They’ve Drawn Up a Relief Plan

--The super-heroes, talking animals and harried heroines of the nation’s comic pages will put aside their imaginary concerns on Thanksgiving Day, as 175 leading cartoonists devote their strips to the issue of hunger. The “Comic Relief” project--conceived by “Doonesbury’s” Garry Trudeau and co-sponsored by Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Milton Caniff (“Steve Canyon”)--is to raise awareness and money to feed the world’s hungry. “What better way to reach people than through characters they’ve known all their lives? On Thanksgiving Day, 90 million comics readers won’t be able to avoid a troubling but hopeful message--that world hunger persists, but there’s something we can do about it,” Trudeau said. David Stanford, who edits Trudeau’s and Schulz’s books, said numerous follow-ups are planned. Stanford said the original artwork will be split into two exhibitions that will tour the country and will then be auctioned. The strips also will be published in book form. Comic Relief, Schulz said, gives cartoonists a chance to help solve a problem.

--Teen-age AIDS victim Ryan White said he feels great and that a state hearing officer’s ruling allowing him back in school in Kokomo, Ind., in 20 days is “a great present” for his birthday Dec. 6. “It’s a courageous opinion in that it didn’t listen to the fears . . . and went right to the medical facts,” Ryan’s attorney, Charles R. Vaughan, said at a news conference in Indianapolis. The state hearing officer ruled that Ryan, who suffers from hemophilia, should be allowed to join his classmates when he is well and get home instruction when bedridden. Ryan’s mother, Jeanne White, said she does not think Ryan’s colleagues will shun him when and if he returns to school. It is the parents who are worried, she said. It was not known if school officials will appeal.

--In an attempt to add that personal touch, a computer programmer addressed a letter to “Mr. Ghost” at the Holy Ghost Russian Orthodox Church in Ambridge, Pa. “I didn’t read beyond that,” the Very Rev. Vladimir Soroka said with a laugh. But the letter, offering Mr. Ghost a loan, didn’t end up in the waste basket. Soroka used it for a Sunday sermon on the dangers of debt.

--Followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh reached agreement in principle to sell 82 of the guru’s Rolls-Royces to a Texas car dealer for $5 million in cash. Bob Roethlisberger, owner of European Auto Group in Carollton, a suburb of Dallas, spent two days at Rajneeshpuram, Ore., negotiating the deal. Sect spokeswoman Ma Prem Bhagwati said the deal was for “$5 million cash in hand.” She said 70 parties had expressed interest in the fleet since the guru left for India.