ORANGE COUNTY

Freedom Buys 2 North County Weeklies: Irvine-based Freedom Newspapers Inc., continuing its expansion in North County, said Friday that it had purchased weekly newspapers serving the Buena Park and Cypress-La Palma areas. The Buena Park News and the Cypress/La Palma News were bought for an undisclosed price from City Communication Corp. in Orange. Freedom plans to merge the two into a single publication called the Buena Park News, which will cover all three cities. The paper will be operated by Golden West Publishing, a Freedom subsidiary. Before the sale, Golden West published 19 weeklies in Orange County. In many cases, the community papers are inserted into the Thursday editions of the Orange County Register, replacing the Register’s community news sections. The first edition of the merged paper is scheduled for Thursday.