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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 12, 1993                   TAG: 9303120266
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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BRIEFLY . . .

The National Rifle Association has removed its chief Capitol Hill lobbyist, David W. Gibbons, from his job after Gibbons acknowledged spreading derogatory and unsubstantiated allegations about Janet Reno, whose nomination as attorney general was approved Thursday.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, at 84 the court's oldest justice, told a New England School of Law audience Thursday that he expects to retire soon.

The U.S. infant mortality rate has dropped to a record low, but black babies are dying at more than twice the rate of whites and the gap is growing, federal health officials reported Thursday.

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