Syfy network's "Sharknado" suggests that such a siege can take a big chomp out of social media.

Aired Thursday night, the disaster thriller was a trending topic on Twitter as it inspired amazed, often jeering messages to reflect viewer amusement at the film's jaw-dropping premise.

One tweeter expressed satisfaction that here was a natural disaster that finally makes Aquaman useful. Another jokingly questioned the film's scientific authenticity. Another described the sharknado as "an act of cod."

"Sharknado" was the night's most social program, generating nearly 5,000 tweets per minute at its peak. The network says it scored 387,000 social media mentions during its premiere.

Syfy says "Sharknado" was seen by nearly 1.37 million viewers.

There still are a lot of details to be worked out, including whether a federal judge agrees that the government has gone far enough or whether cheaper generics can be sold without restrictions too.

But the move does mark a major societal shift in the long battle over women's reproductive rights, and influential doctors' groups welcomed the step Tuesday.

"Allowing unrestricted access to emergency contraception products is a historic step forward in protecting the health of our patients who are sexually active," said Dr. Thomas McInerny, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. "The science has always been clear: Emergency contraception is a safe, effective tool to prevent unintended pregnancy in adolescents of any reproductive age."

On the other side, social conservatives argue that the drug's availability undermines parental supervision, and accuse the administration of politicking.

"We are disappointed that this administration has once again sided with its political allies and ignored the safety of girls and the rights of parents," said Anna Higgins of the Family Research Council.

A look at the medical, legal and political issues surrounding over-the-counter sales of backup birth control:

Q: How quickly will emergency contraceptives be sold on the drugstore shelves?

A: "I don't expect to see the product at the neighborhood pharmacy instantly," cautioned Susannah Baruch of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project.

First, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman in New York must decide whether the Obama administration's decision complies with his April order that the government lift all age restrictions on nonprescription sale of morning-after pills. Korman wanted unrestricted access to all brands, not just the best-selling Plan B One-Step. Generic versions are cheaper, and the judge didn't want to place a disproportionate burden on the poor and minorities. But he did say the government could try to make the case that one-pill versions like Plan B One-Step are better than the two-pill versions.

Court case aside, manufacturer Teva Women's Health must submit an application to the Food and Drug Administration to begin sales with no age limits. Teva didn't say Tuesday how quickly that might happen.

Q: What if my condom breaks in the meantime?

A: The old rules remain in effect. Four or five versions of emergency contraceptives are sold without a prescription only to customers who can prove to a pharmacist that they're 17 or older.

For Plan B One-Step, the age was soon to drop to 15, but those sales haven't begun yet. It's a moot point now anyway.

Q: Why did the Obama administration change course?

A: The administration gave in because it already had lost multiple rounds in court, and it appeared it would lose again. Just last week, an appeals court said girls of any age could buy the two-pill generic emergency contraception without a prescription while the government appealed Korman's initial ruling. That set the stage for massive confusion in drugstores and signaled that the appeal could fail. If the messy battle reached the Supreme Court, it would be a big distraction to President Barack Obama's second-term goals, including immigration legislation, a budget deal and efforts to combat climate change.

Since some version was going to be sold over the counter no matter what, the FDA said it should be the simpler one-dose Plan B One-Step, not two-pill versions originally designed to be taken 12 hours apart even though studies show taking them simultaneously is OK.

"It was the decision, given that court ruling, to proceed with making the simpler version of Plan B available, because at the very least, that addresses some of the concerns about the ability of younger girls to use that medication," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

Q: Generics are cheaper; will they be sold over the counter too?

A: That's not clear. Plan B One-Step may get some exclusive marketing rights that would affect how and when other one-pill versions could sell, and the FDA has no plans to allow unrestricted sales of two-pill generics. Women's groups pledged to continue pushing for all versions to be treated the same. Plan B One-Step costs about $40 to $50, and generics typically cost $30 to $40.

Q: How did this controversy start?

A: Back in 2011, the FDA was preparing to allow over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill with no age limits when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled her own scientists in an unprecedented move. She was worried that girls as young as 11 would use the pill with no supervision, a concern that Obama echoed.

Doctors' groups and contraceptive advocates, however, argue that easier access to emergency contraception could cut unintended pregnancies, and that the drug is safe even at younger ages. Korman said hardly any 11-year-olds would use the pill, calling Sebelius' decision political pandering in an election year.

Legally, the requirement is that over-the-counter drugs are safe and effective if used as intended, said Nancy Northup of the Center for Reproductive Rights, noting that parents don't know whether their 11-year-old is buying Tylenol to treat a hangover either.

Q: Why was there opposition?

A: Social conservatives argued that easier availability would encourage girls to become sexually active, and that it wasn't safe for them to take the pills without a doctor's or parent's involvement. And some groups argued that Plan B is the equivalent of an abortion pill because it may be able to prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus a contention that has been scientifically discredited.

Q: Wait, doesn't this mean that people will have easier access to emergency contraception than to some cold medicines?

A: Age wasn't the concern with cold medicines; it was a law enforcement issue. A federal law required an ID for purchases of cold medicines containing a particular ingredient, pseudoephedrine, because it can be used to manufacture methamphetamine.

Q: So if emergency contraception is OK over the counter, what about regular birth control pills?

A: Stay tuned. Just last fall, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists the doctors who make money writing prescriptions for the pill say it's safe enough to be sold without a prescription too. But no manufacturer has indicated it wants to try.

___

Associated Press writer Josh Lederman contributed to this report.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) -- Affymetrix Chief Financial Officer Tim Barabe is planning to retire from his post next month.

The genetic testing instrument business said Monday that it is promoting Gavin Wood to the position. Barabe's retirement is effective June 28.

Wood will be responsible for Affymetrix's finance, accounting, information technology, facilities and investor relations functions.

Wood, who has worked for Affymetrix Inc. since 2006, most recently served as vice president of finance, international controller. He will report to CEO Frank Witney.

Affymetrix is based in Santa Clara, Calif. Its shares finished at $3.69 in Friday. Its shares have traded in a 52-week range of $2.96 to $5.50.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - One in seven people goes back to a tanning bed after being diagnosed with skin cancer, according to a new research letter.

Indoor tanning is known to increase a person's risk for cancer.

"The situation may be analogous to that of lung cancer patients who continue to smoke after diagnosis," said lead author Brenda Cartmel, a cancer prevention researcher at the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut.

"Just as tobacco is known to be addictive, our research suggests that some patients may become dependent on tanning, with new intervention approaches needed to change these behaviors," she told Reuters Health.

Most of the 20 million people who use tanning beds in the U.S. each year are young white women. The beds emit up to 15 times the ultraviolet A (UVA) radiation of the sun. That type of radiation damages deep layers of skin.

The new study included people who had been diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma - a slow-growing skin cancer which can be removed but increases the risk for subsequent skin cancers - before age 40.

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common type of cancer in the U.S., and occurs most often among men over the age of 50. But other studies have found an increased number of those cancers among young women in the last 30 years, which inspired the current investigation, Cartmel said.

She and her coauthors surveyed white patients in Connecticut who had participated in a study of basal cell carcinoma one to four years earlier. The researchers included results from the 178 people who had tanned indoors before being diagnosed.

Of them, 26 - about 15 percent - said they had tanned indoors again at least once over the past year, with some visiting the booth up to 20 times, according to findings published in JAMA Dermatology. Those people reported tanning more often before their diagnosis than the rest of the group.

More than half of the still-tanners reported symptoms of dependence, such as feeling guilty about tanning or needing to tan first thing in the morning, compared to 36 percent of those who had quit tanning.

"This is not surprising at all," said Dr. Steven Feldman, a dermatologist at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

There's a lot of evidence that UV light exposure can be addictive, he told Reuters Health.

"If you take skin cells in culture and expose them to UV light, they make endorphins, those feel-good molecules," he said.

Like nicotine, Feldman said, tanning has social pressures at work but can also be physically addictive. But unlike cigarette smoke, which has been banned in many public places, indoor tanning only harms the individual who gets in the booth. There's no such thing as "secondhand tan."

Banning or taxing tanning booths would reduce basal cell carcinomas, but whether the government should take that step is up for debate, said Feldman, who was not involved in the new study.

For his older patients who are diagnosed with skin cancer, he recommends wearing a hat and gives them catalogs of sun-protective clothing.

With young people, it may be a good idea to remind them not to tan indoors, he said.

"For the typical patient who gets diagnosed, though, we don't need to tell them," Feldman said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/12reDen JAMA Dermatology, online July 3, 2013.

SURREY, British Columbia (Reuters) - One of the suspects in a Canadian bomb plot is a former drug user with a history of violence, a self-styled "Muslim Punk" who also wrote songs about his love for Satan.

Descriptions of John Nuttall by four people who knew him, combined with court records and his own postings online, portray a sometimes troubled man on the margins of society.

Police have charged Nuttall and companion Amanda Korody with trying to set off three home-made pressure cooker bombs in a crowd celebrating the July 1 Canada Day holiday in Victoria, the capital of the Pacific province of British Columbia.

Police said the pair drew inspiration from al Qaeda and described them as self-radicalized. Officials told reporters on Tuesday the authorities had always been in control of the situation and had made sure the devices could not explode.

Police did not give more details and would not say whether they had infiltrated the cell.

Tom Morino, the couple's lawyer, told Reuters he had spoken to both clients on Monday. He said he had known Nuttall for 10 years and always found him to be "a pleasant, polite, thoughtful, generous individual", albeit one with problems.

"(He had) some emotional issues, some addiction issues ... It is on the public record he had an addiction to illicit drugs for a while and struggled with that," Morino said.

Nuttall, born in 1974, and Korody, born in 1983, will remain in jail until their next court hearing on July 9. Morino said the two were in a relationship.

In March 2003, the Victoria Times Colonist newspaper said Nuttall had been given a conditional 18-month jail sentence in 2003 for hitting a businessman on the head with a rock in May 2002 and stealing his briefcase. Morino told the court his client had been high on cocaine at the time, the paper said.

British Columbia court records posted online show only that Nuttall was convicted of robbery in relation to an offence committed in May 2002. They also show convictions for mischief and assault after an incident in 2001.

More recently, Nuttall was convicted twice for offences committed in 2009, one for assault and one for possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose.

Morino, who the paper said had acted for Nuttall in 2003, declined to confirm details about any of the cases.

MEMBER OF PUNK BANDS

At the time of their arrest, Nuttall and Korody were living in a dirty basement apartment in the town of Surrey, some 31 km (18 miles) southeast of Vancouver.

When Reuters saw the apartment on Wednesday after a police search, there were five empty prescription bottles labeled methadone in the kitchen. All were in Korody's name.

Garbage bags stuffed with dirty clothes lay in one room. Pinned to a notice board was a leaflet about a 2011 conference to celebrate the birth and life of the Prophet Mohammad as well as an advertisement from a Vancouver store that sells surplus military clothing and equipment.

Landlord Ramesh Thaman said the couple had moved in three years previously and "looked like nice people", albeit somewhat messy ones.

"I was totally shocked," he told Reuters, speaking of the arrests.

Neighbor Charlene Thompson said she had called police earlier this year after hearing Nuttall having a loud conversation outside on his mobile phone.

"He was ... talking about jihad and all sorts of things," she told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

In online postings, Nuttall identified himself as Johnny Blade, "a Muslim Punk from Victoria" who belonged to a band called No World Order which had moved to Vancouver.

"We are new to Vancouver (sic) and looking to meet anyone else into Allah and hardcore punk," he wrote in August 2011.

On his website, Nuttall posted four poorly-recorded solo songs with titles like "The End Of The World" and "In League With Satan". An extract of lyrics from the latter song read:

"We are possesed (sic) by all that is evil/The death of your god we demand/We spit at the virgin you worship/And sit at Lord Satans (sic) Left Hand".

Nuttall also played for a month with the British Columbia-based hard rock band Lust Boys in 2009, lead singer Tommy Thrust told Reuters.

"I've never known him to even believe in religion. As far as I knew he was an atheist," he said, describing Nuttall as stubborn and opinionated. "He briefly spoke about politics here and there but he wasn't really that well-educated."

Thrust said Nuttall had left the band on good terms and said members would see him in Vancouver occasionally.

"He didn't really say a lot when we saw him because he was always drunk. He just wanted to party, basically," he said.

The Lust Boys issued a statement on Wednesday disassociating themselves from their former band mate.

"The actions played out by John Nuttall were one of an individuals (sic) radical thinking and poor decision making and should have no reflection on the LUST BOYS as a whole," it said.

(Writing by David Ljunggren; With additional reporting by Peter N. Henderson in Toronto; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson, Martin Howell and Tim Dobbyn)

In a confidential email sent to fellow Ohio tea party leaders and obtained by The Associated Press, Tom Zawistowski laid out a strategy for invoking a little-known IRS provision that allows citizens to challenge executive salaries and the nonprofit statuses of charitable hospitals.

In a phone interview Tuesday, Zawistowski called it "hilarious" that tea party groups that came under extra scrutiny by the IRS are now using an IRS law to target others.

Zawistowski identifies the hospitals as big backers of expanded Medicaid. His email said tea party groups will "make Medicaid personal" by publicizing large salaries of those seeking federal money to help the poor.

"I think it's hilarious, and I think it'll be fun to get some other groups who have maybe been on the sidelines and questioning us to see how they like being investigated," he said.

The effort follows a Sunday veto by Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich of a provision in the state budget that would have blocked his administration from expanding Medicaid to additional low-income residents.

In a news conference ahead of that veto, Kasich and Republican House Speaker William Batchelder, whose chamber backed the vetoed roadblock, said they hoped to settle differences on a broader Medicaid expansion by year's end.

"The goal is to change the narrative," Zawistowski wrote. Rather than have people wondering why tea party groups don't want to help the poor, they should wonder why hospitals need more federal tax dollars to care for the poor when they've got plenty of cash on hand, he wrote.

Not-for-profit hospitals are under constant IRS scrutiny and do not fear the effort, said Ohio Hospital Association Vice President Scott Borgemenke.

"For years and years, the law hasn't changed and the status hasn't changed," he said. "We continue to be within federal law. From that standpoint, we're not worried our status is in jeopardy at all."

Zawistowski recognized the irony even in the email. Tea party groups have blasted the IRS, complained to Congress, rallied and sued over the agency's targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. Multiple investigations into the practice are causing a political firestorm in Washington.

"I think you are going to love this," Zawistowski told tea party leaders in his email.

Zawistowski said by phone that Kasich has "hauled out" hospital CEOs at pro-Medicaid rallies that are making millions of dollars. In his emails, he singles out the $2.5 million salary of Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove, whose nonprofit hospital had more than $9 billion in assets in 2011.

"This guy's making $2 million a year, pleading poverty to help poor people," he said. "It just seems a little disingenuous to us in the tea party who volunteer for nothing. We're curious to see their definition of poverty."

Borgemenke said hospital CEOs' salaries are decided by community boards, which weigh the performance of the institutions, look at similarly situated businesses, and sometimes run nationwide searches.

"The old axiom is the hunted become the huntees, right?" he said. "We've got billions of dollars of uncompensated care" that isn't covered by Medicaid reimbursement. He said hospitals even sustained a $500 million cut in this year's budget.

Roughly 366,000 Ohioans would eligible for coverage beginning in 2014 if the state expands Medicaid, a key component of Democratic President Barack Obama's federal health care law.

Kasich's push to take advantage of the law was among reasons Zawistowski, executive director of the Portage County TEA Party, tried in April to take over the Ohio Republican Party. His bid against a Kasich-backed candidate was unsuccessful but Zawistowski and his backers vowed to continue their fight.

Kasich opposed the federal health care overhaul, but has said expanding Medicaid is the best way to make sure Ohio gets back federal tax dollars to help the needy.

A new analysis from the World Meteorological Organization says average land and ocean surface temperatures from 2001 to 2010 rose above the previous decade, and were almost a half-degree Celsius above the 1961-1990 global average.

The decade ending in 2010 was an unprecedented era of climate extremes, the agency said, evidenced by heat waves in Europe and Russia, droughts in the Amazon Basin, Australia and East Africa, and huge storms like Tropical Cyclone Nargis and Hurricane Katrina.

Data from 139 nations show that droughts like those in Australia, East Africa and the Amazon Basin affected the most people worldwide. But it was the hugely destructive and deadly floods such as those in Pakistan, Australia, Africa, India and Eastern Europe that were the most frequent extreme weather events.

Experts say a decade is about the minimum length of time to study when it comes to spotting climate change.

From 1971 to 2010, global temperatures rose by an average rate of 0.17 degrees Celsius per decade. But going back to 1880, the average increase was .062 percent degrees Celsius per decade.

The pace also picked up in recent decades. Average temperatures were 0.21 degrees Celsius warmer this past decade than from 1991 to 2000, which were in turn 0.14 degrees Celsius warmer than from 1981 to 1990.

Natural cycles between atmosphere and oceans make some years cooler than others, but during the past decade there was no major event associated with El Nino, the phenomenon characterized by unusually warm temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Much of the decade was affected by the cooling La Nina, which comes from unusually cool temperatures there, or neutral conditions.

Given those circumstances, WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud says the data doesn't support the notion among some in the scientific community of a slowdown, or lull, in the pace of planetary warming in recent years.

"The last decade was the warmest, by a significant margin," he said. "If anything we should not talk about the plateau, we should talk about the acceleration."

Jarraud says the data show warming accelerated between 1971 and 2010, with the past two decades increasing at rates never seen before amid rising concentrations of industrial gases that trap heat in the atmosphere like a greenhouse.

By the end of 2010, the report shows, atmospheric concentrations of some of the chief warming gases from fossil fuel burning and other human actions were far higher than at the start of the industrial era in 1750. Carbon dioxide concentrations measured in the air around the world rose 39 percent since then; methane rose 158 percent; and nitrous oxide was up 20 percent.

Scorers:

Otago Highlanders - Tries: Mose Tuial'i, Tamati Ellison, Aaron Smith, Kade Poki, Hosea Gear, Elliot Dixon; Conversions: Colin Slade (3), Hayden Parker (2); Penalties: Slade (3);

Wellington Hurricanes - Tries: Ash Dixon, Ben Franks, Julian Savea, James Broadhurst, Chris Smylie; Conversions: Beauden Barrett (5); Penalties: Barrett (3);

(Compiled by Greg Stutchbury; Editing by Peter Rutherford)

Yet the most likely first-time homeowners, especially young professionals and couples starting families, won't buy these days. Or they can't. Or they already did, during the housing boom. And their absence helps explain why the housing industry is still depressed.

The obstacles range from higher down payments to heavy debt from credit cards and student loans. But even many of those who could afford to buy no longer see it as a wise investment. Prices have sunk 15 percent in three years.

"I've looked for a home, but the places we can afford with the money we have are not that great," says Seth Herter, 23, a store manager in suburban St. Louis. "It also doesn't seem smart anymore to buy with prices falling. Buying a home just doesn't make sense to us."

The proportion of U.S. households that own homes is at 65.1 percent, its lowest point since 1996, the Census Bureau says. That marks a shift after nearly two decades in which homeownership grew before peaking at 70 percent during the housing boom.

The housing bubble lured so many young buyers that it reduced the pool of potential first-timers to below-normal levels. That's contributed to the decline in new buyers in recent years.

In 2005, at the height of the boom, about 2.8 million first-timers bought homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. By contrast, for each of the four years preceding the boom, the number of first-timers averaged fewer than 2 million.

Still, the bigger factors are the struggling economy, shaky job security, tougher credit rules and lack of cash to put down, said Dan McCue, research manager at Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. The unemployment rate among typical first-timers, those ages 25 to 34, is 9.8 percent, compared with 9 percent for all adults.

"The obstacles facing first-time buyers are big, and it's changing the way they look at home ownership," McCue says. "It's no longer the American Dream for the younger generation."

First-timers usually account for up to half of all sales. Over the past year, they've accounted for only about a third.

A big reason is tougher lending standards.

Lenders are demanding more money up front. In 2002, the median down payment for a single-family home in nine major U.S. cities was 4 percent, according to real estate website Zillow.com. Today, it's 22 percent.

And one-third of households have credit scores too low to qualify for a mortgage. The median required credit score from FICO Inc., the industry leader in credit ratings, has risen from 720 in 2007, when the market went bust, to 760 today.

Homes in many places are the most affordable in a generation. In the past year, the national median sale price has sunk 3.5 percent. Half the homes listed in the Tampa Bay area are priced below $100,000.

The average mortgage rate for a 30-year fixed loan is 4 percent, barely above an all-time low. Five years ago, it was near 6.5 percent. In 2000, it exceeded 8 percent.

When the economy eventually strengthens, the housing market will, too. More people will be hired. Confidence will rise. Down payments won't be so hard to produce.

The question is whether first-time buyers will then start flowing into the housing market. That will depend mainly on whether they think prices will rise, said Mark Vitner, senior U.S. economist at Wells Fargo.

"It's a guessing game as to when things will turn around," Vitner said. "But until they do, you won't see young people buying homes."

NASHVILLE, Tenn (Reuters) - Just days before a foreclosure auction of its performance hall, the Nashville Symphony has struck a deal with creditors to settle an $82.3 million debt from the construction of the seven-year-old structure.

It was not immediately clear what was behind the eleventh-hour rescue of the orchestra, whose financial troubles echo those of other classical music ensembles nationwide, as the economy has cut into ticket sales and outside funding.

Under the terms of the agreement, "all of the symphony's obligations to its commercial lenders have been resolved, and the banks' recent foreclosure notice has been withdrawn," a statement from the symphony said on Monday. The auction for the hall had been scheduled for June 28.

The debt was the balance of a $102 million bond issue for the construction of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in 2006. The Center was severely damaged by a flood in 2010 but has since been repaired. Some of the loss was recovered through federal funds.

The Nashville Symphony has told subscribers that it has been operating at a loss and needs to take aggressive actions to improve its finances.

Nashville billionaire businesswoman and philanthropist Martha Ingram, who helped lead the campaign to build the hall, said she had played a role in averting the foreclosure but would not disclose details.

While she celebrated the resolution, she added, "It is clear now that the symphony organization has work to do to improve its operating results and develop increased annual support."

Though Nashville is known for its country music, the symphony has won several Grammy awards and sells out many performances.

"It is because we recognize the orchestra's importance to this community that we were able to come together and work so hard to make this happen," Bank of America spokeswoman Shirley Norton said in a statement from corporate headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank is the symphony's lead creditor.

Meanwhile, there has been no resolution reported in contract talks between the orchestra and its 85 musicians. Both the musicians' union and the Nashville Symphony Association have agreed to a media blackout of negotiations.

Several symphonies have been troubled by labor disputes with musicians in the past year, including the Minnesota Orchestra; the San Francisco Symphony, whose musicians struck for more than two weeks in March; and the Chicago Symphony, whose musicians walked out for 48 hours last fall before an agreement was reached.

(Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Steve Orlofsky)