TOKYO (Reuters) – One of six tsunami-crippled nuclear reactors appeared to stabilize on Saturday as Japan raced to restore power to the stricken power plant to cool it and prevent a greater catastrophe.

Engineers reported some rare success after fire trucks sprayed water for about three hours on reactor No.3, widely considered the most dangerous at the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex because of its use of highly toxic plutonium.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan tried and failed on Saturday to form a crisis cabinet to tackle its biggest challenge since World War Two, unable to overcome a political divide even in the face of an epic natural disaster.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan had planned to sound out the opposition about joining a grand coalition to handle reconstruction policy after last week’s quake, tsunami and the ongoing nuclear crisis, but the leader of the largest opposition party rejected the idea out of hand.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan plans to sound out the opposition on joining a grand coalition to handle reconstruction policy following last week’s quake and tsunami and amid the ongoing nuclear crisis.

Before the disaster hit, opposition parties were pressing Kan to call a snap election by refusing to help enact vital budget bills, while rivals in Kan’s own party were plotting to force their unpopular leader to quit to improve their fortunes.

TOKYO (Reuters) – A “Chernobyl solution” may be the last resort for dealing with Japan’s stricken nuclear plant, but burying it in sand and concrete is a messy fix that might leave part of the country as an off-limits radioactive sore for decades.

Japanese authorities say it is still too early to talk about long-term measures while cooling the plant’s six reactors and associated fuel-storage pools, comes first.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Kazuko Yamashita was five when the atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, destroying her home in a second and leaving her with a lifelong fear that every time she becomes ill, this time it is finally cancer.

Now, 66 years later, she wears a dark pink sweater, her dyed hair in a neat bob, and waits out Japan’s current nuclear crisis in her daughter’s Tokyo home, a two-storey house she also shares with her two granddaughters who play on a sofa behind her.

By Elaine Lies

TOKYO (Reuters Life!) – Meet Rosalind, Bianca and Cordelia, sisters who, like many siblings, profess mutual love but sometimes don’t like each other that much.

These three heroines of Eleanor Brown’s debut novel, “The Weird Sisters,” grew up in a house dominated by their professor father, who specializes in Shakespeare studies, named his girls for Shakespearean heroines and communicates — sometimes hilariously, often cryptically — through Shakespeare quotations.

By Elaine Lies

TOKYO (Reuters Life!) – The rapid rise of e-books could lead to a “reading divide” as those unable to afford the new technology are left behind, even as U.S. reading and writing skills decline still further.

At particular threat are African-American communities where many students are already falling behind their majority peers in terms of literacy, said award-winning writer Marita Golden — and this despite the growing ranks of noted African-American writers, such as Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison.

March 16 (Reuters) – Japan’s nuclear crisis worsened on
Wednesday, with workers ordered to withdraw briefly from the
stricken power plant after radiation levels spiked, just hours
after smoke was seen rising from the quake-crippled nuclear
facility.

Q: What does the smoke mean?

A: The smoke is most likely to be steam, a natural byproduct
of pouring water into the reactors to cool them down and keep
the fuel rods covered. Authorities are also trying to maintain
water levels at a spent-fuel storage pool at the plant’s No. 4
reactor, which experts now view as the real threat.

By Elaine Lies

(Reuters) – Japan’s nuclear crisis worsened on Wednesday, with workers ordered to withdraw briefly from the stricken power plant after radiation levels spiked, just hours after smoke was seen rising from the quake-crippled nuclear facility.

Q: What does the smoke mean?

A: The smoke is most likely to be steam, a natural byproduct of pouring water into the reactors to cool them down and keep the fuel rods covered. Authorities are also trying to maintain water levels at a spent-fuel storage pool at the plant’s No. 4 reactor, which experts now view as the real threat.

March 15 (Reuters) – The focus of Japan’s nuclear crisis
switched to reactor No. 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi power station
on Tuesday after an explosion and fire blasted holes in the
unit’s outer building.

Media said a pool used to store spent nuclear fuel at the
reactor, which shut down when the earthquake and tsunami struck
last week, might be boiling. Reports also said radiation levels
near Tokyo stood at more than 10 times above normal.