By JUSTIN BERTON, San Francisco Chronicle

At one point, Oakland, Calif., resident Coleton Tidwell could fit a golf ball through the hole in his earlobe.

Tidwell, now 21, was among those who purposely stretched their earlobes with plugs or disc earrings in the name of body modification.

SAN FRANCISCO - The black tattoo that once wrapped Cris Pulido's throat now looks like a smear of grease.

One year ago it was the Mayan symbol for the number 13, which in gang-speak signifies the 13th letter of the alphabet, M. M is code for Mexican Mafia, which is another code for Sureno, which is what Pulido used to be.

OAKLAND, Calif. - Harold Camping, the 90-year-old Oakland minister who incorrectly predicted the end of the world twice this year, conceded that his latest forecast may have shone an unwanted light on himself and his radio station.

OAKLAND, Calif. - This time, Harold Camping sounds like a man who has suffered the whisper of self-doubt.

The Oakland minister's latest prediction of the end of the world -- which he has set for Friday -- is couched among words like "probably" and "maybe," a far cry from the carved-in-stone certitude he projected onto his infamous May 21 forecast.

SAN FRANCISCO - Six days before a college football player was arrested at San Francisco International Airport after he tried to board a US Airways jet with sagging pants, a man who was wearing little but women's undergarments was allowed to fly the airline, a US Airways spokeswoman has acknowledged.

SAN FRANCISCO - As prosecutors mulled whether to file charges against a college football player who allegedly refused to pull up his sagging pants at San Francisco International Airport, the outside world seized the incident to debate broader questions about respect, fashion policies and racial stereotyping.

SAN FRANCISCO - A dispute that began after a passenger refused to pull up his sagging pants led to his arrest and removal from a plane at San Francisco International Airport, police said.

SAN FRANCISCO - If everything goes as Oakland, Calif., minister Harold Camping predicts, California will suffer a world-ending earthquake around 6 p.m. Saturday, God-fearing Christians will ascend to heaven and everyone else is in big trouble for eternity.

And if Camping is wrong, the American Atheists will gather in an Oakland hotel meeting room Sunday to celebrate.

SAN FRANCISCO - Habitat for Humanity volunteers spent more than a year building seven homes for disadvantaged families in a San Francisco neighborhood.

In one night, a band of thieves managed to deflate their altruistic spirit.

From the moment actress Gabourey Sidibe enters the suite at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in San Francisco, it's clear that she is not -- as she has worked to remind many interviewers in the past few weeks -- a "Precious" teen-ager, a victim of abuse who suffers from little, if any, self-esteem.