News In Brief

Reagan asked to urge buying of surplus grain for Ethiopia

The president of an international relief organization asked President Reagan Monday to encourage churches and synagogues to buy surplus grain from American farmers to feed starving children in drought-ridden Ethiopia.

''Today we are paying storage on 1.4 billion bushels of surplus wheat and 1.1 billion bushels of surplus corn,'' said Dr. Larry Jones, founder of Feed the Children, an organization that provides relief for children in third-countries. ''We could feed every man, woman, and child in the world three slices of bread a day for a year and not even make a dent in our surplus."