It's been a week since Japan's devastating 9.0-magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami. Amid the disaster cleanup and relief efforts, new problems continue to evolve, such as the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Anxiety over the damaged facility increased Wednesday as the United States' top nuclear regulator told Congress the situation was worse than reported by the Japanese government and that "extremely high" radiation levels could hamper containment efforts. On Friday, Japan's nuclear safety agency raised the severity of the crisis to level 5, up from 4, on a scale going up to 7, according to The New York Times.

The American Embassy in Tokyo, meanwhile, recommended evacuation to U.S. citizens within 50 miles of the plant--an area much larger than the approximately 12-mile radius established by the Japanese. Still, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission maintained that there was little cause for worry about radioactive drift on the part of residents of Hawaii or the West Coast of the U.S.

Among other efforts to address the issues at the plant, the facility's operator was able to connect a new power line to help restore crucial cooling systems.

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Michelle has been editing CNET stories for more than five years, but her background in newspapers (when copy was actually cut-and-pasted) keeps her working extra hard to be a cool kid in new journalism. She tracks online happenings in media, entertainment, and politics, and she remains Oakland's biggest fan.