PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Fifth-graders in California who adorned their mortarboards with tiny toy plastic soldiers this week to support troops in Iraq were forced to cut off their miniature weapons. A Utah boy was suspended for giving his cousin a cold pill prescribed to both students. In Rhode Island, a kindergartner was suspended for bringing a plastic knife to school so he could cut cookies.

It's all part of "zero tolerance" rules, which typically mandate severe punishments for weapons and drug offenses regardless of the circumstances.

Lawmakers in several states say the strict policies in schools have resulted in many punishments that lack common sense, and are seeking to loosen the restrictions.

"A machete is not the same as a butter knife. A water gun is not the same as a gun loaded with bullets," said Rhode Island state Sen. Daniel Issa, a former school board member who worries that no-tolerance rules are applied blindly and too rigidly.

A woman was discovered taking toilet paper from the courthouse Monday, according to police reports, something she has apparently been adept at doing for a quite a while.

No one could remember exactly when, but toilet paper started disappearing at “unusually high rates,” even for county employees, said a source close to the problem. In other words, something didn’t smell quite right.

It had long ago been suspected that the problem was more than just overactive bowels, but no one could quite prove it. That is, until the culprit was caught red-handed by authorities.

“A courthouse employee saw her walk from a storeroom carrying a bag of toilet paper,” said Marshalltown Police Chief Lon Walker.

The finding that women who do not use condoms during sex are less depressed and less likely to attempt suicide than are women who have sex with condoms and women who are not sexually active, leads one researcher to conclude that semen contains powerful—and potentially addictive—mood-altering chemicals. ...

Semen contains hormones including testosterone, estrogen, prolactin, luteinizing hormone and prostaglandins, and some of these are absorbed through the walls of the vagina and are known to elevate mood.