Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk sent a letter of apology to the family of 21-year-Brittany Zimmermann and her fiance early last week after an investigation concluded that the dispatcher who answered a 911 call from Zimmermann's cell phone around the time she was murdered on April 2, failed to call back after being disconnected. Police have also said there were sounds in the call that should've prompted a police response. Falk, who has heard a recording of the call, said she doubts even had they been dispatched, police wouldn't have been able to save Zimmermann.

Below are the full letters sent to Zimmermann's parents and fiance. You can enlarge by clicking on the images.

My goodness what a looker she was. Eighteen years old, sun red hair, big green eyes, a perfect figure that photos show she wasn’t ashamed of and a steely will built by hard times and a daily struggle to survive.

By now, it was 1944, and it looked like she, her family and all of London were going to survive the war. Annette can describe in detail the faces and the feelings and the sounds of spending endless nights in bomb shelters while air raid sirens wailed and German buzz bombs screamed overhead.

She’ll describe to you in detail just how her soon-to-be husband looked in his snappy U.S. Air Force uniform the first night they met at a dance in East London (she was dating the drummer in the band at the time, a Tony Cromby ...nice enough fellow, but he was no American).

She can paint a picture of 60 years back in time and fill in every stroke and then, this morning, she forgot that she’d moved to Buffalo City six weeks ago.

New York Senator Hillary Clinton may not agree, but this weekend Illinois Senator Barack Obama plans to start acting like he is the only Democrat in the race by mobilizing a massive 50-state strong army of new voters. One day after Obama closed the superdelegate lead with Clinton to within half-a-super supporters will gather at the King Street steps of the Wisconsin state capitol for a voter registration training session. Then they will head out into the city to sign up and educate as many new voters as possible. It should add an additional fun spectacle to the Dane County Farmer's Market and hopefully organizers will provide participants with information specific to Obama's Family Farmer policy agenda. Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz will be leading the kick-off event. Clinton has 269.5 Superdelgates to Obama's 269. Overall, Obama needs 165 delegates to officially take the Democratic nomination, while Clinton needs 328.5.

No one seems to be able to get their stories straight. Just over a month after UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann was murdered in her Doty St. apartment and a week after the initial revelation about the 911 call from her phone was published in an Isthmus article by Jason Shepard, no one seems willing or able to set the record straight.

Union representatives from Local 720, which represents Dane County 911 dispatchers, are saying that the person who took the call from Zimmermann’s phone claims not to have done anything to violate protocol. According to a recent channel3000 article, “The dispatcher said the 911 center policy says operators should call back a disconnected call if they have time.” This contradicts what the public has been told by Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and others, who indicated that protocol is to always return 911 calls, regardless of any other factor. Also, in direct contradiction to what officials have been saying, the dispatcher adamantly denies having hung up the call.

Madison had a busy week when it came to coverage in media outside of the state of Wisconsin. A South Dakota paper and the Christian Science Monitor both take aim at Madison liberalism, the UW invents nanotrees, Madison gets a Second Life, Chris Farley receives a high grade in literature, and much, much more.

The online Universe, Second Life, continues to make headlines, but recently a bit of Madison in the virtual world was mentioned in an article on MSNBC.

May 3 is the 124th day of the year.

* WSJ: "A visit to the 911 center on Friday and a demonstration of what happens when a cell call is received there shows there are limits to the information received from such a call, especially if there is no voice contact with the caller.Even Madison Police Chief Noble Wray appears to have overestimated the capabilities of the system when it comes to finding a caller who has dialed 911 on a cell phone."

* Capper: Mark Belling's radio show takes a very non-PC stance towards the MPD

* Whetstone: "It is mildly interesting that in Madison, the supposed hotbed of socialism and the Berkley of the Midwest, it is the liberal newspaper that bites the dust."

* Channel3000: Marino family requests help from the state in investigating Joel Marino's murder

* ShilvShillShine: Notes from the Antiwar Stump

* Dustin Christopher: "I received a response to a recent piece I wrote about the Madison Police Department's planned response to the Mifflin Street Block Party, and even if it's not legit, with all the ragging I've been doing on the PD lately, I have some 'splainin' to do."

*AP:"Thousands of college students will gather Saturday for the annual Mifflin Street Block Party, where students party hop between houses stocked with kegs and beer bongs start flowing about 8 a.m.But the spring celebration comes just one month after the slaying of University of Wisconsin-Madison junior Brittany Zimmermann in her apartment a few blocks away."

Dane County Supervisor Wyndham Manning is calling for an end to the finger pointing a day after Isthmus reported the bombshell that Brittany Zimmermann had called 9-1-1 and was hung up on the day she was found murdered in her apartment. Manning, newly elected representative of the heavily student populated fifth supervisor district, said the board is working on plans for a full audit of the Dane County 911 Center and Emergency Management.

Yesterday Dane County Public Safety Communications Director Joseph Norwick and Madison Police Chief Noble Wray held dueling press conferences. During his morning conference Norwick said the dispatcher failed to call Zimmermann's number back after hanging up on the call and deemed the call not to be an emergency. Wray foisted blame on the center, "it would be accurate to state that there is evidence contained in the call, which should have resulted in a Madison police officer being dispatched."

As reported by Emily Mills on Dane101 yesterday afternoon, reporter Jason Shepard at Isthmus dropped a bomb on the cooling Brittany Zimmermann case when he revealed Dane County emergency line dispatchers received a call from Zimmermann's cell phone which resulted in no officers being dispatched to her home. The contents of the phone call are not being disclosed by the police due to possible evidence, but the department told the press yesterday: "it would be accurate to state that there is evidence contained in the call which should have resulted in a Madison Police officer being dispatched. That would have been consistent with both Madison Police Department policy and national 911 standards."

In the wake of an article published in todays' Isthmus newspaper detailing allegations that Madison 911 dispatchers failed to follow-up on an emergency call placed by Brittany Zimmermann shortly before she was murdered on April 2, there has been a flurry of activity involving press conferences and releases, both by Dane County Emergency Services director Joe Norwick and by the MPD.

The original article states:

Representatives from the Student Tenant Union, UW-Madison declared 617 Mendota Ct. as the "winner" of their Worst House In Madison contest for 2008.

Student Tenant Union organizers Jason Wargolet and Joseph Lindstrom spoke at a press conference in front of the "winning" residence, explaining how the combination of lack of needed repairs, an unresponsive landlord, and troubling safety and security concerns earned the Mendota Ct. residence the nod.

The face of media changed in Madison this weekend as the Capital Times ceased printing a daily publication. The 90-year-old paper will now be hosted mostly online with the exception of a weekly news and politics print edition and a weekly entertainment edition called 77 Square. The reaction around the internet has been intense with discussions happening on blogs as far away as Italy. I don't speak Italian, so I can't tell you what they are saying in the boot shaped country, but what I can do is collect the English buzz from around the globe. But first, I want to start with an editorial that ran in the Wall Street Journal on April 21 by L. Gordon Crovitz. Although his piece is not specifically about the Capital Times it does discuss the changing face of technology and the increasing access to information on the Internet. Near the end he writes thusly and it seems relevant to the situation being faced by our media brothers and sisters out on Fish Hatchery Road:

Good afternoon from Dane101's Department of Better Living! We've put together some quirky, funny, and/or just plain bizarre links to brighten up your lazy Sunday. Click on each description for a laugh (or WTF?! moment)

* YouTube: 35 seconds that will make you want a new toilet

* 23/6: If They IM'd: Old Bill Clinton and New Bill Clinton "In Bill Clinton's quest to turn off every person in the country win over voters for his wife, he's now claiming it's Barack Obama who's playing race politics."

* Pundit Kitchen: Political LOLZ site brought to us by I Can Has Cheezburger? View the toprated pictures and build your own

* Yankee Pot Roast: Diary of a Radioactive, Flesh-Eating Teen Zombie:"I’ve always wanted to suck her brains out through a straw because she keeps borrowing my lip gloss without asking."

* CollegeHumor: The Michael Showalter Showalter: Michael Cera (or as we like to remember him, George Michael Bluth)

* Slate: In keeping with Dane101 current hot topics: video detailing The World's Stupidest Bike Lanes

* McSweeneys: Straight from John McCain's Straight Talk Express: "Do you look fat in those new jeans? No. Do they look good on you? Unfortunately, not really. Why do you insist on wearing skinny jeans? I know that skinny jeans are fashionable, but they aren't for everyone."

In honor of Earth Day, Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton rolled out more of her Green Economy Agenda this past week. On Monday, she unveiled a website that helps people figure out how to switch their household to renewable energy. On Thursday, she announced an efficiency challenge for public schools to a group of attentive 4th and 5th graders at Shorewood Hills Elementary School in Madison.

Both are aimed at helping Wisconsin “shrink its footprint.”

In “an era of scant resources” in the public school system, Lawton says the Energy Star School Challenge pools resources for districts so that at least 100 schools can become at least 10% more efficient in one year.

On Feb. 20, New Mexico residents received a shock. The Albuquerque Tribune, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper would cease to publish after Feb. 23 due to a decline in circulation.

The Tribune was one of two Albuquerque newspapers. The Albuquerque Journal and the Tribune had coexisted thanks partially to a joint operating agreement signed in 1933 that allowed the companies to merge advertising and share a press.

Two weeks earlier, The Capital Times newspaper in Madison had announced major changes. Effective April 26, they would no longer publish a newspaper version of their product.

Instead, it would publish two weekly print supplements: a Wednesday publication focused on editorials and news; and a Thursday magazine geared towards entertainment. The main daily focus for The Capital Times will be their website, CapTimes.com.