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Bankruptcy Judge Mark S. Wallace yesterday approved the sale of the Orange County Register and the Riverside Press-Enterprise to Digital First Media, the Los Angeles Times reported today. Digital First’s $52.3 million offer for the assets of Freedom Communications prevailed over a higher bid of $56 million from Tribune Publishing, the parent company of the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune, which faced an antitrust battle in its effort to build a media empire stretching from the Mexican border to Los Angeles. If the deal closed, Tribune would have controlled 98 percent of English-language local daily newspapers for sale in Orange County, the government said. In Riverside County, Calif., Tribune would have owned four of the top five English-language newspapers by circulation, according to the department.

Haggen agreed to sell its original stronghold of Pacific Northwest stores to Albertsons in what seems to be the final chapter of a convoluted grocery-empire saga, the Seattle Times reported on Saturday. The Bellingham, Ore.-based grocer said Albertsons will acquire 29 of its so-called core stores, a group of locations in Washington and Oregon that Haggen had intended to retreat into when it became apparent its big expansion in the U.S. Southwest was doomed. A lengthy contract filed in bankruptcy court indicates Albertsons will pay a “base amount” of $106 million, subject to various adjustments. The deal requires approval from the bankruptcy court in Delaware overseeing the dismantling of Haggen’s remains. An auction previously scheduled for March 18 has been canceled, Haggen said.

U.S. coal company Alpha Natural Resources Inc. said that it sought approval from a U.S. bankruptcy court last month to sell its core assets as part of a plan to emerge from chapter 11 protection, Reuters reported yesterday. Alpha Natural said that it filed a motion in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in February, seeking permission to sell the assets through a stalking-horse bid of at least $500 million from its first-lien lenders led by Citicorp North America Inc. A hearing is scheduled for March 10 and the company expects a conclusion of its bankruptcy proceedings by June 30, Alpha Natural said yesterday.

With less than a month to go before Texas regulators must decide whether to allow a group led by Hunt Consolidated Inc. to buy Energy Future’s Oncor Electric Delivery Co. utility, an unlikely hurdle has been thrown up, by Oncor, Bloomberg News reported today. The power distributor has raised red flags about key aspects of the deal, which is the cornerstone of the plan to allow Energy Future to emerge from bankruptcy. Oncor’s questions bolster the concerns of a long list of opponents to the deal, from consumer advocates to the Texas Public Utility Commission’s own staff. While Oncor hasn’t asked that the transaction be rejected, it said in filings with the commission that the terms of the purchase might not be good for Oncor’s customers, revenue and credit ratings.