January 6, 1981

A 35-year-old truck driver was charged with murder today, and the police appeared to feel that they had broken the case of the so-called Yorkshire Ripper, believed responsible for the deaths of 13 women during the last five years. Peter Sutcliffe, who lived quietly with his wife in the city of Bradford, where several of the murders were committed, was arraigned on a charge of having committed only the most recent of the killings, the murder of a 20-year-old college student in November. The word of the arrest had spread and 1,000 people, many of them shouting ''Hang him!'' and other abuse, stood outside the courtroom as policemen rushed the suspect in and out under a blue blanket. His wife, Sonia, a schoolteacher, watched the proceedings from the public gallery.

The United States said today that the three Americans formerly held in the Iranian Foreign Ministry had successfully resisted an attempt to move them 11 days before they were transferred on Saturday to a secret location in Teheran. The State Department said it had received a message from the Swiss Embassy in Teheran confirming a report by Pars, the Iranian press agency, that the three Americans, including L. Bruce Laingen, the senior American diplomat in Iran, had been moved ''to a location where at least some of the other 49 hostages are being held.'' ''We have been told this was done to consolidate the Government's control over all of the hostages,'' John H. Trattner, the department spokesman, said. He added that the United States could not verify the report and did not know where the Americans were being held.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will resume paying the Grumman Flxible Corporation a $54 million balance owed for 837 buses, 637 of which have been delivered and have developed structural cracking, and the authority will return the buses to use after they have been repaired. In announcing this last night, Richard Ravitch, the M.T.A.'s chairman, said the buses could be back on the streets of New York within four months. Mr. Ravitch made the announcement after a meeting at M.T.A. headquarters, 347 Madison Avenue, between officials of the authority, Grumman and the city. City Comptroller Harrison J. Goldin, in a compromise on his earlier refusal to concur in paying for what he called ''a defective product,'' agreed to the payment of $10 million to Grumman ''within 24 to 48 hours.'' This would be for the 637 buses already delivered and removed from service last month for safety reasons.

Thousands of reports of heatless apartments have swamped New York City's emergency complaint switchboard during the last three days of bitter cold. Yesterday, throughout the city and the Northeast, people bundled against blustery winds and coped with widespread delays in transportation as cars, subways, buses and trains faltered. In response to the cold, Mayor Koch and New York City's Housing Commissioner, Anthony B. Gliedman, announced a $715,000 program intended to quicken the city's reaction to cold-weather emergencies. For commuters, moderating temperatures in the afternoon eased problems in the homebound rush. Today, temperatures are expected to reach the low 30's and a snowfall of two to three inches was forecast by the city's Sanitation Department. (Page B3.)

SUB WATER/Page B1 By ROBERT HANLEY New York City's reservoir system in the headwaters of the Delaware River slipped into ''drought emergency'' status yesterday, prompting New Jersey's Governor Byrne to appeal for a strategy meeting of the Governors of the four states on the Delaware River Basin Commission. Officials of the commission said the session could lead to some form of mandatory controls or restrictions on the use of potable or industrial water in portions of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware situated in the 13,000-square mile basin. The ''drought emergency'' was reached with three reservoirs, the Neversink, the Pepacton and the Cannonsville, slipping below 88 billon gallons to 32 percent of capacity. And while New York City is not subject to the rulings of the commission, city officials said yesterday it was possible that mandatory controls would be imposed in the city by early next month unless the voluntary conservation of water increased.