San Francisco - A former internet spam king who escaped from a low security prison earlier this week has killed himself and his family in an apparent murder-suicide police said Friday.

The bodies of convicted spammer Edward "Eddie" Davidson, 35, his wife and 3-year-old daughter were found in a parked car near their former farmhouse about 40 kilometres east of Denver, Colorado. His older teenage daughter was shot in the neck but managed to escape, while his seven-month old baby was left unharmed in the car.

San Francisco - Seven US West Coast states and four Canadian provinces are to introduce a market-based emissions-trading scheme aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions, news reports said Thursday.

The Western Climate Initiative - comprised of the US states of California, Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Oregon and Washington and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec - released a draft proposal for the programme Wednesday, the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper said.

Trading was to officially start in 2012.

The initiative was launched in February 2007 with the aim of dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions on a regional level by 15 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020.

San Francisco  - Forget the oil crisis, the dollar swoon or the housing bust. The biggest worry for many in the technology and investment community is the health of Apple's iconic founder and chief executive Steve Jobs.

The 53-year-old legend underwent successful surgery for pancreatic cancer about four years ago, and rumours of a relapse started swirling last month when he looked gaunt, pale and far from his usual exuberant self when introducing the new iPhone in San Francisco.

San Francisco  - Internet search leader Google has signed a letter of intent with Digg to purchase the social news site for around 200 million dollars, the influential technology blog TechCrunch reported Tuesday.

The report said the deal would be finalized within two weeks and that Digg would continue to operate as part of the Google News operation, which already runs one of the most popular news sites on the web.

San Francisco  - Paving the way for the introduction of its plug-in electric vehicles in 2010, General Motors announced Tuesday that it was teaming up with 37 utility companies across the US and Canada to design and build the nationwide infrastructure needed to recharge the vehicles.

The ailing auto-giant has been hard hit as skyrocketing petrol prices cause people to dump the gas-guzzling models produced by the company in favour of smaller cars not offered by US auto makers.

San Francisco  - Powered by unprecedented demand for its Macbooks, iPhones and iPods, Apple reported record revenue and third quarter profits Monday.

Net quarterly profits were 1.07 billion dollars, or 1.19 dollars per diluted share, compared to 818 million dollars, or 92 cents per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. The Silicon Valley manufacturer of computers, phones and media players posted revenue of 7.46 billion dollars compared to 5.41 billion dollars a year ago.