A Coast Guardsman down Bar Harbor way saves a group of terrorized school kids waiting for their bus from a rampaging German shepherd. Now, he’s in a jam with his superiors and local police for sending the beast scurrying with a warning shot. Seems he should have left the 9 mm at home and packed a rolled up newspaper.

Heinous Crime, Part II: Little Rock is reeling after the theft of the Clinton portrait from the rotunda of the Arkansas State House. The loss is incalculable — the replacement cost of all that black velvet alone is staggering.

Part III: Arizona (recently former) Gov. Fife Symington is asking a judge to set aside his fraud conviction, thus sparing him up to 100 years in prison. Another convert to term limits.

Oops. After crowning the University of West Virginia as the nation’s number-one party school, the New York Times now says the honoree should have been West Virginia University. The entire UWV freshman class demands its tuition back.

Need something new to worry about? That esteemed British medical journal, The Lancet, reports that those whose diet includes squirrel brains (yes, squirrel brains) are susceptible to a human form of mad cow disease. What they say is true — you just don’t know what’s safe to eat anymore.

In the aftermath of “101 Dalmations,” animal shelters nationwide say they’re inundated with unwanted spotted puppies. Disney Corp. claims no responsibility, but does scrap production of “Pepe LePew — The Musical.”

Speaking of things that don’t smell quite right, a Portland woman is telling police she didn’t know the new sneakers she delivered to her son in jail contained hacksaw blades underneath the insoles. Nike scraps production of its Air Gotti model.