ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, March 29, 1997               TAG: 9703310059
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: C-6  EDITION: METRO 

IN THE NATION

Robert Pinsky picked to be next poet laureate|

WASHINGTON - Robert Pinsky, whose poetry goes into the Internet as well as into slim purple volumes, was named U.S. poet laureate Friday.

The job lasts two years. It will begin with a reading from his own work in the fall at the Library of Congress, where he will serve as consultant in poetry. Pinsky teaches creative writing at Boston University.

Pinsky, 56, has written five books of verse and edits poetry for the weekly Internet magazine called Slate. He has also done a highly regarded translation of the ``Inferno'' by medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

As poet laureate Pinsky succeeds Robert Hass.

- ASSOCIATED PRESS

Lynx wins `huge victory' which may save it

WASHINGTON - A federal judge has ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its refusal to declare the lynx endangered, saying it ignored its own biologists' warnings that the cat is nearing extinction.

``This is a huge victory for the lynx, its ecosystem and the integrity of the Endangered Species Act,'' Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife, said Friday.

The federal agency decided against listing the lynx under the Endangered Species Act in 1994 despite warnings from its own field offices that only a few hundred of the secretive cats remain in a few states.

The service will have 60 days to re-evaluate its decision against listing the lynx, a brownish-gray feline about the size of a bobcat.

-ASSOCIATED PRESS

LENGTH: Short :   38 lines