Skipping long lines at airport security checkpoints will soon be more than a dream for some Bay Area frequent fliers under a new "registered traveler" program to be rolled in at airports across the country this summer.Mineta San Jose International Airport will be among the first in the nation to implement the registered travel program, which will be implemented using private companies, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration announced Thursday. Read More

If Joan Barnes’ company gets too big, she has faith that the nature of her business will be her saving grace. Barnes owns a branch of yoga studios called Yogastudio. "I’m in the yoga business so my yoga practice comes first," she said. "I schedule a yoga practice before anything. That has really kept my balance. When I make myself come first, I have more energy for everything else and I feel more sane. I would be a crazy oxymoron if I were not in balance." Read More

Three years ago, San Mateo High School teacher Ellyn Daugherty's husband told her the happy truth: no matter how dedicated and infectious a teacher she was, she just couldn't teach all the other teachers who wanted to learn her biotechnology curriculum.So she wrote the book instead. Now, two months after publication, "Biotechnology: Science for the New Millennium" has been adopted by schools nationwide and is likely to be adopted by the San Mateo Union High School District tonight. Read More

While millions of us are still struggling to shed those extra holiday pounds, food activists, personal injury lawyers and bureaucrats say we don’t have to make the effort — it’s up to Congress and the courts to produce a trimmer America.John Foreyt, director of the Behavioral Medicine Research Center at Baylor College, predicts that if trends continue, every American will be overweight or obese by 2040. Activists claim this crisis calls for government intervention, but government has waged a fight against fat for over 50 years — and to no effective end. Read More

The third death on the Caltrain tracks in 12 days occurred Tuesday, when an adolescent boy was fatally struck south of the Broadway train station.The boy, 13-year-old Fatih Kuc, was playing along the tracks and appeared to have accessed the area from a nearby dirt path, officials said. Police interviewed other children who witnessed the accident, and a police chaplain was on hand to comfort the boy’s family and witnesses, Caltrain spokesman Jonah Weinberg said. Read More

At precisely 5:13 a.m. on Tuesday, 100 years to the minute after the start of a catastrophe that has become the seminal event in San Francisco history, silence fell over Lotta’s Fountain at Market and Kearny streets. The moment offered a pause for reflection for the large throng gathered there, just as the recent weeks leading up to the 100th anniversary commemoration of the Great Earthquake and Fire have given us a chance to reflect on the disaster. Read More

The week began on Easter Sunday, April 15, the 41st anniversary of the death of Abraham Lincoln and a month after the death of Susan B. Anthony. San Francisco, as did the nation, reveled in a technological transformation: the phonograph, the automobile, the electric light. Despite its relatively small stature — perhaps 430,000 residents, the nation’s ninth most populous city — San Francisco boasted a financial and artistic influence, a physical beauty that had garnered a worldwide reputation. Read More