San Francisco may lose its main newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, as owner Hearst cuts a "significant" number of jobs.

Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton jockeyed for position on Sunday in a bruising United States presidential race after Obama scored a landslide win in a South Carolina primary tinged with the issue of race. "I think [the result] speaks extraordinarily well, not just for folks in the South, but all across the country," said Obama.

A tiger that mauled a zookeeper last year escaped from its pen at the San Francisco Zoo on Tuesday, killing one man and injuring two others before police shot it dead, authorities said. The three men were in their 20s; they were together and were not zoo employees, a San Francisco police spokesperson said.

The New York Times said on Monday it will end its paid TimesSelect web service and make most of its website available for free in the hopes of attracting more readers and higher advertising revenue. TimesSelect will shut down on Wednesday, two years after the Times launched it, which charges subscribers $7,95 a month or $49,95 a year.

Internet search leader Google has begun hosting material produced by the Associated Press and three other news services on its own website instead of only sending readers to other destinations. The change that started last Friday affects hundreds of stories and photographs distributed each day.

As one of the most photographed constructions on Earth, a lure to tourists and one of the supreme symbols of the United States, its attraction to advertisers is evident. But howls of protest could be heard emanating from the San Francisco Bay area this weekend over plans to put the Golden Gate bridge out to commercial sponsorship.

MOVIE OF THE WEEK: David Fincher returns to the serial-killer idea with Zodiac, which opens this week, writes Shaun de Waal