Our twin weekly papers - North Raleigh News and Midtown Raleigh News - have hit social media.

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As noted in new editor Jason Foster's Wednesday column, some exciting changes are right around the corner for the North Raleigh and Midtown Raleigh News section. They'll be semi-weekly - Wednesday and Sundays - starting Aug. 1. And we've added four new staff members to cover the city more extensively.

Drop us an e-mail - nrnews@newsobserver.com - with any questions, comments or suggestions.

HAPPY MONDAY: We're set for another hot week in Raleigh - temps in the mid 90s all week.

TRASHY FUN: Wake County opened its eighth park on Saturday - this one on a heaping pile of trash. The North Wake Landfill District Park in northeast Raleigh is on the site of the county's closed North Wake Landfill. The park sits on $5 million worth of garbage, and is one of the highest points in the county. Matt Ehlers had the story Saturday. Look for more in Wednesday's North Raleigh and Midtown Raleigh News sections.

WELCOME: Jason Foster joined us last week - he's the new editor of North Raleigh and Midtown Raleigh News. Jason comes from Rock Hill, S.C., where he wore various hats. He'll have a column in this week's community sections. Contact him at jason.foster@newsobserver.com.

RAIL RESERVATIONS: Raleigh restaurants and pubs fear a new high-speed rail route could deter customers. The NCDOT is evaluating two routes through Raleigh for the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor, which would give passenger trains a fast new shortcut to Richmond, Va., Bruce Siceloff reports.

ROCKIN' THE RBC: Michael Buble packed the RBC Center Saturday, and played songs that represented 50 years worth of music. David Menconi had the story.

WHERE'S MEEKER?: Monday: Fair Housing Board's summer reading program at Biltmore Hills; Tuesday: Presiding over a Budget and Economic Development Committee Meeting; Wednesday: Meeting with Dominion Park Homeowners Association; Thursday: Welcoming the AME Zion Convention; Friday: Triangle Area Mayor's Meeting; Monday: Wake County Mayor's Association.

COUNCIL: No meeting this week.

COMING SOON: Read Wednesday about a sidewalk feud in west Raleigh, Wake County's new park, new elementary school sites in Raleigh and a man who walks barefoot up and down the east coast in the North Raleigh and Midtown Raleigh News.

BOMB CLAIMS RALEIGH MAN: A former Raleigh resident was the lone person killed in Sunday's bombing in Uganda, which tore through a crowd watching the World Cup finals.

KID POLITICO: Matt Ehlers had a fascinating story this weekend about a 12-year-old who's on the fast track to the governor's mansion. He knows more about state politics than this blogger, to be sure, and probably more than many elected officials.
 

In this week's North Raleigh and Midtown News sections:

SMALL TOWNS TIGHTEN BUDGET BELTS: Wake Forest and Rolesville rolled out their budgets earlier this month, and they're tight.

WAKEFIELD CHEERS PROJECT'S START: Work should begin soon on the long-awaited Falls of Neuse extension, something Wakefield residents have long waited for.

SCHOOL SPAT: Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker and Rolesville Mayor Frank Eagles are at odds over the location of a new high school.

RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL GUITAR: Josh Shaffer, master of all things weird, waxes poetic about a long-lost guitar returned to its owner 35 years later.

NAME THAT PLACE: Check out the print version and see if you can name the object in the picture on the front page. It's the first in summer series of interesting Raleigh places or objects.

First Look: Staff photojournalist Ethan Hyman's raw edit from the Mitey Mite Panthers working out a Lake Lynn Park on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2009.

See photos from Raleigh's landmark Community Grocery & Deli, which has been put up for sale. Photos by staff photojournalist Robert Willett.

Following is the Public Editor column for Sunday, Aug. 24, 2008:

Where the heck is Midtown Raleigh?

That's a question readers have asked in the wake of The N&O's launch of the new "Midtown Raleigh News." The weekly community newspaper is being distributed to some 55,000 readers in a new "Midtown" area, so designated by The News & Observer, that stretches from downtown Raleigh to near Knightdale to the east and Lynn Road to the west.

It joins The North Raleigh News, a community weekly that has enjoyed reader popularity and advertiser support since its start nine years ago. The stock-in-trade of both publications: ultra-local news about neighborhoods, schools, recreational sports and ordinary people.

The papers come either inserted into the main paper for N&O subscribers or as a separate paper delivered free to nonsubscribers in the affected areas. Distribution has leapt from 48,000 of the North Raleigh News alone to 115,000 of the two papers combined.

Jim McClure, The N&O's vice president for display advertising, says the Midtown edition was created to build on the North Raleigh paper. "Our goal was to expand that success to include the area that we thought both readers and advertisers wanted," he said. But to do that, The N&O had to set new distribution boundaries for both publications, and that has curdled the oatmeal of some readers of the old North Raleigh edition who find themselves becoming Midtowners.

"In this time of shrinking resources for the newspaper, I feel penalized by your decisions," wrote Kathy Bowler. "We live north of Lynn Road and west of Glenwood Avenue. You have decided that we are Midtown residents, rather than North Raleigh. We miss the North Raleigh section."