical weapons is so precious. but we must be sure we're punishing the right person. and i'm taking the purely intel intellectual and slightly political point that it's in everyone's interest that the identification of that person held responsible be not simply on the basis of gut feeling or the best, that's what we think. we need it as hard evidence to show the world the proof and once that is done the picture will look very different indeed. >> you've been there before. let me bring in tim crockett for a moment. tim when we're talking about a military strike what form might

it take? >> well, this doesn't end the difficulty there. i think at the very least we're looking at some limited action to at least send that message. you've used chemical weapons, you've crossed our red line so let's go in and restore some level credibility to our own authority. how that unfolds again, difficult to say at this stage. but we're going olook at, at least some kind of critical command structure within the military, not necessarily the government but the military. >> cruise missiles? >> yes. i think at this stage we don't want to commit personnel. syria has a very 76thed and robust air defense system. so in order to get past that you'd have to commit considerable amount of resources. so some form of standoff attacks, tomahawks, cruise missiles maybe the use of stealth bombers that's what we're going to look at and again

they're going to focus on key critical command infrastructure, communications, to try and degrade the ability or at least send the message don't use chemical weapons again. >> right but they still have the chemical weapons. i mean cruise missiles won't change that, will they? that leads us to a question and indeed a problem. the amount of chemical weapons we believe syria possesses, in order to try to destroy that you're looking at you're going ohave to use a lot of resources, you're going to have to probably put people on the ground to secure the chemical weapons sites and then dispose of them in a very robust way. that can't be done with the kind of munitions we are looking at being deprovide to the region at the moment. >> ambassador butt lers what message is the united states and its allies are trying to send

here? when it's clear that an attack won't necessarily eliminate the weapons of mass destruction, what's really going on? what sort of message is trying to be cents? >> well again, an excellent question. but if i may i'd like to come back to what one of the things that tim crockett said a moment ago. his expertise in the military field is of course beyond question. but he began by talking about critical to restore our authority. that disturbs me to hear him speak that fact, that way. that is almost colonialist talk. the truth is we in the west have no authority within syria. the president of the united states has said today, he is not interested in, not contemplating in, regime change in syria. and god bless him for that because that's the correct policy in my view. the restoration of authority that i think tim, we should be talking about, is that of the security council.

the security council is the framework of international law, and an incredible important piece of international law is the chemical weapons convention. and the chatter of the u.n. and the chemical weapons convention both make it incredibly clear that the only authentic way in which military action could be taken to rectify a swrong if the security council agrees to it. we will never get to that agreement. we will never have the restoration of the security council instead of claiming what we think to be the case we can prove to the council with fact that it is the case, that the asad regime authorized this and then the possibility of concerted you know international action with the correct authority, the authority of the security council and international law would put us in a very different situation from the very worrying one where

a strong group of countries might irrigate to themselves that they can enforce the law. >> tim let me have you respond to that. >> yes, we can clearly distinguish what we're hearing from certainly the administration in terms of they're looking at a moral application versus a legal one. and that is something that, yes, certainly complicates things and i don't think this is a situation where anyone needs to be rushing in there and making some statement or certainly some action just to purely justify that. >> i've got less than a minute. ambassador butler does this remind you of iraq? >> no, it's quite different. the last time iraq used chemical weapons was in halabdja against the kurdish people of iraq.

this is different than that, in most respects. there's one way in which, though, and i hear many people saying this even today, an eerie similarity of preparing to go to war on the basis of information that's not true. and i think the information here probably will prove to be true i do. >> i'm going to have to wrap up. >> but i would like to see that done clearly and publicly. >> i'm going to have to wrap it up there ambassador butler and tim crockett. thank you for a fascinating discussion. we'll continue it another timer. coming up, the rest of the dare's stories, california's 11 day wildfire has charred more than 60 square miles inside yosemite national park. yarlz continues after this.

al jazeera will continue aftert. ]

>> welcome back to al jazeera. i'm john siegenthaler. here's a look at our headlines.

the obama administration says it's certain that chemical weapons are used and the syrian government was behind the attack. promises attention by the end of the week. syria is demanding the united states willing to prove their allegations. >> i believe the pretext of chemical weapons is false baseless and groundless. and as i said, i challenge, i dare them, to produce any single piece of evidence. >> there is the united nations inspection team in damascus right now, looking for evidence of chemical weapons. after one-day delay because of safety concerns they're expected to be back at the syrian attack sites on wednesday. one of the largest wildfires in california history has even burned deeper into california's yosemite national park. the rim fire has been burning

for 11 days now destroying 280 square miles. this map shows where the stubborn fire has moved on the park's west side and so far more than 60 square miles of the park now charred. the fire now moving closer to thousands of homes outside the national park. al jazeera's melissa chan spent a day with the emergency cruise. the fight continues to gain containment and firefighters are doing front line duties and aftermath work. assessing damage clearing day brie. along with protecting homes, protecting infrastructure has been a top priority. the hetch-hetchy reservoir provides water to 2.6 million people in the san francisco bay area. the threat of the fire has hung over its waters. >> san francisco has a number of assets up here, physical assets. and the water asset that is being affected in the incident itself and the firefighters and the hand crews and all of the

overhead have taken that into consideration and provided protection, preparation. >> the reservoir that is been just one of the many challenges with the rim fire and this wildfire season firefighters have had to hopscotch from incident to incident, mostly across states. most firefighters have 24 hour long shifts, whether they're out on the front lines or protects buildings which is what they're doing here and the only way they can do this is with the help of multiple ploijts teams. it is formally called the incident base team. >> what a base camp is is a small city plucked in the middle of the wilderness to support all the people around it. >> here is the base camp with all the information around it. air operation he a few steps away to determine water drops. >> fire stays.

>> copy that thank you. >> supplies come in throughout the day keeping this camp city going. providing critical items to the thousands of people working here. >> clean, hot water, clean clothes, goes a long ways when you are out there in the dirt and the heat every day. >> and perhaps the most important thing to keep engines running, food. after a long day firefighters look forward to their meals. each plate must produce 2,000 calories enough energy to keep the crew going. >> the other day i was out there and they said joe i want bacon cheese burgers, with french fries. >> it's incredible, the crews that manage that entire base camp do such an outstanding job. the crew will continue to operate as long as the rim fire burns. when it's all over, the crew will pick up and go as if it

never existed. melissa chan, al jazeera. california. >> and katherine barrett is out there too. how is it affecting the weather? >> thette with was changeable, that was higher humidity. the smoke hung longer in the hills, they have five c-130 cargo planes dropping fire suppressant and water on that fire. it makes it more difficult for ground crews to get around. again changeable is the word. the winds have been described as squirrely all day and that's expected to continue. there's a little bit of an unsettled system coming in. that does make an already challenging fire even less predictable. john it is the changing of the guard at the incident post. night shifts are gearing for

another night. digging in the dark, cooks serving 1800 meals to the next shift about to go out and keep fighting. john. >> how are those firefighters fs holding up? >> you know it's sort of midpoint maybe in the fire season. they're, some of them, getting a little tired but this is what they do. this is frankly what i suspect some of them love to do. they feel honored doing it. we spoke to one fellow earlier today who had come here from cherokee, north carolina, was here for three days and expected to be here for another week and a half. i sced hm what's it like in the cold and the smoke and the dark, and you're digging in the dirt, he says it's another day in the office. they feel honored to try to save these communities and this beautiful landscape. john. >> we're all lucky to have them. katherine barrett, thank you. we appreciate it. a convicted killer puts up

no defense. nidal hasan was convictof killing 13 people at a shooting rampage at a texas military base. closing arguments are expected wednesday. then juriors will be deciding between death and life in prison. hydey zhou-castro is on scene. >> they were back in court today, asking the judge to allow them to take the reins away from this self destructive client. hasan objected to that and ultimately the judge declined the counsel's motion. now, there was a lot of moving testimony throughout day from the survivors and the family members of the 13 people that hasan killed. we heard from a mother who lost her 29-year-old daughter. we heard from a husband who,

after losing his wife, said he turned to alcohol to dull his pain and even now when he gets the coins from his aa meetings he goes to her grave site and he presents her with those coins. not a dry eye in the courtroom except for of that nidal hasan. so the injury once they -- so the jury once they begin deliberating won't have much to say. i believe counsel put it best, when life is not a consideration, then there is only death. interheidi zhou castro reporting from the trial tonight. a lawyer for the former neighborhood watch volunteer george zimmerman says he plans to file a motion to seek between $200,000 and $300,000 in attorney's fees. he was acquitted in the fatal shooting of unarmed teen trayvon

martin last year. because zimmerman was aquilted, florida is required to pay his legal costs. facebook media giant says half of their information, facebook, google and microsoft all release information on how often governments request information. janet napolitano gave a farewell speech in washington. napolitano acknowledged there were many challenges in her years in office. she praised the federal government's response to major events like april's boston marathon bombings. >> the well timed and well coordinated emergency response that immediately followed the marathon attack was not accidental. it was the product of years of planning, training and

investment in building state and local capacity. and the quick, orderly focused and comprehensive response by law enforcement first responders and the larger boston community on that day saved lives. >> napolitano says she's confident the obama administration will continue to successfully fight against terror attacks. it's that time of the night to go down to washington, d.c, where joie chen will have a preview of her show. hi joie. >> a revolutionary moment in history that began months earlier in a birmingham jail. how little scraps of dr. king's thought inspired a dream of racial equality. >> and he's so frenetic about it that he's actually written on

paper towels and toilet paper. >> all of that came from his heart. he wanted white america to see what they were doing. >> in our exclusive report we'll meet the key figures who helped dr. king put together the pieces of his letter from a birmingham jail. we'll have all that and more coming up at the top of the hour on america tonight, john. >> joie, thank you very much. david shuster has this story. >> as you can see out here, this is what ground that does not have water looks like. barren, dry, the weeds don't even hardly grow right here right now? it's so dry. >> in a normal year, rocky forward paul casper's cantaloupes fill his field. but in the past two years he has seen his gross income cut by

two-thirds. >> roughly 75% of what we farm looks like this. we do as best we can. we have people who count on us every year. >> like people in colorado casper is no stranger to drought. more than $700 million of lost economic activity and an overburdened water system means an exist tension controversy. >> we're splitting the pie up and that's about money. >> reagan wascom says the state's rapid population growth is the biggest men as facing the people here today. >> all of them needing water and none of them calling ahead to see if there's water before they show up here. >> it's sad. you see productive acres of

farmland and it's gone. when the wind blows it's dust everywhere. we're going to to be in a pretty heavy weight situation. >> the new contender fracking, oil and gas interests have driven the cost of water far beyond the cost of the average farmer. >> they may pay 30, 40, $50, cities are willing to put another zero on that, oil and gas two more zeros. the problem is long term farmers may not be able to afford to stay in this market and water will exit out of agriculture. >> doug phelan ders say many people exaggerate fracking's impact on state water resources. >> the oil and gas operations in colorado use 1/10 of 1% of all the water used in colorado.

>> he says this has generated millions of jobs and revenue for the state this year, big numbers agriculture cannot hope to match, facing a dry future farmer ken peplar fears more will be lost than the economic bottom line. >> most people don't give it enough credit for we are the morality, the work ethic that's really made this country great. that's why agriculture is so important. >> david shuster, al jazeera. >> the reigning heisman trophy winner faces allegations of accepting cash for autographs. next in sports.

>> thousands of people are expected back in washington, d.c. tomorrow to help celebrate the legacy of martin luther king jr. 50 years after king's iconic i have a dream speech the shooting of a black teenager trayvon martin restarted the race discussion, giving a new generation of race protesters a sign of just how far this country has to go. daniel free is part of a -- spokesman for million hoodies for justice. >> thank you for having me. >> tell me why you planned this march. >> i immediately felt like i had been in situations like that growing up having spent times in gainesville, florida. that could easily have been my little sister and that was unacceptable to me and i had to do something like it.

>> what did you do? >> we launched a social media campaign, million hoodies for trayvon martin. asking them to wear their hoodies and calling for an arrest for george zimmerman. >> why did the hoodies become such a symbol? >> i've had experiences wearing a hoodie walking in new york and people look at me suspiciously. it was raining that night which a lot of people forget and i wanted to use that as a symbol and unite people around it. >> i think it's really difficult for white people to understand exactly what you're talking about. when you walk down the street when somebody looks askance, when you are stopped by the police. >> uh-huh. >> can you give us a sense of that feeling? >> i think it's hard for white people at the same time, my good friend michael skullnick, he was

a big impetus for me, writing about his white friends were u p in arms about this situation but we can all empathize, we have all been profiled, all been kind of seen as something that we're not. >> 50 years ago, march on washington, there was so much hope 50 years ago in that famous speech, martin luther king talked about hope. but today, you're still expressing some of the same things that were expressed 50 years ago. >> absolutely. and it just goes to show that we've come a long way, we have an african american president, an african american attorney general and we're still facing the same challenges we had 50 years ago. this is a call to people to let them know things aren't going ochange overnight. >> they weren't here 50 years ago, they didn't see it. do we teach children well enough

in schools? >> i don't think we do. i think that's one of the platforms we're using through education system, we're trying to develop a digital study guide. right now in our school systems that conversation is not happening. >> it's a shame. it should happen and hopefully it will happen in the future. we appreciate you coming by and talking to us daniel maria. come again. >> thank you very much. >> tomorrow, ceremonies in washington, marking the dream, 50 years later, we will be live from the lincoln memorial in washington beginning at 2:00 eastern time. the solar power trained is small but some say types could replace the conventional train. it's called the veli, empowered

totally by its own solar panels. the train's plaques speed is only about 15 miles an hour. well, michael eeives is here with sports to talk about the heisman trophy winner. >> this weekend, texas a&m quarterback johnny mandell, this past sunday he faced six hours of questioning from the ncaa. there is no timetable for the ncaa to announce a decision on its investigation. the school announced a agriculture order from kevin gullnick and his players. he is listed as an aggie on the

depth chafort. roger federer's qwest and the rain postponed. federer seeded seventh, his worst since 2002. he recorded 12 as is and 32 winner is in the match. the top seeded american in the match, john isner, advanced after an easy 6-0, 6-1, 6-2 victory. recent evidence about concussions, chief of football

operations ray anderson said today if the league's competition committee finds enough evidence this season that hitle to the knees are becoming a problem that the nfl could that i action including possibly fines and suspensions. well speaking of knees, redskins robert griffin iii could be cleared as soon as thursday, when he will meet with his surgeon. he declared himself 100% recovered from the off-season knee surgery. two athletes face to face and the best may win. but in thailand, they're bringing a new perspective to the age old sport of boxing. >> ray hay is there.

>> here is an added incentive osucceed. the participants are all quighted criminals. competing in a number of sports for the title of best behind bars. for skills and attributes they can use in the outside. >> being involved in this has made me more disciplined. i feel better than i was outside. being achieving makes me a better person and gives me something to look to. >> hundreds have come to thailand'thailand's kong hung p. the color and noirs are merely a passing distraction. this event has become something of an annual reprieve for the inmates taking part, they can for a very brief moment forget about normal prison life.

but despite the competing atmosphere, the prisoners never forget why they're here. this is the 10th event that this been held here and the last for this. saw him win two professional world titles in two different classes, that was before he was jailed for dealing drugs. now he feels himself a role model for other inmates. >> i've had opportunities to box out of prison and had my sentence reduced, boxing has done a lot for my future. >> those receive a chance to compete beyond the prison walls and i hope they'll also be armed with a new respect for the sport. >> not just here in the states but in the u.s. as well, it's a

terrific story. >> thank you, michael. kevin corvu is here with the weather forecast and then it's al jazeera.

>> well, hello again. today was a brutal day against the northern and central plains because of the heat effect. it's all due to an area of high pressure across the central region. notice what the clouds are doing, coming up over the mountains up towards the northern plains and then back down towards the central region of the great lakes. keeping everything very clear but very sunny and very warm across that region. these temperatures i'm going to show you have come down slightly from away we have seen previously today. minneapolis is at 89°, still very warm near rapid city, they're seeing temperatures of 97. when you factor in the temperatures also with the humidity which last been in 60, 70% area, this is what you see for your heat index. right now minneapolis feels like 96°, omaha at 94, rapid city 94.

earlier today the heat index in minneapolis was all the way up to 113°. very significant. we expect to see very hot conditions across this region tomorrow. so stay out of the heat during the middle of day, drink plenty of liquids and if you have to do any activity outside make sure you do it in the morning or the late evening. that is what we're looking at. we're also looking at the temperatures dropping slightly over the next couple of days for minneapolis, above average all the way to the beginning of the labor day weekend. not until we get to sunday do we get to normal conditions there. rain coming into play across the northeast, coming across the great lakes. temperatures at 81°, washington is seeing 86 and philadelphia 85. that's a look at your national weather, your headlines are up next.

welcome to al jazeera, i'm john siegenthaler. here are the headlines. the obama administration says it is certain chemical weapons were used in syria, and blames the syrian government for the attack. the white house has promised an intelligence report on the attack this week. the syrian government has, again, denied the accusations. >> translator: we are all hearing the drums of war being beaten around us. if these countries are willing to launch an aggression or military act against syria, i believe the pretext of chemical weapons is false. and i challenge, i dare them to produce any single piece of evidence.