News In Brief

Sandinista leader meets celebrities, ends US tour

Nicarguan leader Daniel Ortega, ending a four-day California tour, urged celebrities Sunday to help build grass-roots opposition to Reagan administration support of Nicaraguan rebels. Earlier, about 250 demonstrators - divided equally between Ortega supporters and opponents - paraded outside the Beverly Wilshire Hotel as he spoke to a panel organized by the Santa Barbara-based Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. Police said neither group caused any problems.

Through an interpreter, Ortega told them that the US people should know ''that we have weaknesses, we have problems, that our revolution is not perfect, but we are making efforts to construct a better society, and the policy of the United States is opposed to this effort.''