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Also: Israel downplays talk of attack on Iran; latest poll puts Romney atop GOP field; fuel delivery going smoothly in Nome, Alaska.

The annual winter meeting of the Republican National Committee got under way in New Orleans, just hours after Mitt Romney won New Hampshire's Republican presidential primary. The Republican presidential candidate has won the first two contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, and leads polls in South Carolina.

Four men were arrested in Los Angeles this week with $250,000 worth of stolen plastic pallets, milk crates and bread baskets piled high in a warehouse. The warehouse also held a big industrial plastic grinder. Authorities say plastic sells for up to a dollar a pound.

Though experts warn it will inflame anti-American sentiment in Afghanistan, a video that appears to show four U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of three Afghan men will not affect efforts to begin such talks, a Taliban spokesman tells Reuters.

The job-search site CareerBuilder has released a survey on the most outrageous excuses for coming in late. Employers across the country submitted gems like: I thought I won the lottery.

An Australian family in a suburb outside Darwin woke to the sound of their barking dog. The dog was complaining about the crocodile that wandered into the living room. Wildlife officials have relocated it to a crocodile farm.

"We will publicly honor Joe and his wife, Sue, for all the many things they have done for the university, both from an athletic standpoint and an academic standpoint," President Rodney Erickson told alumni Wednesday.

The Food and Drug Administration is stepping up testing of orange juice after finding traces of a chemical fungicide that is not approved for use in the United States. Regulators are holding 13 shipments of imported juice at ports until tests are completed. Even so, officials say the fungicide residue does not present a public health threat.

In the past year, actor Michael Fassbender has played a mutant villain in X-Men: First Class, psychoanalyst Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method, Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre and a sex addict in Shame. He discusses several of these roles, as well as his part in Inglourious Basterds.

In South Carolina Tuesday, Mitt Romney confirmed that he will release his tax returns but not until April. The subject came up in Monday night's GOP presidential debate. Romney also said his effective tax rate is around 15 percent.