AM.MN: Public pressure makes school officials lapdogs for laptops

Two junior high schools will continue to put a laptop computer into the hands of every student, despite the school district’s $5 million budget shortfall. An outcry coaxed officials to save the “1:1″ program at Oak-Land and Stillwater junior highs from possible extinction. District 834′s catering to youngsters’ digital desires doesn’t stop there. Officials plan to spend remaining technology funds on upgrades so students’ personal wireless gadgets will work better on campus.

Elsewhere in Minnesota headlines this morning …

ROCHESTER: State’s take makes parking tickets twice as pricey. With a state surcharge increasing by $8, the fee that locals pay will almost double … but it’s not a tax. [Rochester Post Bulletin]

ALBERT LEA: Teen didn’t get rights read, lawyer says. Police say they were interviewing, not interrogating, her about alleged abuse of patients at the nursing home where she worked. [Albert Lea Tribune]

MINNEAPOLIS: Northland Poster Collective to close up shop. Pro-labor and progressive, the producer of t-shirts, buttons and posters will fold this month. “After three decades of working to undermine Wall Street, it finally fell on us,” founder says. [Minneapolis Labor Review]

OWATONNA: Outdoor swimming arrives after 60 years. A long-sought public pool and water park opens this week, despite some donors to the $3.7 million project being $80,000 behind on their pledge payments. [Owatonna People's Press]

HIBBING: Newspaper to be indefinitely editor-free after bosses, citing financial pressures, give editor an involuntary early retirement — a reminder, he writes, that print-media watchdogs must be fed (from dwindling advertising income) or their eyes will drift shut. [Hibbing Daily Tribune; Minnesota Brown]

BLOOMINGTON: Mazarati revs up for reunion. The local 1980s act that Prince coached to the Top 40 (they recorded a de-countrified version of his composition, “Kiss”) rehearses for a gig this week at the Minneapolis bar where they started. [Twin Cities Daily Planet]