Followers

You've heard about the "Wheat Belly" diet, right? Well, technically, it doesn't exist. Dr. William Davis points out that the word "diet" does not appear on either the cover of his bestselling "Wheat Belly" book published in 2011 or on the follow-up, "Wheat Belly Cookbook," which was published last month and already tops bestseller lists. And that omission is intentional, Davis said. "Wheat Belly" is about stripping your plate of a substance that contributes to heart disease, causes joint pain, inflammation, foggy thinking, bloating and much more, Davis said.

NBA owners voted Wednesday to reject the Sacramento Kings' proposed move to Seattle, the latest in a long line of cities that have tried to land the franchise. The 22-8 vote in Dallas followed a recommendation made last month by the NBA's relocation committee and may have finally brought an end to an emotional saga that has dragged on for nearly three years. A group led by investor Chris Hansen had a deal to buy the team. Hansen hoped to move the franchise to Seattle and rename it the SuperSonics.

From a snow-crested corner of Alberta, Canada, Kelly Oxford made her Hollywood screenwriting dream come true. She did it without leaving her close-knit family or giving up her free nationalized healthcare. She did it without toiling in Westside coffee shops or confronting painful rejections. She did it 140 characters at a time. Oxford, a suburban housewife and mother of three, is a Twitter superstar ( @kellyoxford ), with more than 350,000 followers. Oscar winners, late-night talk show hosts, even film critic Roger Ebert follow her on the social media service, eager to read wry observations about daily life and celebrity culture.

When it comes to Southern California's increasingly perilous fire season, you can blame both the lack of rain and the little rain we did have. Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and at Chapman University said satellite data show the effects of a steady and largely forgettable rainfall during a roughly four-day period at the end of January. JPL scientist Son Nghiem said the rain came just as much of the vegetation throughout the region was awakening from a dormant stage.

Wilson Phillips singer Carnie Wilson has gone public with a disorder affecting the muscles on the left side of her face: Bell's palsy. But by Tuesday, she was already celebrating progress in recovering from the condition. "A beautiful day to you all," Wilson said on Twitter. "My smile is 70% back!! Except when kids make me belly laugh! Lol they keep me laughing !! Luv to you all. " She'd revealed her situation on Wednesday of last week: "Just wanted you all 2 know that I have Bell's Palsy on lf side of face right now. Scary, unfortunate, but it goes away.

Lady Gaga, Mother Monster, social media genius. Whatever you want to call her, the 25-year-old pop star, nee Stefani Germonatta, is the first person to collect more than 20 million followers on Twitter. For comparison's sake, Barack Obama, our nation's president, has 12.8 million followers. Hmmm. Gaga has been the reigning queen of Twitter since August 2010, when she surpassed Britney Spears, the former record holder by getting 5.6 million followers. Oh how times have changed.

What's your favorite city to follow on Twitter? If you chose San Francisco ( @onlyinsf ), you're one of the 99,000-plus followers that made it No. 1 among the 10 most popular U.S. cities on Twitter. New York City ( @nycgo ) and Las Vegas ( @vegas ) come in second and third while Los Angeles (@discoverLA) takes eighth place. Cities were ranked by the number of people following their official tourism Twitter accounts, not city government or other Twitter feeds.

It is letters like Steven A. Silver's (Dec. 28) that crystallize what is wrong with how much of the public has come to view our system. Elected officials are voted into office for the purpose of representing their constituents in the most effective way they can. As professionals, it is part of their job to determine the effectiveness of proposed legislation and to look at the "big" picture in doing so. Silver's letter suggests that our elected...

Justin Bieber has made it clear that he's a Floyd Mayweather fan, but when he Instagrammed two Photoshopped images poking fun at Manny Pacquiao, some of his followers thought he went too far. Bieber posted an image of Pacquiao lying face down on the canvas -- after Juan Manuel Marquez knocked him out earlier this month -- with an image of Simba from "The Lion King" reaching for him. Bieber captioned the photo "Dad wake up," referencing the...

Sir Richard Branson has become the first person on LinkedIn to get 1 million followers as one of the social network's "thought leaders. " The English entrepreneur and founder of Virgin Group reached the feat Friday morning. He currently has nearly twice as many followers as President Obama, the second most followed person on LinkedIn with more than 506,000 followers. The accomplishment is noteworthy for Branson but even more important for LinkedIn. The social network introduced its "LinkedIn Influencer" feature -- which lets certain individuals have followers without having to add people as "connections" -- last month.

In 2011, my husband, Eric, a trial attorney, was felled by a brain stem stroke just before he was to board a flight at O'Hare in Chicago. He was just 53 years old with no prior health conditions or problems. From the outset, we knew his recovery and rehabilitation would be long and difficult. We didn't know that his transition to post-hospital medical care would be just as challenging. I'm the dean and a professor at the Jefferson School of Nursing at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, and I'm a registered nurse.

NEW YORK - The first hint of a bruise, blackish and glossy, appears under Reshat Mati's eye as he finishes a jujitsu workout. It seems that he took a knee to the face. Someone offers to get an ice pack, but there isn't time. Reshat hurries off to another gym, a storefront several miles away where the windows steam up from all the boxers generating heat inside. By 9:30 p.m., he has pulled on gloves and headgear to spar with a larger, more experienced opponent who likes to fight from close range with lots of banging elbows.

Final results from Compton's primary election released Thursday showed longtime Mayor Eric Perrodin ousted and political newcomer Aja Brown headed for a runoff with former Mayor Omar Bradley, who is facing a corruption trial. Incumbent Perrodin, the city's longest-serving mayor, trailed in third place. A deputy district attorney and former Compton police officer, Perrodin ran on a reform platform in the 2001 election in which he defeated Bradley. Perrodin got praise for bringing businesses such as Starbucks and Home Depot to the city, but he came under fire over city contracts that went to friends and family members, absenteeism from meetings and, most recently, a $40-million budget deficit.

Pluses Teams across the NHL paid tribute to victims of the Boston Marathon bombings in many ways, including holding a moment of silence, players writing "Pray for Boston" on a stick or skate, and the Bruins and Buffalo Sabres joining to salute the crowd with raised sticks on Wednesday. In a touching gesture, Phoenix defenseman Keith Yandle - a Boston native - wore a jersey in warmups Saturday with the name of 8-year-old bombing casualty Martin Richard on the back. Calgary goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff, expected to retire after the season, was serenaded by fans after the Flames' home finale Friday.

Heija Yan took a drag from his cigarette as he approached Powell Library on the UCLA campus Monday, not noticing the ashtrays were empty and askew. The graduate student in electrical engineering had no idea the university had enacted its tobacco ban on Earth Day. "I know others don't like the smell around them, but I know [the library] is a popular place to smoke, so I thought I'd be OK," Yan said, flicking the butt into an ashtray. UCLA is the first school in the UC system to implement the ban, following a call by President Mark G. Yudof for all 10 UC campuses to go smoke-free by 2014.

New subsidies and insurance regulations in the 2010 healthcare law are expected to bring coverage to millions of uninsured Californians starting next year. The newly insured are likely to put a bigger strain on the healthcare system, particularly in their demand for primary-care doctors, of whom there are already too few in many parts of the country. That's why trained medical professionals who aren't physicians, such as nurse practitioners, want more freedom to deliver the care they're capable of giving than state rules allow.

It seems like only yesterday that Lady Gaga was celebrating 20 million Twitter followers from her No. 1 perch atop the microblogging site, with Justin Bieber chugging along in second place with more than 18 million. OK, it wasn't exactly yesterday, it was last March , but you get the idea. Now, though, oh, how the tables have turned: With follower counts currently north of 33 million each, Bieber has finally passed Gaga to take the Twitter crown.  As of Tuesday around noon they were separated by less than 10,000 followers, which is officially Only A Smidgen of separation when you get up into 33-million-plus territory, but it was good enough for the Internet to declare Bieber No. 1 in the Twitterverse.

The message popped up on Twitter near midnight, not long after the Lakers lost to the Clippers. "Thoughts of self doubt...Am I done? Is this how my career will end?? I REFUSE to give in to these thoughts. #strongwill #countonchallenges" It was from Kobe Bryant. He didn't step back from it 12 hours later while talking to reporters after Lakers practice. "Everybody has it. I'm human just like everybody else," he said. "I think the way I react to it is probably a little different than anybody else.

Deceased Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was identified by a foreign government as a "follower of radical Islam and a strong believer" whose personality had changed drastically in just a year, according to the FBI. As investigators considered possible motives for Monday's fatal bombings, U.S. authorities acknowledged that an unnamed government had contacted the FBI to say the 26-year-old ethnic Chechen “had changed drastically” since...

OK, you've had nearly a third of the year. Lost that weight? Smoking a thing of the past? Nicer to your husband? If you are like many people, such resolutions have disappeared as completely as the bubbles in your Champagne toast. But you can start again. We all have habits that we could stand to break. But desire isn't everything, and it can be difficult to know where to start and frustrating to carry on through setbacks, temptation and outright failure. Still, in order to live healthful and productive lives, many of us need to make changes.