June 24, 1982

Working quietly out of an abandoned Brooklyn warehouse, a special task force of Federal marshals and New York City detectives arrested 303 fugitives and career criminals in a 10-week roundup that ended yesterday, officials said. ''This was a major operation,'' said Thomas C. Kupferer, the chief inspector in charge of enforcement for the United States Marshals Service, who credited the success of the operation to ''the concept of saturation and concentration of resources'' - 40 marshals and detectives working in three-man teams. Those arrested, he said, included murderers, narcotics dealers, armed robbers and others considered among the most elusive of the estimated 6,000 Federal fugitives as well as many ''most wanted'' suspects sought by New York authorities.

Store buyers and gallery owners scurry from booth to booth seeking the handmade wares their customers have developed a craving for in recent years. The demand grows: Crafts are now a $2 billion industry in America. Sales at Rhinebeck last summer were $5 million, up $500,000 from the year before. ''Paid attendance last year was 47,000,'' said Carol Sedestrom, president of American Craft Enterprises, the American Craft Council subsidiary that runs the fair. ''We needed more room so we moved the tents and opened up the fairgrounds to make a bigger space.''

Two teen-agers were arrested yesterday in the fatal beating of a transit worker in Brooklyn on Tuesday by a taunting group of young men. The police said the attack was unprovoked and racially motivated. It occurred when the man and two fellow transit employees were on their way home from work and their car stalled. The three victims, all of whom were black, were set upon by a group of white youths in the predominantly white section of Gravesend.

Israeli planes, tanks and artillery attacked Syrian positions just south of the Beirut-Damascus highway today as a cease-fire announced by Israel Tuesday night collapsed. Intense exchanges of fire continued through the day, with fighting reported at nine or more places along the highway and some on the approaches to Beirut. The American Embassy, which is in west Beirut, is closing Thursday, and all Americans here have been urged to leave. An American ship is due to leave for Cyprus on Thursday from the port of Junieh north of Beirut. There are 2,000 to 3,000 Americans in Lebanon.

The Big Three auto makers reported today that new car sales fell 21.9 percent in the June 11-20 selling period, the first drop in auto sales in more than a month. General Motors, the nation's largest auto maker, led the decline with a drop of 25.4 percent compared with the similar period last year. Sales by the Ford Motor Company were off 16.8 percent, while the Chrysler Corporation reported a sales drop of 13.7 percent. Analysts attributed G.M.'s big sales decline to the lack of an additional incentive program after the ending of a 12.8 percent financing program on May 31. In that program, G.M. provided new car financing at a 12.8 percent interest rate to qualified buyers.