Eds: UPDATES with buyer making offer. Will be led. APNewsNow.

Moving on general news and financial services.

MESA, Ariz. (AP) The publisher of the East Valley Tribune in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa says a buyer has made an offer that would keep the paper and its Web site in business.

Publisher Julie Moreno told Tribune staffers on Friday that Irvine, Calif.-based Freedom Communications received a letter of intent to purchase the paper, which Freedom planned to close on Dec. 31. Moreno says she understands the buyer's intent is to continue publishing and keep a "substantial number" of the 140 employees.

Freedom will seek approval from a bankruptcy judge to complete the sale by the end of the year.

Freedom operates 33 daily and 77 weekly newspapers, including the Orange County (Calif.) Register and two dailies in Arizona, the Daily Sun-News in Sun City and The Sun in Yuma.

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