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.

It was a busy week for Madison in newspapers around the country. From faltering banks and layoffs to local musicians and runners competing well, we collect it all so you can know how Madison is being represented nationally.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Amcore Bank, which has been working hard toward building a strong presence in Madison, has "landed on a list of 20 U.S. banks that could be vulnerable to a slowdown in the commercial real estate market."

David Stoler, a Madison jazz musician who performs locally in The Tony Castaneda Latin Jazz Sextet, was one of five finalists for the piano competition at the Jacksonville Jazz Festival. The Florida Times-Union says that Stoler performed "Cheech's Bossa."

It was a busy week for newspapers outside of Wisconsin reporting on Madison, but most of the coverage involved basketball and Badgers. However, with patience you can find a number of interesting stories on what the influence Madison-based organizations and people are having on the rest of the country.

Vadim Shapiro of the UW-Madison teamed up with Igor Tsukanov of Florida International University to develop a new technology that can "predict stress fractures that occur in statues that have been in place for hundreds of years." The program is called "Scan and Solve" and while the United Press International covered the duo applying it to Michelangelo's David, they said it could also be applied to human bones - opening a whole new chapter in learning how they can fail.

This week's "Madison mentions" in newspapers from around the country is a bit shorter than usual. Still, it is plenty exciting with stories about robots, curling, and exonerations of murder charges.

A robot being tested in Madison's lakes before it makes a journey to the icy depths of Antartica and possibly an eventual space journey to Europa, the ice moon of Jupiter, experienced some problems.

Last week was another busy week one for Madison receiving mentions in newspapers throughout the country. Most of it is green related as we continue to carve out our position as a leading eco-friendly city. One of the most enjoyable parts about writing Madsion Mentions is learning how former Madisonians are applying what they learned living in Madison to their new homes.

For example, the Wyoming Tribune Eagle reported on former Madisonian Niki McGlathery who is part of a book club with members who are seeking to reduce carbon footprints. According to the article:

Welcome back to Madison Mentions, the best place in town to find out what the rest of the nation and occasionally the world is reading about Madison, Wisconsin. This week marks the two year anniversary of our Madison mentions feature and what an anniversary it is. Flipping through the various papers reveals a fairly busy week for Madison in the press beyond our state borders.

We start our trip at the San Francisco Zoo where the San Jose Mercury News takes a look at the life and times of Tatiana, the Siberian tiger that was shot to death after it killed a San Jose teen. Why is this important to Madison? Tatiana was born at the Denver Zoo in 2003 where she was part of a litter that included her bother, Waldemere, and sister, Mariette. If you've been to the Henry Vilas Zoo here in Madison then you have likely met Mariette.

Madison has been busy, busy, busy over the last week in the newspapers being printed outside of the Wisconsin state borders. And based on this round-up, we look pretty good. The big story making the rounds via the Associated Press wire concerns State Sen. Judy Robson seeking to require all cigarettes sold in Wisconsin to be fire-safe, "meaning they extinguish automatically when not being smoked." According to the AP Wisconsin would become the 23rd state to enact such requirements on cigarette peddlers.

According to columnist Colin McEnroe of the Hartford Courant in Connecticut, Hartford's Adriaen's Landing "is an internationally recognized marvel, recently honored as America's Most Difficult to Spell New Convention Center, narrowly edging out Fllyorggn's Crossing in Madison, Wis." I have no idea where Fllyorggn Crossing is located. Mr. McEnroe, may I suggest the Hhffrrrggh Inn of Janesville, Wis. for future "Difficult to Spell" location articles? At least you'll be citing a real place.

Once again we dig into the news media of other cities and states to see how they are covering Madison.

We start with Education Week where they took a look at Madison school teacher David Wasserman who has been protesting No Child Left Behind in his classroom.

During the past 30 days Wisconsin has lost two servicewomen in Iraq. According to the LA Times one was from Madison. Army Reserve Spc. Rachael L. Hugo, was killed when insurgents attacked her unit with a roadside bomb and small arms fire.

We haven’t dug through the yellowing stack of national newspapers to see what they are writing about our fair city in a few weeks. We thought now would be a great time to do so and bring to your attention all of the “Madison mentions” from the last week. For the newbies amongst you (and our traffic says there are many), roughly each week I look through papers and magazines (and a handful of online sites that function as if they have print counterparts) published outside of our state borders to see how the rest of the country is seeing us. The result is typically interesting and often educates us on many things happening in our own backyard that only a virgin eye could find. This week we start with a magazine – Gourmet.

Madison’s farmer’s market fresh restaurant Harvest received some pleasant praise in the “Local Goes National” guide from the foodie magazine. Gourmet writes:

Last week the most reported story about Madison in newspapers outside of Wisconsin was, of course, last week's tragic electrocution. Thankfully, it isn't all news of bad news being reported about Madison and we pull up these stories printed around the country.

The New York Times profiles Madison's Golf Pro Steve Stricker after he took home his first tour victory since 2001: "In the half-light of a hazy summer evening, when all of his work was done, Steve Stricker closed his eyes and let the tears fall. Two years ago, he was invisible in the game of golf, lost in a rut of bad thoughts and shaky mechanics. He spent that winter in a three-sided trailer at his father-in-law’s golf course in Madison, Wis., hitting yellow golf balls into the snow."

Welcome once again to Madison Mentions: our weekly journey through national newspapers from the past week where we see what the rest of the country is reading about Madison.

Madison’s Associated Press reporter, Ryan Foley, was recently honored by the Associated Press Managing Editors when he received the John L. Dougherty award. The award is given to an AP reporter with less than three years' journalism experience with the AP and less than five years' total news experience. Congratulations to Ryan for his hard work being recognized.

Denver just held their second "Urban Assault" - an event that will be hitting the streets of Madison on August 18. Urban Assault is described in a Denver Post article:

It was a tough slog seeking out stories about Madison in newspapers beyond our state borders. The obvious reason was our region’s already busy news week – from the search for Kelly Nolan to Audrey Seiler paying her restitution to the quarry deaths and so much more. But what about the stories that fell through the cracks? There were plenty of those and our crack team of news snoops with fingers stained black with ink have dug them out so you can know what the rest of the country is reading about Madison. From Weinermobiles to streetcars, from mother-of-pearl to biofuels, and from Harry Potter to SiCKO - Madison apparently has plenty to write about.

So how does the Wall Street Journal feel about the Mayor’s street car proposal? The paper of record seems to think he is on the right track:

Dane101 has been slacking with Madison Mentions over the past few weeks and we are happy to bring it back this morning. For those of you that are not familiar with Madison Mentions what we do is scour newspapers (and some news websites) outside of Wisconsin to see what is being written about Madison by outsider journalists. Doing so helps us as Madisonians see things that are right under our noses, but possibly overlooked because we walk past them everyday.

The big Madison news last week was the story that ran in the New York Times concerning FSBOMadison (see Dane101's review of the FSBOMadison website here, our article "House Hunting without Leaving Home," and a previous Madison Mention of FSBOMadison here). The Times story said “a study based on home-sales data from 1998 to 2004 in Madison, Wis., is that people in that city who sold their homes through real estate agents typically did not get a higher sale price than people who sold their homes themselves. When the agent’s commission is factored in, the for-sale-by-owner people came out ahead financially.” The story has been picked up by multiple papers around the country making Madison the case study on FSBO.

Once again we take a look through the national papers to see what is being said about Madison outside of our state media.

Madison is receiving numerous mentions from papers looking at how their hometown stacks up in the newly released Places Rated Almanac Most Livable Cities. Madison crept into the top 10 this year.

Mother Earth News went looking for great places you've never heard of to live and found dozens. They mention Madison as a great place to live, but we didn't make it into the final 12 because most people have already heard of us.

The Wisconsin Covenant agreement for eighth graders is getting a great deal of national press via the AP. When eighth graders sign the agreement they promise to “earn a B-average, take courses to prepare for college and be good citizens. In exchange, the state will guarantee a spot in one of its universities or technical colleges and a combination of work study, loans and scholarships to help low-income students pay their way. ”