9, 2000, the newspaper expanded into San Mateo County by opening three dailies, the San Mateo Daily News, Redwood City Daily News and Burlingame Daily News. These became the first free daily newspapers in San Mateo County, although within two years, other free dailies started in that area, replicating the format of the Daily News. On May 15, 2002, the Daily News launched the Los Gatos Daily News. In addition to Los Gatos, it served Saratoga, Campbell, Cupertino and western San Jose. In the first quarter of 2003, the combined circulation of the Daily News reached 55,000 per day, and on March 23 a home-delivered Sunday edition was added. On November 12, 2004, the Daily News beat the competition by putting out an "extra" minutes after a jury in Redwood City convicted Scott Peterson of murdering his wife Laci and their unborn son. Editors put the "Redwood City Daily News" flag at the top of the Extra because the trial was taking place in that city, but it was distributed in all of the communities served by the Daily News, including Palo Alto. On February 15, 2005, Knight Ridder, then the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, bought the Palo Alto Daily News and its four sister papers for $25 million. Price and Pavelich, the publishers, were asked to stay on during the transition, but they left by the end of the year. In May 2005, the Daily News launched the East Bay Daily News, which served Berkeley, Emeryville, Piedmont, Albany and the Oakland neighborhood of Rockridge. In January 2006, Shareef Dajani, formerly general manager of the Knight Ridder-owned Hills Newspapers, a group of weeklies in Alameda County, was named publisher. In March, Dajani fired editor Diana Diamond, a long-time Palo Altan who was also a columnist. Her dismissal triggered numerous letters-to-the-editor and the competing Palo Alto Weekly picked up her column. Dajani replaced Diamond with Lucinda Ryan, who had worked with him at the Hills Newspapers. In March 2006, Knight Ridder agreed to be purchased by The McClatchy Company, owner of the Sacramento Bee among other papers. McClatchy later announced it would sell 12 of the 32 Knight Ridder dailies, including the San Jose Mercury News and two other regional papers, The Monterey County Herald and the Contra Costa Times. The Palo Alto Daily News, along with other papers, was included in the Mercury News' 'bundle,' to be sold as one