By Jason McLure

(Reuters) – The biggest lobster ever caught in Maine, a 27-pounder nicknamed “Rocky” with claws tough enough to snap a man’s arm, will be released shortly after being trapped in a shrimp net last week, marine officials said on Thursday.

The 40-inch male crustacean, about the size of a 3-year-old human, will be freed in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, said Elaine Jones, education director for the state’s Department of Marine Resources.

LITTLETON, New Hampshire (Reuters) – Maine’s Republican Party will recount votes in the state’s Republican caucus following complaints that totals from some towns were not included in state results showing a 194-vote victory for Mitt Romney over Ron Paul.

In addition, Republicans in Maine’s sparsely populated Washington County will hold their caucus on Saturday after an earlier attempt was postponed by a snowstorm.

By Jason McLure

(Reuters) – With the mayor of Rhode Island’s capital warning it may run out of cash by June, the city of Providence is looking to raise funds from one of its wealthiest landowners: Brown University.

As a non-profit institution, the Ivy League school is exempt from local taxes. Brown, the state’s sixth-largest employer, owns more than $1 billion of property in the city and has a $2.5 billion endowment yet makes a relatively modest “voluntary payment” to the city of $3.6 million per year.

, Feb 13 (Reuters) – A Vermont thrift
store employee pleaded not guilty on Monday to stealing letters
and holiday cards written by the poet Robert Frost and selling
them for $20,000, police said.

Timothy Bernaby was arraigned on grand larceny charges in
White River Junction, Vermont, about 100 miles (160 km) north of
Frost’s grave in Bennington, Vermont, which is marked with the
epitaph “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.”

By Jason McLure

(Reuters) – The University of Vermont is banning the sale of bottled water on campus, part of a growing effort at schools to reduce plastic waste and save students’ money by promoting tap water.

A dozen U.S. universities have ended sales of bottled water in the past three years, but UVM is the largest to do so. Other schools include the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, University of Portland and Washington University in St. Louis.

LITTLETON, New Hampshire (Reuters) – The nation’s latest proposed anti-bullying law targets not schoolyard tormentors but a conservative New Hampshire House speaker who critics say was so harsh he once forced a grown legislator to cry.

A group of moderate Republicans and Democrats have taken aim at Republican House Speaker William O’Brien with a bill banning bullying of any member of the state’s House of Representatives, including behavior that causes physical harm, inflicts emotional distress or creates a hostile environment.

LITTLETON, New Hampshire (Reuters) – Dixville Notch, a tiny hamlet whose early presidential primary returns have helped to dash the hopes of some White House contenders, has upended the power plans of a giant utility consortium.

An environmental group has raised enough money to purchase the conservation rights to 5,800 acres of land in Dixville Notch near the U.S.-Canadian border in a deal that will block the proposed route for a $1.1 billion electric transmission line bringing power to southern New England from Quebec.

/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -

Outside of his campaign, few people think he is a threat to win the Republican nomination for president.

And yet, Texas Congressman Ron Paul has pulled in a big chunk of the votes in both states where Republicans have voted on potential nominees.

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) – Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won the New Hampshire Republican U.S. presidential primary on Tuesday by a comfortable margin – his second straight victory in the race to become his party’s choice to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama on November 6.

Based on early returns with about 10 percent of the vote counted, U.S. television networks declared Romney the victor. With about 15 percent of the vote counted, the networks said Romney had won 36 percent of the vote with congressman Ron Paul in second with 25 percent.

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) – Mitt Romney is poised to take a big step toward the Republican U.S. presidential nomination on Tuesday by capturing New Hampshire, hoping to ride out last-minute attacks from his rivals and recover from a self-inflicted wound.

The former governor of neighboring Massachusetts carried a sizeable lead in polls into voting day, a sufficient cushion that should force rivals Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum into a battle for second place.