Japan Nuclear Crisis | featured news

A diplomat who has access to radiation tracking by the U.N.'s Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization told The Associated Press in Vienna that initial readings show tiny amounts of radiation have reached California. But it's not dangerous in any way – "about a billion times beneath levels that would be health threatening," the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the organization does not make its findings public.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will conduct a "comprehensive review" of the safety of all U.S. nuclear plants following what U.S. officials are calling the dangerous and complicated situation at Japan's damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors....

A top Japanese official acknowledged Friday that the government was overwhelmed by the scale of last week's twin disasters, slowing its response ...

Markets calmed Thursday, opening broadly higher in New York. Markets regained their losses Thursday, after falling nearly 2% on Wednesday as Japan’s nuclear crisis and protests in the Middle East heated up fears over the safety in equity investments. Oil added to its gains Thursday, rising 2% to $99.99 a barrel.

A clamor for iodine salt leads to long lines and mob scenes at stores across China after rumors spread of a radioactive cloud from Japan's quake-damaged nuclear plant. The hordes are under the false impression that consuming the seasoning would protect against radiation poisoning.

Gregory Jaczko, head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, says the crisis is worse than Japanese officials appear to be letting on. 'This is a situation where people may be called in to sacrifice their lives,' he says of the crew working there.

Concerns over the deteriorating condition of Japan's stricken nuclear reactors, and the effect on global economies, sparked the Dow's biggest selloff since August and left the S&P 500 in the red for 2011.

Fears of radiation sickness stemming from the unfolding nuclear crisis in Japan prompt a surge in US sales of potassium iodide, a preventative drug.

Japan's devastating earthquake and deepening nuclear crisis could result in losses of up to $200 billion for the world's third largest economy but the global impact remains hard to gauge five days after a massive tsunami battered the northeast coast.

It seems too impossible to believe, but according to reports from CNN, Reuters and the AP tonight, the last workers at the Fukashima-Daiichi reactors have been withdrawn from the scene, halting efforts to continue cooling partially melted fuel rods with ocean water. Just a day earlier 750 more workers had been removed. Exhaustion, radiation exposure, hopelessness–we don’t yet know the reason for this latest move. Earlier in the day new fires, explosions and clouds of smoke or steam were spotted. Maybe the evacuation means that the worst of the danger is over (how else could they leave?) — but that doesn’t seem likely.