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Roberta McReynolds writes: A number of our visitors have special needs, and we have always been able to adjust to whatever any given situation requires. Santa has climbed down so we can kneel next to a wheelchair, given an autistic child the quietness and calm they need, and welcomed those with mental limitations with patience and understanding. We held a baby that was just two weeks old this year and had a woman who proclaimed she was 91 and had never had her picture taken with Santa before. Some visitors bring in their dogs for a picture and Mrs. Claus makes sure Santa has a supply of dog biscuits for our furry friends. more »

Jo Freeman writes: On December 5 Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-IL) told the Fifth annual Woman Rule Summit that she saw the same energy and enthusiasm in women during the last year that she saw [during the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings], and thought another Year might be coming. Sexual harassment by powerful men certainly attracted a lot more attention in 2017 than it did 25 years ago. There has been a shift in the presumption that the women were lying to a belief that the men are in denial. The Women Rule Summit featured issues of importance to women in more than just politics. The Fifth Summit had panels on women in sports, as entrepreneurs, in federal law enforcement, as well as a lot of politics.   more »

Henry James and American Painting, an exhibition that is the first to explore the relationship between James' literary works and the visual arts, is appearing at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. On view until Jan. 21, 2018, it offers a fresh perspective on the master novelist and the significance of his friendships with American artists John La Farge, John Singer Sargent, and James McNeill Whistler, and close friend and esteemed arts patron, Isabella Stewart Gardner. more »

Since the epidemic began, a few cities and states have begun collecting data on drug seizures, arrests, overdose deaths and other collateral effects of the opioid epidemic. Indiana, for example, is working on a statewide, multi-agency database that includes information on pharmacy robberies, overdose-related ambulance calls and the use of the opioid overdose antidote naloxone. Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Virginia have declared the opioid epidemic a state of emergency, in part to enable better information sharing among agencies. more »