Japanese Nuclear Workers Hustle to Cool Reactor
WHITFIELD: All right. We're going to turn to our other big story of the day, for a week now, actually. Japan, there is an urgent push to get a damaged nuclear power plant cooled down.</s>GORANI: Yes. And these high levels of radiation, this is another cause for concern on top of everything else. High levels of radiation found in milk and spinach in Japan.</s>WHITFIELD: This was one of the greatest fears of people, it getting into the food supply. CNN's Brian Todd joining us live now from Tokyo. I imagine even though it's about 200 miles away from the epicenter people in Tokyo are extremely concerned about the contamination of food.</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They certainly are, Fredricka and Hala. They are concerned about that, they're concerned about whether that food might be shipped out of those areas to other areas of Japan and investigators are looking into maybe halting those shipments or at least moderating those shipments until they know more about what's going on. To keep this in perspective, one Japanese official told us about this, yes, there were trace amounts testing positive for radiation in milk and spinach in that Fukushima prefecture and a neighboring one. But one of the officials said if you measure the milk, the - the level of radiation in the milk, compare it if you took - if you drank that milk, contaminated milk, for a year consistently, it would be about the same amount of radiation that you would get as you would in one CAT scan. So they're trying to at least putting this danger in perspective. But still, they're investigating this. They're taking every precaution that they can, and so that - that part of this is underway. But another part of the nuclear reactor situation has taken a positive step and that is the efforts to cool down that troubled number three reactor at the Fukushima plant. The mechanisms are spraying water into that plant, two large fire trucks have had success today. They have been able to cool down the building for one and we were told not long ago that when they measured the radiation levels around that particular building, they found near zero traces of radiation. A temporary foot forward possibly, but a very significant one. It may signify that we may have turned a corner in the effort to prevent more leakage out of the plant.</s>WHITFIELD: A few glimmers of hope there. Thanks so much, Brian Todd.</s>GORANI: Let's look at other news stories around the world. Egyptians have voted today in what is seen as its first free elections in decades. The vote is on constitutional amendments. It will set the stage for parliamentary elections later this year at least that's the plan. The referendum follows the uprising that forced President Hosni Mubarak out of office.</s>WHITFIELD: And former Secretary of State Warren Christopher has died of complications from kidney and bladder cancer. He was 85 years old. Christopher served as America's chief diplomat for four years during President Bill Clinton's administration.</s>GORANI: And in Wisconsin, a judge issued a temporary restraining order Friday against the state's controversial budget law. This is the law that curbs the union power of most public workers. The judge's action comes after Wisconsin Senate Democrats filed a complaint saying the bill's passage violated the open meeting clause.</s>WHITFIELD: And after the break, the search and rescue teams in Japan.