Followers

LOS ANGELES - "Some people say: 'Maude Apatow is my spirit animal.' I get that a lot," Maude Apatow said. "They tweet it to me. " Over a coconut milk smoothie at a trendy vegan restaurant in Los Angeles, Maude was describing the rather intense fascination she has inspired on Twitter, where she has more than 62,000 followers. That may not compare to Lady Gaga's total, but considering she is a 14-year-old just out of braces, not a celebrity and not someone who has done anything outrageous on YouTube, it's an impressive fan base.

ISEE THE leftists are screaming about Christine O'Donnell's "shady past. " Maybe they should look into Obama's past, and the czars he has around him. Ayres. Holdren. Holder. Jennings. Lloyd. Dunn. Jarrett. Sunstein. Nice Marxists, all of them. Pat Dougherty Philadelphia

Jim Wise thinks about Phil Bengtson. "Most people never heard of us, Phil Bengtson and me," he says, "because there is no slot in the record books for what you might call famous followers. " Phil Bengtson, you may not remember, was coach of the Green Bay Packers for three years in the late '60s and early '70s. All he had to do was follow the legendary Vince Lombardi, whose teams won league championships in each of the three years before Bengtson's takeover. Bengtson never made the playoffs during his three years as head coach.

Three former Church of Our First Love members say church leader Anthony Marcolongo has an unquenchable desire to control the lives - and minds - of his followers. The three, who spoke on condition that they not be named, say Marcolongo, who started his church in 1983, made rigorous demands on his group. Marcolongo, a 33-year-old Glenolden native, demanded that followers fast Wednesday through Friday, attend one-hour morning prayer sessions five days a week and evening prayer services three times weekly, they said.

Jingduan Yang's mother wants him to shut up. Stop talking, she tells him in her phone calls from China. Her youngest son, a Thomas Jefferson University Hospital psychiatrist, is only getting his big sister in more trouble. "She's in again and it's all because of you," Yang said his 79-year-old mother, Sun Yixia, told him. "Don't say anything. Be quiet. " But Yang refuses. The 40-year-old native of Hefei, in China's Anhui Province, wants anyone who will listen to know that his sister, Jingfang Yang, is imprisoned in China because of her belief in the spiritual meditation practice of Falun Gong.

Her devotees believe she is the Hindu goddess of knowledge: a reincarnation of Divine Mother Saraswati, consort of Brahma. But officials at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wynnewood say Hindus have no business using their Christian campus to promote their beliefs. Yesterday, the seminary canceled tonight's scheduled lecture by Indian holy woman Sri Karunamayi, who is in her late 30s and is nearing the end of a 13-city U.S. tour that began April 5 in Dallas. "It is our understanding that this woman is representing Hinduism," said Scott Rodin, vice president for advancement at the 460-student seminary.

Last Sunday morning, Alexander Menn, one of the most beloved Russian Orthodox priests in the Soviet Union, set out on his accustomed route to church. It was 6:30 a.m. The stocky, handsome, gray-bearded priest left his wooden house, set in a grove of birch and pine, and headed for the train station of this country town. His route took him through a 300-yard stretch of forest cloaked in early morning gloom. The train would take him 15 miles to the village of Novaya Deryevnya, where he was a fabled preacher during the long years of Soviet religious oppression.

David Brandt Berg, leader of the embattled Children of God religious sect, apparently has died the way he lived: shrouded in mystery. His followers say they don't know where or exactly when he died, or under what circumstances. But spokesmen for the sect in the United States and Europe say Berg's wife notified them Tuesday - in a letter from an unknown location - that their 75-year-old leader, in hiding since the early 1970s, had died. If Berg is gone (international police authorities are expressing doubts)

Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, a national leader for African American Muslims who preaches personal responsibility and brotherhood between the races, urged his followers yesterday to practice love in the family and in government. "No one can become a believer or have faith until he practices love between his brothers and sisters," he told about 400 African American Muslims who gathered in the auditorium of Willingboro High School. The event was sponsored by eight New Jersey masjids, or congregations.

Death seems to follow Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman like a distant echo - there often seems to be a connection to his words, but it's never quite clear. There was the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat, which reportedly came after the blind Muslim cleric issued a decree denouncing Sadat's negotiations with Israel. There was the 1990 slaying of radical Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York. There was the killing two years ago of a Muslim man in Brooklyn who had clashed with the cleric.

DeSean Jackson, who has built a career on creating highlights, has lived much of his life in front of a camera. The by-product is a new documentary, DeSean Jackson: The Making of a Father's Dream, compiled from thousands of hours of footage taken by his brother, Byron Jackson, since Jackson was a child. "At first, being young, I used to always tell him to stop filming me," Jackson said. "But [Bryon] used to tell me, 'One day, this is all going to be needed.' " Available Sunday for Father's Day on inDemand, the film is ostensibly about DeSean Jackson.

Brittany Cozzens grew tired of the Pinterest e-mails notifying her of new followers, about 10 a day, so she turned them off. A year later, a marketing company let her know: she had more than three million followers, putting her among the most followed people on the site. "I was like, 'That's not right.' Then I went to look and was like, 'Oh . . ..' " Cozzens' self-described "procrastination" on the popular photo-organizing website landed the rising Temple University sophomore a paying job as one of more than 250 influencers for Pinterest marketing company HelloSociety.

PHIL MICKELSON stood in the hallowed halls of Merion's clubhouse, just feet from where he teed off 4 hours earlier, and was asked to describe the feeling of finishing second in the U.S. Open for the sixth time. "It's very heartbreaking," Mickelson said. "I feel like this was my best chance on a course I loved. " Merion loved Mickelson back. But it was his putter that betrayed him. Here's a look at walking all 18 holes with Lefty, during a round that was as sideways as it was up and down: 3:14 p.m.: With well more than $1 billion net worth serenading Mickelson with "Happy Birthday" from Merion's members' tent off the first tee, Phil plants his tee in the ground as the only player in the U.S. Open under par for the tournament.

Sergio Garcia is already something of a polarizing figure -- and his comment about Tiger Woods this week, in which he said he'd serve his rival "fried chicken" if he came over for dinner, hasn't endeared him to fans here at Merion. "Look at him -- he's walking behind (Rickie) Fowler so he doesn't get booed," one man scoffed as Garcia made his way to his first tee-off of the day at the 11th hole. (Fowler, who's playing in Garcia's group received nearly as much attention for his birdie on the 13th hole as he did for his colorful attire today -- a bright yellow shirt and electric-blue pants.)

BEIRUT - Syrian troops pushed forward with their offensive against rebels Saturday, capturing a suburb near the Damascus international airport as the U.S. warned that the alleged use of chemical weapons by President Bashar al-Assad's forces and the involvement of the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah in the civil war threaten to put a proposed political settlement out of reach. The United States and Russia have been pressing for a peace conference to end Syria's civil war in Geneva, but prospects for that have been dampened after a series of regime battlefield victories and hardened positions by both sides as the death toll from the more than two-year-old conflict has surged to nearly 93,000.

With the demise of the gritty, old-fashioned cop show Southland , TNT's dramatic lineup has been left with a gaping hole that may be impossible to fill - especially if the cabler's new procedural, King & Maxwell , is any indication. Starring Jon Tenney ( The Closer ) and X-Men 's Rebecca Romijn, it premieres at 10 p.m. Monday. It's one of three new basic cable shows, including Sinbad and Primeval: New World , a pair of family fantasy adventure series on Syfy that premiere Saturday at 9 and 10 p.m. respectively.

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Sam Hinkie's tenure in Houston was never about Sam Hinkie, he'll tell you. It was really about the system. Now that Hinkie has become the new general manager and president of basketball operations for the 76ers, the question is: Can he bring that system to Philadelphia? Will Hinkie use the same methods he employed as executive vice president of basketball operations for the Rockets? Or will he do things his way, emphasizing some stuff the Rockets did and ignoring others? "I think we just need to be opportunistic about the things that come along," Hinkie said.