Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. A robot that has spent months inside the ruins of a nuclear reactor at the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi plant delivered a tiny sample of melted nuclear fuel on Thursday, in what plant officials said was a step toward beginning the cleanup of hundreds of tons of melted fuel debris. The sample, the size of a grain of rice, was placed into a secure container, marking the end of the mission, according to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which manages the plant. It is being transported to a glove box for size and weight measurements before being sent to outside laboratories for detailed analyses over the coming months.

These stark images showing the heart of the Fukushima nuclear disaster zone reveal the devastation inside its destroyed reactor. The scenes were captured by a camera attached to a 50ft rod and inserted into reactor 2 at the doomed Japanese power plant, on the country's north east coast. Footage shows melted nuclear fuel attached to the pillars, walls and ceiling, as well as puddles of coolant, and debris piled up 16 to 27ins thick on the ground. Analysis of the images by the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning said the spread of debris was suggestive of several holes in the reactor floor. It is seven years since the disaster was unleashed by the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. But due to the deadly dose of radiation inside Fukushima, humans have to rely on robots to explore it – and even these have been left malfunctioning and broken.

The Japanese government Friday eased evacuation orders for towns not seriously contaminated by the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster. The government lifted evacuation orders for parts of Kawamata, Namie and Iitate, Kyodo News reported. The order also frees a large part of Tomioka on Saturday. The action reduces the evacuation zones by two-thirds but it was unclear whether residents actually would return to their homes because of radiation fears and a lack of amenities like schools. The most seriously contaminated areas remain off-limits.

Even six years after a nuclear crisis struck Fukushima in Japan, radiation levels at Fukushima continued to reach the extreme levels. While most of this data is collected through cameras and robots, there is now a shadow of doubt about the future of these robots. Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. (TEPCO), the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, failed to get a comprehensive report in its attempt to find nuclear debris in a containment vessel with the help of the PMORPH survey robot – developed by Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy and the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning (IRID) – on Thursday. This was the latest in the spate of robot failures in the process of decommissioning the plant. Last month, a Toshiba "scorpion" robot, built to tolerate up to 1,000 sieverts of radiation, was unable to withstand the high levels of nuclear toxicity in nuclear reactor No. 2. There have been a number of other instances, causing authorities to think of alternative approaches to the clean-up.

Six years after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, recent investigations underneath the damaged reactor 2 using cameras and robots came close to identifying melted fuel rods for the first time. Experts say getting a peek inside the containment vessel of reactor 2 was an accomplishment. But it also highlighted how tough it will be to further pinpoint the exact location of the melted fuel, let alone remove it some time in the future. The biggest hurdle is the extremely lethal levels of radiation inside the containment vessel that not only prevent humans from getting near but have also crippled robots and other mechanical devices. Safely removing the melted fuel would be a best-case scenario but the risks and costs should be weighed against the option of leaving the melted fuel in the crippled reactors, some experts said.

Imagine you're an evil genius in the style of a James Bond villain. You've got a hundred million dollars or so burning a hole in your pocket, and you're looking to cause some destruction. You want to know your options. Greg Allen (@Gregory_C_Allen) is a George Leadership Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School. He previously worked on space and robotics issues at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.