daley had opposed the financial reform bill and opposed the president's health care bill. we're going to hear from secretary daley. he was the commerce secretary during the first clinton administration, presumably when the president introduces him at 2:30. maybe we'll get clarification on that. here's an individual who's well known among democrats and well known in the business community. not so well known by president obama himself. it's interesting, both men are from chicago. they had a series of meetings, most recently yesterday when the president decided this morning that daley was going to be the pick to be the new white house chief of staff. it's been called the second most important job in washington after the president. he's a gate keeper and adviser and coo at the white house. bill daley will be the next chief of staff. >> mike, we'll bring the breaking news as soon as the president walks out with bill daley. thanks, we'll bring you the president's announcement at msnbc 25 minutes from now. now to day two of the new congress. it started this morning with the entire constitution being read right on the house floor. new house speaker john boehner started off the process. >> we the people of the united states, in order to form a more perfect union establish justice -- >> according to nbc's first recongressional historian say this is the first time that the constitution has been actually read on the house floor. it took about an hour and a half to complete the process. nbc's luke russert joins us live from capitol hill. luke, i heard democrats in the end say on our air earlier, this was a good idea. it was, if you will, a history reminder for our country. so set aside that, already there are some swings coming from democrats towards the republicans regarding the desire to cut 100 billion from the budget, that number now lowered. and also the process which the rules, if you will, that the republicans say they will operate when bringing up new laws. >> reporter: that's right. we're about a day into john boehner's speakership and yesterday we heard a lot of harmony with nancy pelosi saying he was man of conviction. the missiles are now being thrown. democrats coming out actively for two things you mentioned, number one they said they would cut $100 bm from federal spending this year. it's going to come in around 35 billion. the reason is the republicans had the projections upon a budget that president obama intended to pass last year. democrats did not pass a budget for the first time in a modern era. that's why they say the numbers will be lower. you can't cut $100 billion from the budget that's in place. in regards to the rules, a lot of democrats are upset, saying speaker boehner is is being hip critical. next week they will vote to repeal the health care law. they are not allowing any votes on that through a committee processor any amendments. the reason being, the republicans have said, we campaigned on the idea of repealing this bill and we don't necessarily need to litigate it. we're going to come up with a different option later where those types of things can be added. in terms of reading the constitution, it took an hour and a half. originally it was expected we didn't know whether or not democrats would participate. after clarification that the reading of the constitution would be the amended version, the one that does not include the controversial language that our founding fathers put in there, they make it applicable to contemporary times, it does not mention the slavery, democrats participated in that and made it a bipartisan readout. the bill that was just passed, congress has voted to cut their operating budget by 5% saving $35 million. a republican victory, something they campaigned on was cutting spending. democrats voted for it overwhelmingly as it came 410-13. democrats will sail it is a drop in the budget because you have a deficit that's 13 trillion doesn't do too much saving if you will. enjoy vegas, looks like you're having fun. >> it is good. don't worry about me, i'll be in early. i want to get back to the spending cuts. you have democrats criticizing the republicans saying they are going to cut far less than they pledge. what about members of the tea party? 40 plus new members of congress supported by the tea party. are they at all upset we're seeing a dial back on cuts possibly? >> reporter: the tea party isn't organized in a way in which we can elicit information. the tea party nation sent out a letter saying if you do not see the substantial duts in the billions going forward, we're going to run primary challenges against the candidates that came forward. a lot of what they'll have to do is walk a fine line between pla indicating the tea party element and governing in the normal republican way we've seen before. some of those things collide and are not necessarily the same. no joke about it, they understand that they cannot in any way sort of discard the tea party's concerns to one side. they feel they will do that going on especially when they create their own budget in the next fiscal year where they'll see massive spending cuts. expect the health care law to be cut drastically and that message to be promoted by the tea party. >> luke russert live on capitol hill. coming up, i'm talk to the virginia republican on the floor of the house this morning. and developing now, defense secretary robert gates is outlining plans to cut $100 billion from the pentagon budget over the next five years. his proposals are aimed the avoiding deeper cuts by the congress. canceling a program to build advanced amphibious vehicles and also a program years behind schedule and way overbudget. meantime, nbc news has learned an additional 1400 u.s. marines are on their way to afghanistan. they are being sent to hold onto the gains made by u.s. and afghan troops ahead of the taliban's spring offensive. secretary gates just made a surprise announcement, he announced that he is nominating general martin dempsey to be the next army chief of staff. the term of the current chief, george casey is up in april this year. an american woman has reportedly been arrested in iran and accused of hiding spy equipment in her teeth, hall talayan. he was arrested a week ago as she entered the country without a visa. iranian officials say the woman asked to not be returned for fear of her life. she would be the first american detained in iran since the hikers were taken into custody. as we told you at the top of show we are coming to you live from the consumer electronics show. it is a massive event that draws hundreds of thousands to nevada every year. i don't have to tell you the state certainly needs this economic boost. a new report says it will take nevada ten years to recover from this recession in las vegas. the numbers are dire. take a look at this, a 14% unemployment rate and more than 11,000 homes put into foreclosure in the month of november alone. but economists are betting that las vegas may be ready to stage a big comeback. nbc's lee cowan has a look at what's happening. >> reporter: this is the largest desert. when the cactus made way for casinos, the landscape changed forever. starting in the 1950s, las vegas was on a roll. the recession of 2008 hit hard. the fallout lingers. this architect has been jobless for a year and a half looking for work in a town where unemployment hovers at 14%. his life savings almost gone. >> unemployment has helped a little bit. at some point i'll have to rely on friends for that matter or family. >> you could say las vegas is ground zero for the great recession. we're in the worst shape of most states in the union. but for the last 12 months, we've sort of been bouncing around at the bottom. we're not quite sure that we bottomed out. we think we have and it looks like we might be recovering. >> reporter: but no recovery in the las vegas real estate market. neighbors south of the city have seen the highest foreclosure rates in the country and the they have a spillovereffect. a recent study shows nonforeclosed properties have lost about $78,000 each in value. >> we are definitely at the bottom, which is a positive in that context. again, it's an assured feeling for the consumer that now we're starting to see health on that side of it. the bleeding has stopped. >> reporter: the city's best hope for recovery arrives in las vegas every day. more than 3 million tourists a month in 2010. along the strip, developers are betting that business comes back. the 8.5 city sent sister opened its doors at the bottom of the recession, 6,000 hotel rooms added to the market. then the kos month poll tan ordered then tropicana's upgrade, from the casino to the pool area, hundreds of new jobs were created. >> the key to getting people back to work in las vegas is getting people back to work around the united states so they can afford to come here. >> reporter: las vegas -- >> i'm an author. >> reporter: still promotes the sin city image. >> cage fighter. >> reporter: has always bet on the future. remember architect dean la nukky, he didn't give up. >> people need to be openty mti to keep trying. >> reporter: he finally found a job but it's out of state. he makes a new start this month in texas. while back in las vegas, the city waits for its luck to improve. >> so what's next for nevada? joining me now is political analyst john roll sen. thanks for joining me. >> hi, tamron. >> listen, i'm looking around at ces, there are thousands of people here. this is after seeing a dip in the number of participants at this convention to just over 100,000. now they are expecting maybe 130,000 and upstick, another sign that things could be getting better for nevada. what's your perspective as we move ahead and you do look at the dire numbers line 14% unemployment but you contrast that with still having a powerful senator in harry reid? >> well, certainly harry reid can help to some extent, get federal money back here. he can help with things like unemployment benefits. it's great. ces is a bone to the community but how much of the 130,000 folks going to gamble. they can't keep the city center in business and as you saw before, those opened at bad times in this town, especially kos mow poll tan. here this is a town built on optimism saying we've stopped the bleeding, we're at the bottom. but no one knows how long we're going to remain at the bottom because are tourists going to keep spending money if they don't have money to spend? what you really focus on, the housing market is an absolute disaster. we had the most booming housing market in the country. then the bottom fell out and a significant number of people in this community are under water in their homes -- and walking away from -- >> i apologiapologize. i've got breaking news out of morning. richard liu is following breaking news. >> tamron, this is from the associated press, state officials saying that two packages have exploded in state government buildings. again, two packages exploding in state government buildings. we expect to get pictures from a local station there. what we're hearing at the moment is that anne arundel county and maryland state police investigating after packages exploded in the mail room. we're looking at live pictures from one of the local stations there, i believe it's wbal. and this is getting the information that one explosion occurring at around 1:00 p.m. in the mail room, about an hour and 15 minutes ago. it happened in the maryland department of transportation headquarters. and in hanover, shortly after 1:00 p.m. on thursday, again, that's the time stamp we're getting. at around 1:30, another package exploded about 30 minutes after that. that happened in the jeffries state office building in annapolis. now that building just off state circle, if you're familiar with that area. we're expecting to hear more information. what we have here tamron is that no one was injured. they have hazmat crews and some of the vehicles you see in live pictures out of hanover, maryland, no one was injured as of yet. we have the hazmat crews at the scene of both locations. two packages exploding within the last hour, hour and 15 minutes as state police are on location at the moment. tamron? >> richard, i'm looking at this video here. i'm assuming we're not seeing traffic because they have closed off the area. the gray building you see to the side there, no activity, people going in or out. i'm trying to find out if they evacuated these buildings but the only activity you see on the ground there, emergency personnel, no vehicle traffic other than those emergency vehicles we see there on the ground. again, this is in annapolis where state officials say two packages have exploded in state government buildings. as my colleague richard liu is reporting. so far we heard of no injuries but this area has by all appearances been closed off to any activity other than emergency personnel we see around there a few fire trucks and ambulances but no reports of any injuries or anyone hurt in this. we're following this breaking news right now out of annapolis. we're working to get more information on this. richard, i understand you have more details for me? >> tamron, as we can look at the vehicles here, i was counting some of them. in with this one shot, number of eight vehicles, three or four fire trucks and we have unmarked vehicles as well. this is right after lunch according to what we're hearing from wbal and from the associated press, happening at 1:00 p.m. and then 1:30 p.m. within 30 minutes of each other, these two packages exploding. and the saving grace, as you were noting there, is that no one was injured. the question might be, as they have hazmat crews on pt site, what might be they be looking for? what might they find based on the elements that are left over after the packages have exploded? and for that matter, what question they are probably trying to answer is, what about other packages that may have come in during the same delivery, how many packages were delivered in that one delivery from the postal service? and tamron, that is certainly what we'll be watching for as these live pictures continue. >> richard, according to wbal tv's website, state agencies have been advised to not deliver or open any mail. nbc's terrorism analyst roger kres gi is with me on the phone. we're looking at two explosions at the maryland department of transportation. we see a lot of emergency vehicles but the state agencies have been advised to not deliver or open any mail. what are your thoughts? >> the first step for authorities is to ensure there aren't any digsal additional packages and to not open anything. what you're going to see quickly is an examination of the remnants of the devices that exploded and see if there's anything tell tale that can come out of that examination once they've been able to secure the area and be highly confident there aren't any additional explosive devices nearby. step one is to secure the perimeter and ensure there are no other devices. step two is to identify what was behind this, what type much device and whether or not that can lead them in one direction in the investigation. >> roger, according to wbal tv, the two packages exploded in this mail room, the source said when the packages were opened in the mail rooms of the building, a small explosion happened. obviously after we saw that scare with cargo planes, we all start to ask the question, are there loopholes with cargo planes. with the mail, i don't know if this was u.s. mail delivery or u.p.s. or other source of delivery, you always think about how these packages present weaknesses in our effort to keep people safe. >> well, we also just had a series of letter and package bomb explosions in europe and greece and italy linked back to an an ar kist group. i doubt that's the case here but the reminder in the mail delivery system and any type of package delivery system, screening is very, very difficult. think back to 2001 when we had the anthrax scare and what the u.s. government went through in trying to screen packages then. very, very difficult to come up with a process that makes a lot of sense. particularly at state and local levels. because you don't have the same type of security procedures you have in place that you do at the federal level and with the national security community. it's almost an impossible task and really the issue will be did someone send this who is d disgruntled or is this a series of devices. >> it's interesting again, this is a state government building that's been targeted with the two packages that exploded. you and i know there's been an investigation throughout the washington, d.c. area where military installations have been targeted by an individual firing off shots. no one injured there but the fbi and other investigators indicating that this person may have a beef, if you will or grievance with the military. and this building being a transportation department building, a state government building now being targeted. >> right, if it is a specific department within the state of maryland that an individual had a problem with, maybe this is what is leading to it. it could also be a whole series of individuals who have grievances we don't even know. what is always important at this point, that the forensics investigation of the remnants of these devices will probably lead law enforcement in a direction pretty quickly. certainly eyeing where the device came from and who might be behind it is the objective here. >> we're getting information, our colleague pete williams sending out more details that authorities believe that these packages apparently were sent through the mail. that's what an official working on this, federal official is saying right now, that the packages were apparently sent through the mail. >> and again, you're looking at tamron, a case where state and federal authorities in a number of different states had to deal with threats in the past. they are usually one-offs, the individual, the agrefd person, who decides to lash out in this violent way. it is atypical that an organization would be behind something like this, particularly one in the united states. although you can't discount it because the investigation is just beginning. >> right, thank you roger. we'll get you to stand by while we get more details. i want to send it back to msnbc headquarters. richard liu is standing by with more details. >> tamron, for viewers just joining us, this is the latest in terms of what we know right now. about 1:00. one package exploding at a building there in annapolis. we're getting live pictures. to the left of me coming out of hanover, maryland from our affiliate, wbal. at 1:30 p.m., a second package going off. the first one happened in the maryland department of transportation headquarters then at 1:30 at the jeffries state office building there in annapolis as well. as you were noting there, what we're hearing from our justice correspondent pete williams these were packages that appear to have been sent through the mail. no one was hurt in either of the incidences. and both of the packages emitted a small bang or flame. no one was hurt in either of those incidences. and that is what we know at the moment. tamron, this britz us -- reminds us of what happened not too long ago when we were looking at europe when the italians were reeling after they had some bombs that were delivered -- packages delivered to them and later in rome, a couple days after, they had two package bombs that exploded in embassies. they were then looking for links there. we are seeing somewhat of a parallel here in that we see two packages that appear to have been been sent through the mail then exploding. the difference here though, we don't have any injuries so that's good to know. >> all right, thank you very much, richard. i want to bring in former fbi profiler clint van zaent. we're watching this breaking news out of maryland. this is in hanover, maryland where two packages apparently sent through the mail exploded. and this transportation building. in the preliminary stages we're trying to get more information and figure out what's happening there. >> so far it sounds like these are relatively minor explosions or debt nations. what that means is that there should be evidence left. from the federal side you'll have the postal inspectors and fbi and atf will come in, which have good laboratories, and depending on how much forensic evidence is left, we have the potential of fingerprints, dna, a lot that can lead to the identification of the person or persons who sent this. >> and again, we're seeing a government building targeted here. this is the maryland department of transportation headquarters in hanover, maryland, clint. >> yeah, now, there's normally a reason why someone does this, but of course, it can run the gam mut. it could be anywhere from just teenagers sending as a device suggests, perhaps a firecracker type device or someone trying to send a warning or trying to emulate the recent bombings take place in europe. the key to this is going to be where they were sent from and once again the amount of forensic evidence they are able to gather. they are looking for finger prints, not just physical fingerprints but the ability of the person who put the devices together and what does that suggest about the person's profile and obviously their motive is what we're trying to get too before anyone else gets hurt on anything like this. >> clint, i don't want to speculate too far over what is reasonable here but you and i covered a lot of breaking news and incidents where people targeted government building. this is not an unfamiliar territory to either of us. but you do wonder to your point whether it's teenagers or some dis gruntled former employee, why people act out in this way knowing that there are innocent folks in the building and disguising the explosives in the mail. someone has got to open the mail and someone is going to receive that mail. >> there's a lot to look at too. was the device activated based upon a timer or because someone attempted to open it? all of us will tell us about the sophistication. we have two different levels we're looking at. number one, the sophistication of assembling the device and the legality of the device. were these the extent of the explosive or perhaps is this just suggested that the detonator went off and the explosive package itself didn't? the larger device, the more lethal it is and greater suggestion that it's someone who is not just trying to get attention but perhaps trying to hurt someone. but this will bring out all levels of law enforcement because usually when we see a couple of devices like this in the future, unfortunately we see them again. >> clint, thank you very much. i'll ask you to stand by. i'll send it back to richard liu. you have a few more details? >> we've been looking into this. the two locations what we understand right now, the area of hanover, for those who aren't familiar with this area, is about 20 minutes southwest of baltimore. that's how far outside baltimore. you can drive 20 minutes southwest. one of the buildings where there was a bombing, the jeffrey building. let me tell you who's inside. it was built in 1965, pretty large, about 34,000 square feet. it has the office of the governor's office of homeland security. it also has the office of planning, the secretary of state and veterans affairs as well as the executive office for the state of maryland as well. so these are the offices and the agencies that are in the jeffrey building. that jeffrey building being the second building, the second bomb that had gone off according to what we understand at the moment. the distance between the two buildings is roughly about 26 miles, about 37, 38 minutes between each other. let's go to pete williams, our justice correspondent who got the early pieces of information. what are you hearing right now? >> the main thing to think about, these are very small devices. one person i talked to said it's probably not even accurate to say they exploded when they were opened. they were more like flares, emitted a little pop and perhaps a little bit of a flame. these are very small devices. so what you're seeing here is the obvious precautions that will now be taken to make sure there are no other ones. they'll look to see if they might be sent -- if they are sent to two state offices, could they be sent to others, others in the mail so far. fortunately, these are very small devices and as i say, one official said it's probably not even accurate to say they exploded. it's more that they popped or let off a little flame, more like a flare. >> all right, pete, we're going to go back to tamron hall watching this for us. >> all right, richard, thank you very much. i want to send our audience to washington where president obama is about to announce his new chief of staff, william daley, let's listen in. >> to step into the breach and lead us through a very difficult time. i also ask pete to help us think about how the white house should be structured and run over the next two years. thanks in no small part to his efforts, a period that everybody thought would be one of retrenchment turned out to be one of great progress for our country. and pete's leadership is all the more remarkable when you consider when i first met him and asked him to lead my senate staff, he told me in that gruf voice of us, that a strong inclination was to leave government. [ applause ] so the reason everybody is applauding because they've heard him say that every day. they've heard him say that every day for the last six years. and yet each time i've asked him to accept one more assignment, he saddled up and taken the job. and it's fair to say i would not be where i am today without his extraordinary council. pete didn't volunteer to serve as interim chief of staff. he made it clear that was not his preference but he accepted the responsibility and as he oversaw a strategy during the lame duck session of congress, he also was working to develop a structure and plan for the next two years that i believe will serve the white house and more importantly the american people very well. one of those assignments was providing me recommendations for candidates to serve as chief of staff moving forward. as part of that process today i'm proud to announce the appointment of an experienced public servient, a devoted patriot, my friend, fellow chicagoan bill daley to serve as my chief of staff. [ applause ] a few americans can boast the breadth of experience that bill brings to this job. he served as a member of president clinton's cabinet, as commerce secretary. he took on several other important duties over the years on behalf of our country. he's led major corporations. he possesses a deep understanding of how jobs are created and how to grow our economy. and needless to say, bill also has a smidgen of awareness of how our system of government and politics works. you might say it is a genetic trait. but most of all, i know bill to be somebody who cares deeply about this country, believes in its promise and considers no calling higher and more important than serving the american people. he will bring his tremendous experience, his strong values and forward-looking vision to this white house. i'm convinced that he'll help us in our mission of growing our economy and moving america forward and i very much look forward to working with bill in the years to come. before i ask bill to say a few words, i should also confess, i have prevailed once again on pete's sense of duty or sense of guilt i'm not sure which and i'm grateful he has agreed to one more tour of duty as my counselor for the next two years. [ applause ] [ applause ] as you might have noticed people like pete. he is a unique and indispensable asset to me and this administration. i cannot imagine life here without him and i told him so and i'm delighted we're able to keep him a little bit longer. i'll be making further announcements in the days and weeks ahead and i am absolutely confident that we will have a great team that's equal to america's task in the years to come. but with that, what i'd like to do is introduce my new chief of staff, bill daley. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. thank you. thank you, mr. president. thank you. thank you very much. thank you, mr. president. thank you very much, mr. president, mr. vice president, you have honored me and my family by giving me an opportunity to serve you and to serve our nation. 50 years ago this month i visited the white house with my parents and my brothers and sisters to advice the a young people who went on to show great strength and leadership and vision in the face of enormous challenges in those times. you, mr. president, have proven your strength, your leadership, your vision during a most difficult time for our nation and for the world. you have also shown through your example that public service is an honorable calling and i'm pleased to answer your call. i look forward to working with the staff you assembled and i know my job will be made easier by the great direction of pete rouse, over the last couple of months and the president talked about the enormous successes under pete's watch. pete too has dedicated his life to public service and to our nation and i'm grateful for his efforts and i'm proud to call him my colleague. i assure with you mr. president, as they have done in the last two years, that this time will not let you down or the nation. thank you very much for this extreme honor. [ applause ] >> we are listening to breaking news out of washington, d.c., president obama naming his new chief of staff, someone very familiar to many folks because of his last name, bill daley, also the former commerce secretary under president clinton. chuck todd is with us, also new york times chicago columnist for the chicago news james warren, who is with us. and we also have with us eric eserklein. what does he bring to the table for this administration? >> this is a manager and somebody who will be comfortable be a public face. axelrod and gibs are both leaving and bill daley will fill that role as well. the second thing that makes the hiring unique, the president and bill daley are not familiar with each other. they are not really close friends. chicago is a big city. in fact, the daleys for a long time were put off by the way they felt as if then candidate obama wasn't giving them enough shall we say enough attention. they got to know -- they had to get to know each other over the last two months. that's why this didn't happen sooner. i had one person involved in the reorganization process tell me this should have been done before hawaii but it wasn't because the president, who was handling this himself, he got intut but was dealing with it himself, didn't know him well enough yet. that's what they've been doing over the last few months. >> chuck, what do you know about the behind the scenes process? i'm fascinated by the technology. >> simply to make sure their styles don't clash. i know folks pushing for bill daley, for the president to sit down with him and decide whether -- learn about him and decide whether he was the right guy thought the two had similar temperaments, they are adapters. and one thing that the president would really like about bill daley, as peter hart said to me, he's fully formed. doesn't need this title of white house chief of staff to build up his resume. he's already got a pretty good resume and pretcy successful career. that tells you that it's somebody who isn't afraid to break some china. >> let me bring in james warren. you're an expert on chicago politics. what do you make of the terminology or the discrimination fully formed that bill daley is fully formed and brings a lot to the table, including praise from republicans who believe he can bridge gaps that are obviously existing? >> yeah, exactly. ize shrewd and experienced and discreet and run presidential campaigns and run a cabinet office. he was in very early in the obama presidential campaign, he and his older brother in the obama camp. even though there's a suggestion that he's got enough on his resume, this really tops a career in which i think deep down there was a craving to one day be an elected official himself but he could not pull it off. he brings to the table a guy who quite apart from the early caricature of bill daley banker. he's really not a banker even though he spent of the last six or seven years. but he is a guy who facilitated and shrewd operative that folks on both sides of the aisle like. >> let me bring in ezra. you heard he's a banker but not really a banker. do you think the left will buy this description that he could spend so much years in the banking world and not be of that ilk. you know right now what many on the left are saying and believe about bill daley being named to this position. >> the left will have more problems than him being a banker. they are not going to swallow that too easily. over the past couple years he has pushed the argument that the obama administration was too far to the left. he said the health care reform bill was a mistake to do and he opposed the consumer financial protection bureau. he penned an op-ed saying that democrats have moved too far to the left. that will end up being the problem for the left. given that his whole fill os fee of what the administration did wrong, listen too much to liberals. >> ezra, thank you very much. james, thanks you as well. i want to bring back chuck. we talked earlier this week about whether there would be shake-up with this administration or be mild changes. here we are approaching the end of the week and we have more announcements expected tomorrow. how, overall do you describe what is happening here and what we can expect. >> we can use robert gibbs' own phrase he used today and yesterday, major retooling. when you look at the inner circle of the west wing, if you look at it eight to ten people, there are only three that will stick around, pete rouse, at this point. you have dan fiver and valley ja jarrett. we know david plouffe is coming in. here's what it says from 20,000 feet. if the last -- the first two years of the obama administration was a west wing geared to dealing with congress and trying to run washington, this is a team that's being put together that is geared toward not just dealing with a re-election but also dealing with democratic officials and problems and trying to govern outside of washington. whether that's being more responsive to governors and the needs of mayors, just the nonwashington political players and that's what bill daley brings to the table, for instance that maybe these other folks did not. >> chuck, thank you very much for helping us out with this breaking news. again, we are following breaking news out of hanover maryland where two, what we believe to be small explosives went off in a mail room. so far no injuries have been reported. one was at a department of transportation building, another at a government building about 26 miles away. we're continuing to follow this breaking news and we'll bring you any developments. right now these packages that exploded said to be minor. we're also following news out here in las vegas, nevada, we're live at the consumer electronics show. we'll be right back after a quick break. a tool where people can enter the terms of the refinance offer they got from their mortgage guy, and know instantly if they're getting bamboozled. and i will start after lunch...tomorrow. don't just think about it. introducing lendingtree's free "look before you lock" tool. enter the terms of your existing loan offer to instantly find out how it compares to other offers, areas you may be overpaying, and even negotiation points to help you get a better deal. only at lendingtree. [ tires squeal ] an accident doesn't have to slow you down. introducing "better car replacement," available only from liberty mutual insurance. if your car's totaled, we give you the money to buy a car that's one model year newer with 15,000 fewer miles on it. there's no other auto insurance product like it. better car replacement, available only from liberty mutual. it's a better policy that gets you a better car. call -- or visit one of our local offices today, and we'll provide the coverage you need at the right price. liberty mutual auto insurance -- responsibility. what's your policy? welcome back. we're continuing to follow breaking news here on news nation. i want to send it back to richard liu. he had some developments in his breaking news out of hanover, maryland. what do you have? >> as you were covering breaking news outs of washington. we have more data we were able to find. to recap, two packages exploded, one at 1:00, one at 1:30, this in the annapolis, maryland area and hafr over, maryland area. two buildings affected by it. the maryland department of transportation and jeffrey state office building. they are about 40 minutes away from each other, southwest of baltimore. these are the agencies inside the buildings. when we talk about the jeffrey building, there's an executive office state of maryland and governor's office of homeland security, the planning office of the state of maryland, the secretary of state and veterans affairs. that building is fairly large, about 35,000 square feet. it was built in 1965. the other building has about 1,000 people inside of it. that building, the maryland department of transportation and i'm going to give you a couple. there's a lot of different agencies inside that structure. a maryland aviation commission, state highway administration, motor vehicle's administration, maryland port commission, many different agencies in there. now the explosive devices, the latest information that we're getting from our justice correspondent pete williams is that they were small, the size of a book. and that they gave off small explosions, almost like a poof sound, very small. and it -- that they emitted smoke about the size of a book. then to get back to you, tamron, looking up the number of packages and this brings to mind for us the difficulty that u.p.s. has, they sort nearly a million packages a day. the united states postal service in the time i'm saying this, 400,000 pieces of mail they are delivering and sorting. >> that is incredible. thank you very much. i want to bring in clint van zandt. the information we're receiving from pete williams is that this explosive, if you will, can hardly be called that. it was almost flare-like. what do you make of the preliminary details we've learned regarding this device? >> well, right now federal and state investigators will be doing just what you and your colleague richard are doing, looking at the two sites where the devices came and trying to find out what they have in common. it's aparent they were delivered the same day, had the same type of characteristics, probably sent by the same person or persons. then the issues becomes, what were they targeting? as this investigation goes on, they'll be looking was this in misguided juvenile attention to get interest or could it be someone who sent a device because they are testing to see if the device would in fact be delivered and something else could follow. right now we don't know. even though it's a very small device and pete williams is always right on top of these things. we don't know what's going to follow. as we said earlier, we don't know if other devices were sent today. i would suggest there are federal and state buildings all over the country that are taking a second look at the mail that comes in today. >> again, we want to stress the information that our own pete williams has been able to obtain is that these are small packages that exploded in these two different buildings, about 26 miles apart. clint, even if this turns out to be small packages, it still brings back the conversation on loopholes that you have individuals, may they be people from other countries or in our own borders who are looking for loopholes to deliver a small explosive or whatever else they may want to sentd out to harm or terrorize individuals. >> this is why i think investigators will be careful not to minimize what has happened so far today. we know it wasn't that long today, just within the last couple of months, we had individuals trying to send explosive devices internationally concealed inside printer cart ridges. there is a testing that's going on all the time, how thorough are we? how can we test our devices? we can go back to the anthrax letters to see how easy it was to do something like that, to send some type of explosive device is one step up with the millions and millions of pieces of mail that are sent every day, it presents an almost unsur mountable challenge to search every piece and this can be the result since we can't. >> thanks clint. we'll continue to follow this breaking news out of hanover, maryland as authorities investigate these two small explosives that went off in two separate buildings in hanover, maryland. we'll continue to follow the breaking news. we're live in las vegas nevada, at the consumer electronics show. 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[ bat cracks ] that's a hit. one a day men's. taking charge. the republicans in the house get right to the business of setting the agenda. are there some roadblocks in their way? >> autism and vaccines. where is the truth? god's green earth, does god want all of us to be an environmentalist? a fascinating debate. great to have you with me today. i'm thomas roberts. we're going to have more on those stories coming up. first let's begin with developing news out of maryland where federal officials say two packages popped or released small flames inside state government buildings a short time ago. justice correspondent pete williams joins us live from washington. what else do we know at this hour? >> first of all, maryland police say there were