The Town of Wake Forest will partner with the City of Raleigh and Special Olympics of Wake County to host a series of basketball clinics for children and adults with special needs on Sundays from Dec. 6, 2015, through Feb. 28, 2016. The clinics will be offered from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Flaherty Park Community Center at 1226 North White Street. This is another effort by the town to fully serve these town residents. The deadline to register is Thursday, Nov. 12. Registration forms are available on the town’s website at www.wakeforestnc.gov/special-needs.aspx. Participants must be at least 8 years old and have valid Special Olympics Medical and Parent Permission forms on file with Special Olympics Wake County prior to the first day of practice. For more information about the required forms and other conditions, visit www.sonc.net. A mandatory parent/guardian meeting will be held during the first practice on Dec.

Halloween is on Saturday this year, and it will be celebrated at the Wake Forest Farmers Market from 8 a.m. to noon. Children who go to the market dressed in their costumes will get treats and can participate in fun crafts in the Kids Art Tent where people from Wake Forest ARTS will provide the materials and instruction. Saturday will also mark the end of the market’s summer hours; on Nov. 7 and through March of 2016 the market vendors will only be selling their wares from 10 a.m. to noon. The market is located in Renaissance Plaza on Brooks Street in front of the Wake Forest Renaissance Centre. This week the music will be by The Lang Sisters. Remember the market does not pay the musicians so stick a few dollars in the tip jar. As always, you will find seasonal vegetables in three or four vendor booths, dried

Since Halloween is always Oct. 31, that’s the day the Town of Wake Forest encourages families to go door-to-door in costumes for candy and fun. The Wake Forest Police Department also recommends that little ghosts and goblins trick-or-treat between the hours of 6 and 8 p.m. In addition to or instead of trick-or-treating, families are invited to participate in the Wake Forest Parks, Recreation & Cultural Resources Department’s Halloween Spooktacular on Thursday, Oct. 22. The annual event will be held at the Flaherty Park Community Center, 1226 N. White St., from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. For more information, visit www.wakeforestnc.gov/halloween-spooktacular.aspx. To ensure a safe and happy Halloween for everyone, the police department offers the following safety tips: Attire & Accessories Plan costumes that are bright and reflective. Make sure shoes fit well and costumes are short enough to prevent tripping or entanglement. Consider adding reflective tape to costumes and trick-or-treat

To the editor: How can you identify a veteran? You might ask yourself. Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg, or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul’s ally forged in the refinery of adversity. Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem. You can’t tell a veteran just by looking. He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel. She is a nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang, South Vietnam. He

This was a recent letter to the editor published by  The News & Observer and signed by three members of the General Assembly: State Sen. Angela R. Bryant (D-District 4), State Rep. Bobbie Richardson (D-District 7), and State Rep. Jean Farmer-Butterfield (D-District 24). The closure of Franklin Medical Center, the only hospital in Franklin County, is just the latest reminder that our colleagues at the General Assembly are standing in the way of women, families and communities. Franklin is the fourth rural hospital to shut its doors since the General Assembly has declined increased federal funding for Medicaid that would not only finally provide health care to over 300,000 uninsured adults but would also help keep rural hospitals, major employers and providers of health care for small communities, afloat in today’s tough economic times. The role of Medicaid in state economies, particularly in rural communities, has been well documented. Medicaid