A spokesman says the fourth reactor at a damaged nuclear plant is now on fire; more radiation has been released, and it's enough in nearby areas to have an impact on health. Japan's prime minister says radiation has spread from the damaged reactors and warned of risks of more leaks. People within 19 miles of the power plant have been ordered to remain indoors. Details to follow.
Society's Child
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Also known as K-I for its combined names on the Table of Elements, potassium iodide floods the body with non-radioactive iodine that then fends off radioactive iodine from nuclear exposure.
It proved very effective in fighting thyroid cancer in Europe after the Chernobyl disaster. It is being handed out in pill form to people living near the crippled nuclear reactors in Japan.
And even though experts have repeatedly said there is no current threat of a nuclear release reaching the U.S., a holistic nutrition store on Seattle's Capitol Hill had its modest supply of potassium iodide sold out in hours.
"Oh yeah, they're really scared," said Rae Diamond of Rainbow Natural Remedies, "and that's the main thing...to try to quiet the fears."
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Explosion at nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan.
Explosion at nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan.
But given the American government's cover up of the severity of the BP oil disaster, the health risk to New Yorkers after 9/11, and numerous other health issues, we will have to educate and empower ourselves.
As ABC News notes, experts says that Japan has a long history of nuclear cover-ups.
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A satellite photo of the Fukushima Daiichi plant showed the damage done in earlier explosions
A satellite photo of the Fukushima Daiichi plant showed the damage done in earlier explosions
The blast occurred at reactor 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which engineers had been trying to stabilise after two other reactors exploded.
One minister has said it is "highly likely" that the rods might melt. Radiation levels near the plant have risen.
The crisis was sparked by a 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami on Friday.
Thousands of people are believed to have died, and millions are spending a fourth night without water, food, electricity or gas. More than 500,000 people have been left homeless.
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Agriculture committees in the Iowa House and Senate have approved a bill that would prohibit such recordings and punish people who take agriculture jobs only to gain access to animals to record their treatment. Proposed penalties include fines of up to $7,500 and up to five years in prison. Votes by the full House and Senate have not yet been set.
Doug Farquhar, program director for environmental health at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said Iowa would be the first state to approve such restrictions but Florida is considering similar legislation. The Iowa measure was introduced after a number of group released videos showing cows being shocked, pigs beaten and chicks ground up alive.
"It's very transparent what agribusiness is attempting to do here," said Bradley Miller, national director of the Humane Farming Association, a California-based group dedicated to protecting farm animals from abuse. "They're trying to intimidate whistleblowers and put a chill on legitimate anti-cruelty investigations. Clearly the industry feels that it has something to hide or it wouldn't be going to these extreme and absurd lengths."
© Agence France-Presse
A woman pushes a baby boy riding in a pram along a Beijing street in 2009.
A woman pushes a baby boy riding in a pram along a Beijing street in 2009.
Washington - Abortions of female fetuses have led to a massive surplus of young unmarried men in India and China, raising fears of an outcast group that could threaten the social fabric, a study said Monday.
The trend took root in the 1980s when ultrasound technologies made it easier for families to detect fetal sex early and to abort if it was not what the parents desired, said the analysis in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Sons have traditionally been preferred over daughters in many parts of China, India and South Korea due to social, cultural and financial motivations. Sex-selective abortion is outlawed but can be difficult to enforce.
The phenomenon was first spotted in South Korea in the early 1990s, when the sex ratio at birth (SRB) -- typically 105 male births to every 100 female births -- rose to 125 in some cities.
Similar rises in male births were seen in China, "complicated by the one-child policy, which has undoubtedly contributed to the steady increase in the reported SRB from 106 in 1979, to 111 in 1990, 117 in 2001 and 121 in 2005," said the study.
India has seen "sex ratios as high as 125 in Punjab, Delhi and Gujarat in the north but normal sex ratios of 105 in the southern and eastern states of Kerala and Andhra Pradesh," it added.
BofA spokesman: Documents were clerical and administrative documents.
Charlotte, N.C. - Anonymous, a hacker group sympathetic to WikiLeaks, released on Monday emails that it obtained from someone who said he is a former Bank of America Corp employee.
In the emails dating from November 2010, people that appear to be employees of a Balboa Insurance, a Bank of America insurance unit, discuss removing documents from loan files for a group of insured properties.
Neither the emails nor correspondence released by Anonymous indicate the reason behind the electronic record keeping discussion.
Charlotte, N.C. - Anonymous, a hacker group sympathetic to WikiLeaks, released on Monday emails that it obtained from someone who said he is a former Bank of America Corp employee.
In the emails dating from November 2010, people that appear to be employees of a Balboa Insurance, a Bank of America insurance unit, discuss removing documents from loan files for a group of insured properties.
Neither the emails nor correspondence released by Anonymous indicate the reason behind the electronic record keeping discussion.
© CBS
Dozens of students and parents gathered inside Tench Tilghman Elementary and Middle School last week for a Saturday prayer service aimed at motivating students to do well on state testing.
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Medical staff checks radiation levels of a resident in Koriyama city, Japan.
Medical staff checks radiation levels of a resident in Koriyama city, Japan.
The cooling system failed at the Dai-Ichi No. 2 reactor today, said Tokyo Electric, which runs the Fukushima nuclear plant 220 kilometers (135 miles) north of the nation's capital. Fuel rods at the reactor may have melted after becoming fully exposed, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters.
A hydrogen explosion occurred at the No. 3 reactor today, following a similar blast on March 12 at the No. 1 reactor that destroyed the walls of its building. The utility has been flooding the three reactors with water and boric acid to reduce the potential for a large release of radiation into the atmosphere following the March 11 earthquake-generated tsunami that smashed into the plant, disabling electricity supply and backup generators.
"They are managing the situation, they have very qualified personnel there," Gennady Pshakin, a nuclear expert based in Obninsk, Russia, said by telephone. "We will have a week or 10 days of this uncertainty, but the situation should normalize. What we need is for the water supply to be constant."
- Fuel rods appear to be melting inside three over-heating reactors
- Experts class development as 'partial meltdown'
- Japan calls for U.S. help cooling the reactor
There is a risk that molten nuclear fuel can melt through the reactor's safety barriers and cause a serious radiation leak.
There have already been explosions inside two over-heating reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, and the fuel rods inside a third were partially exposed as engineers desperately fight to keep them cool after the tsunami knocked out systems.
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'Meltdown': The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant moments after it was rocked by a second explosion today. Officials later admitted that fuel rods are 'highly likely' to be melting in three damaged reactors
'Meltdown': The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant moments after it was rocked by a second explosion today. Officials later admitted that fuel rods are 'highly likely' to be melting in three damaged reactors
