Petty Crime

By Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, Val Castronovo, Tam Gray, Desa Philadephia, Julie Rawe, Hope Reeves and Chris Taylor

NOW CALM DOWN Beware, the Department of Overreaction may have stepped up operations:

--Exercising its "strong no-weapons policy," a St. Louis, Mo., school suspended Lamont Agnew, 7, for 45 days for bringing toenail clippers to school.

--Truck driver Xavier Ocampo was charged with a misdemeanor after cracking open a roasted peanut at a Lincoln, Neb., grocery store. The nut was worth about a penny.

--Texan Christopher Beamon, 13, spent five days in juvenile detention for writing a horror story for his seventh-grade English class about killing his classmates. He got extra credit for the assignment.