June 25, 1996

Although the leaders of Russia's Communist Party still say they have a chance to win next week's presidential election, they have already begun to portray their candidate, Gennadi A. Zyuganov, as a man who stands to gain as much in defeat as he would in victory. The Communist challenger has not campaigned since the first round of voting on June 16, and he apparently does not plan to travel before the July 3 runoff. Communist advisers have taken to talking less about how they would govern and more about how difficult they could make things for President Boris N. Yeltsin in their role as parliamentary obstructionists.

In evidence of a striking change in Americans' attitudes about religion and politics, a majority of the public now believes that churches should be allowed to express political opinions, a reversal from what a majority believed a generation ago, according to a new nationwide survey of religious identity and political opinion. Support for churches' expressing political opinions runs highest among white evangelical, or born-again, Protestants, a group that has grown enough over the past decade that it accounts for a quarter of the American electorate, roughly on a par with white Roman Catholics and members of mainline Protestant churches, like Episcopalians and Presbyterians.

The General Motors Corporation, which owns half of Saab Automobile, announced today that it had obtained an option to buy the other half, and an executive said G.M. was aiming to elevate Saab to a spot alongside its Cadillac division in the worldwide luxury car market. G.M. and Saab's other owner, Investor A.B., the Swedish holding company controlled by the Wallenberg family, agreed to invest $524 million in Saab to pay for the development of new models. At the same time, Investor granted G.M. the option to buy all or part of the Swedish company's stake in Saab in 1999 or 2000. if G.M. does not act, Investor will have the right in 2000 to force G.M. to buy up to half the stake. Terms of the potential sale were not disclosed.

CHERYL DeGEORGE does not know who paid her way to Bob Dole's fund-raising event at the Sheraton New York last night. Somebody with the Republican Party offered her a ticket worth $500, and the real estate agent from Little Neck said she was thrilled to accept it. Same for her friend Gloria Piekarski of Whitestone, an aide to a state senator, and for Sylvia Kinard, a state agency employee, and no doubt for many, many others. Happens all the time at such events. The problem is, the public will probably never know if deep-pocketed Republicans bought lots of tickets and handed them out, or if the party had trouble at the box office and decided to pack the hall. Or maybe both.

A new $16 billion state budget was approved yesterday by the Assembly and Senate budget committees, clearing the way for passage by the Legislature later this week. Lawmakers restored almost $80 million in budget cuts proposed by Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, ranging from $7 million for state environmental programs to $600,000 to let historical sites stay open.