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[ male announcer ] engine light on? come to meineke now for a free code scan read and you'll say...my money. my choice. my meineke. you know what the music means, time to get a laugh on. >> we are going to start with the new york city ban on the gigantic sodas. >> they're passing a ban on large sugary sodas. mayor bloomberg is considering a ban on styrofoam cups. at this point i'm starting to think 7-eleven slept with his girlfriend. >> obama took 12 republicans out to dinner, like a restaurant. like on a date. really, and he picked up the tab. i swear to god, i didn't even know he had this, but he put down the white house credit card. bad news for the economy, it was denied. >> denied. >> it was his personal credit card actually. a lot more ahead on "cnn saturday morning" starts right now. good morning, everyone, i'm brianna keilar in for rapirandi. the taliban is sending a message to chuck hagel. a suicide bomber blew himself up at the gates of the afghan defense ministry in kabul hours after hagel arrived in the capital. nine people were killed, 14 others were wounded. >> hagel is fine, expressed condolences to the victims. the pentagon says he was moved to a safe location. chris lawrence was at a briefing near the blast. and he says the room shook and he could hear that explosion. there are some new signs this morning that the economy may be getting back on track and that's good news for anyone, of course, who is waiting in unemployment lines. hiring picked up last month as the economy added 236,000 jobs. wall street liked it too. but there are fears the ongoing battle over budget cuts could reverse the positive trend. cnn's national political correspondent jim acosta is at the white house. jim? >> reporter: brianna and victor, after the positive jobs numbers, white house officials have a spring in their step, but they are well aware there are plenty of obstacles that still exist that could trip up this recovery. after the latest jobs report found the nation's unemployment rate had dipped to levels not seen since before president obama took office, the white house wanted to know one thing, where were all the questions about the good news? >> i suspected the jobs numbers had been different, it would have taken less than four people for me to ask about them. that's the nature of our work here. >> the obama administration warns don't get too excited. this report does not account for the automatic budget cuts that just took effect. >> democrats and republicans agree that the sequester will have a negative impact on job creation. >> reporter: which makes the latest outreach to republicans all the more important. it coincided with a secret dinner they had with bill and hillary clinton more than a week ago. they have a history of brinkmanship with the gop in the '90s. >> he mentioned that as his advice that perhaps some outreach was the right thing to do? >> i can confirm the dinner. in terms of the president's bipartisan outreach for members of congress, that was something that started before that dinner. >> whenever it started, one republican urged the president to keep it up. >> this is a change we should encourage. whether it's motivated for all sorts of reasons we don't understand or not. >> but more budget drama on the horizon. marco rubio told a conservative radio host he may not sign on to the latest temporary spending bill. >> about a year and a half ago, i voted for the continuing resolution and i announced this is the last stopgap measure i'll vote for. i'll only vote from here on on something serious and so far we haven't asked that. >> asked if that meant he might filibuster the bill, a spokesman told cnn, we're reviewing our options. where officials say the autom automatic cuts are forcing them to stop tours. visitors are losing their patience. >> i think it's unfair because it's supposed to be government for the people. they're not letting the people see the government. >> the white house is conducting some business in secret these days that officials won't talk about until well after they happen. the obama administration is evolving in its second term, but it's doing so cautiously and quietly. brianna and victor. >> thanks, jim. the weather has been creating a lot of problems, a violent storm along the massachusetts coast knocks out at least two homes, knocked them right off the foundations and into the ocean. look at this. this house is teetering on the edge of this cliff here going into the sea and a second house fell into the atlantic overnight. the whole thing. at least ten others are in jeopardy and they're on a popular vacation spot. long threatened by coastal erosion. john atwater is there. john, first good to have you, but second, what are authorities there doing to keep these homes safe from more damage? >> you know, victor, that's the really tough part here. they really can't do much at this point because the tide's coming in. we're going to see high tide in about two hours and the waves, they keep battering these homes in the distance. you can see that home, it collapsed at about 1:30 this morning. and again, we're two hours from high tide here. you can see the waves, they're just bashing this house. the deck there, it's been moving along all morning. the concern here is that the sea will pull all of this debris out and bring it back in and bash it against some of these other homes compromising more homes here. right next door to us, you can see this foundation, that is not looking good this morning. so crews there keeping a close eye on this home because, yes, along with the other, it certainly could collapse here. now, we are at a home that is secured, we're on a deck here on plum island. i wanted to show you this house that teetered over and went on to the beach yesterday. there it is and it's still hanging on, but the waves, they are battering that home this morning. there's some concrete slabs at the bottom protecting it. but what crews want to do, they want to try to dismantle these homes so that the debris doesn't erode more of the shoreline. we'll have to wait for high tide because the waves are coming in. now, if you come back this way, just want to show you these stairs, this is absolutely incredible. this deck used to lead right to a beach, then the water and look down the stairs. everything is gone here. obviously this is something these homeowners have been battling for years. but when you look at this, it really is discouraging this morning here on plum island. >> they've been battling it for years and i'm sure there's a gamble that comes with that view. and when you move to plum island, you know this is potential. how much fore warning did the residents have? did they know this was a possibility they could be in this kind of trouble? >> yeah, they certainly knew it was a possibility, victor, all of this erosion happened over a number of years. and just this winter we've had so many storms here. and look at this angry ocean and it continues to just erode the beach and really put these homes in jeopardy here. they knew it was coming, they tried to prepare. there's some loopholes they have to get through that puts sandbags down there and just not enough in this winter storms we've had. >> thank you for showing us the lay of the land there. the vatican says the conclave to choose a new pope will begin on tuesday. 115 cardinals have made their way to the vatican where they will determine who will lead the world's 1 billion catholics. cardinals from ghana and the u.s. are said to be among the leading candidates. within the last hour, crews finished installing a special chimney to the top of the sistine chapel. this is what they do for every papal conclave. and we'll know when the cardinals decided on the next pope when that white smoke comes out of that chimney. >> not the first one, but the last conclave. you're wondering, is that gray? is it white? okay, it's still black. >> and they can mess it up too, as we understand. >> really? >> it can sort of get messed up. we're hoping that it obviously goes according to plan or there will be a lot of confusion. >> let's go as planned. brianna, it's happening again. >> that's right. a big space rock the size of a city block is expected to buzz by us at this hour. >> don't worry, there's no danger of it hitting us. the closest it will come to earth, about 605,000 miles. we're good. about 2 1/2 times the distance from the earth to the moon. joining us for more, alexandria steele and lawrence krause, the author of the book "a universe from nothing." alexandra, let's start with you. how big is this compared to some other recent space rocks in the news like the one that hit russia last month. will we be able to see this with the naked eye? >> oh, absolutely not. it's too faint, too far, you can't see it. the closest pass is coming right now. you can't see it, though, with the telescope in your backyard. a lot of the east coast has good visibility, but it's not possible. it is the size of a football field. it's called 2013et, only discovered nine days ago, that's the unsettling aspect. and you can see, we did talk about how close it was, not that close, 2 1/2 times the distance between the earth and the moon. but it was recently discovered. and that's the interesting point we'll talk to lawrence about. >> yeah, and that's really the concern, lawrence. because there's this -- you wonder, what do you call them? near earth objects? there are a number of them that are actually potentially hazardous. if you only find out on sunday that there is one like this, might we not know about one of these potentially hazardous ones in time to figure out what to do about it? >> well, look -- there are small ones we won't know about and there are ones that collide with the earth all the time. but something this size, the probability is very small. something this size collides with the earth on average once every million years. it's not something to worry about. i'd like to turn it around instead of talking about the threat and talk about the positive aspects. these are messengers from the beginning of our solar system. and they're fascinating the fact they come near earth. some of them may have originally seeded life on earth. and when they're actually interesting scientifically and they're not -- as i say, these kind of large objects impact on the earth very, very rarely. it's not something i would stay up at night worrying about right now. >> that makes me feel much better, lawrence. i'll be honest. talk to us a little bit about the difference between this, which is an asteroid and then, was it a meteor -- >> so many terms going around. >> it's confusing. >> yeah, a lot of them refer to the same thing. an asteroid is actually an object that comes from -- between us and jupiter. there's a region of the solar system between mars and jupiter where there probably was once a planet that collides together and produced a lot of debris. when we see these asteroids, we're seeing these that were failed planets. comets on the other hand are different, they're big balls of ice and there's a comet that's coming by near us right now. they often come from the outer solar system. and they're amazing because, in fact, they are messengers from the very beginning of our solar system. and one of the interesting things about comets is, we've discovered there are chemical processes on comets that produce am amino acids. most of the water on earth probably came from comets that impacted on the earth in its early history. >> and we know something you just said stood out to me, the closest it's coming, it's passing by now? >> yeah, this is at 7:09. my question to you, lawrence, there's obviously no danger, but it is unsettling for people because they were detected only days ago whether it be by universities or by scientists. do you think there's a need for more asteroid detection? >> oh, yeah, i think it's very important that we fund -- and we are funding these near earth object detection systems. we need to do it. it doesn't cost a lot. and it's important for us because as i say if this object hit the earth would cause a lot of hesitation. we might need to do something about it. but in some sense, we're suffering from embarrassment of riches. it's true that this was only detected nine days ago, but a decade ago, we probably wouldn't have detected it at all and wouldn't have worried about it. so we're getting better and able to see more objects and learning about -- there's lots of stuff going around and coming near the earth. and as i say, very small objects impacting on the earth all the time. about 100 tons a day of material is actually falling on the earth from the heavens. >> how do you compare this to the russian meteor that did do damage in february? >> yeah, well, the russian meteor was much smaller and most of it didn't make it down to the earth and exploded in the atmosphere, which is what happens to most. by the way, meteors are little bits of asteroids that fall towards the earth and disintegrate in the atmosphere, most of them. and this one is a lot larger, an object the size of the one that fell on russia, it falls about once every century. and they're exponentially smaller. so one that's as large as this will fall once every million years. and as i say something life threatening falls once every 100 million years. the smaller they are, the more frequent the impact on earth and the larger, the less frequent. >> that is good to know. fascinating stuff. thanks, guys. we've got a whole lot ahead this hour. >> here's a look at what's coming up. wall street's had a wild week, but is it the end or only the beginning? and could your nest egg become a golden goose? they'll take your toothpaste and shampoo, but apparently an improvised explosive device is safe from tsa detection. taylor swift's message to two comedians, there's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women. we'll tell you who's made the pop princess mad. 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