The hapless Journal Register Co. (once my employer) has unloaded two Connecticut newspapers, but the state may yet get involved in bailing out the ink-stained wretches:

Less than two weeks before they were to be shut down, The Bristol Press and The Herald of New Britain have been saved by former Long Island Newsday exec Michael Schroeder and an unidentified financial backer. Journal Register Company had put the two Connecticut dailies up for sale in November and had recently announced that their last day to publish would be January 16th – until this deal gave them a new lease on life.
Judging by the news reports in the two newspapers and the Hartford Courant, the state’s largest newspaper, Schroeder was greeted like Santa Claus by the mayors of Bristol and New Britain and by legislators at the state capitol. Schroeder’s new company, Central Connecticut Communications, may be able to tap financing from the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, but at this point there is no state money in the deal.

There’s a lot of money in small newspapers, but my guess is that the new owners will try to get a piece of that state money in any case; you put money on the table, somebody’s going to pick it up.