News stories from Saturday November 14, 1981

Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:

The Columbia returned to Earth, landing at 4:23 P.M. Eastern standard time, at Edwards Air Force Base in California after its mission had been cut to a little more than two days from five when a fuel cell failed. Col. Joe Engle of the Air Force and Capt. Richard Truly of the Navy guided the craft, the first used vehicle to orbit the earth, to its safe landing. [New York Times] Richard Allen was involved in arranging an interview with Nancy Reagan by a Japanese magazine, the magazine Shufu-no-tomo said in the article written about the interview. Mr. Allen, President Reagan's national security adviser, said that he had not set up the interview and that he was present while it took place only because he acted frequently as liaison with foreign journalists. The White House said Friday that the Justice Department was investigating a $1,000 cash payment received by Mr. Allen from the magazine. [New York Times] For 778 Haitians refugees at a former military installation in Puerto Rico, there is seemingly no end in sight to their odyssey. The refugees were taken to Fort Allen to relieve overcrowding at a detention camp near Miami. Since Aug. 12, the refugees have been waiting to be released or resettled by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Boredom and uncertainty are their principal problems, a camp spokesman said. Nineteen women drafted and signed an open letter, threatening to kill themselves "if we have not been freed by the end of November." [New York Times] A reduction in federal housing aid proposed by the Reagan administration would have "a traumatic and devastating effect" on the operations of the New York City Housing Authority, its top officials said. Joseph Christian, the authority's chairman, said that the authority's operations "would no longer be recognizable as the program we're running today" without the federal aid it has been accustomed to. John Simon, the agency's general manager, said that the federal reduction and a rent increase scheduled next year for the authority's 600,00 [sic] tenants, could result in "great instability and turmoil." [New York Times] I.R.A. gunmen killed a minister in Belfast, who was also a Northern Irish Unionist Member of the British Parliament. The Rev. Robert Bradford was shot as he sat talking with constituents in a Belfast community center. His murder raised fears of a Protestant reaction that could lead to serious civil unrest. [New York Times] The largest U.S. military exercise in the Middle East since World War II started with the bailing out over the Egyptian desert of more than 800 paratroopers, many of them having flown nonstop from Fort Bragg, N.C. The paratroopers are among 5,000 American troops in the maneuvers, which will be held over a three-week period in cooperation with Somalia, Oman, the Sudan and Egypt. [New York Times] Relations with Peking may sour over the issue of possible American military sales to Taiwan, Secretary of State Alexander Haig told an audience in Palm Beach, Fla. The Chinese Communists have warned that relations with the United States may deteriorate if it upgrades the fighter plane arsenal of the Chinese Nationalists in Taiwan. Peking has delayed sending a military mission of its own to Washington pending resolution of the arms sales issue. [New York Times]