• SFist saw Christmas Day turn tragic after a Siberian tiger escaped from her pen at the San Francisco Zoo, killing a visitor and mauling two others.
• Phillyist counted down the top ten items on Philadelphia's New Year's wish list.
• Gothamist looked at the wooden bikes being offered for NYC's first bike share program on Governors Island.

This weekend the Austin Lyric Opera presents their production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly to open their twentieth season. This early twentieth-century opera is still quite popular; it has been one of the most-performed operas in North America for the past twenty years. Set in 1904, the Italian opera tells the story of a young Japanese girl who falls in love with (and marries) an American sailor in Japan. They make beautiful music together, she... more ›