September 15, 1994

In a last-ditch effort to avoid an invasion of Haiti, President Clinton has approved a plan to offer the country's three top leaders a comfortable life in exile, senior Administration officials said today. At the same time, Mr. Clinton authorized his aides to conduct covert activities that might undermine the three-man military leadership in Haiti, the officials said.

Trying a new tactic to rid New York City of the costly burden of managing apartment buildings, the Giuliani administration announced yesterday that it would turn several hundred city-owned buildings over to private managers, including local for-profit entrepreneurs. City officials said they intend to shift about 250 apartment buildings -- which fell into the city's hands through tax foreclosures -- to private managers over the next nine months. The buildings represent about 10 percent of the apartment buildings now owned and managed by the city.

After campaigning for 10 months on hazy promises to cut taxes, fight crime and reduce spending, State Senator George E. Pataki, the Republican candidate for governor, yesterday issued the first of what he said would be a series of detailed plans for changing state government. And he used the occasion to attack Gov. Mario M. Cuomo as the author of "failed liberal policies" that had caused great problems for the state. On the day after both Mr. Pataki and Mr. Cuomo easily won their primary races, the Governor, a three-term incumbent, kicked off his general election campaign by announcing a new state-financed transportation program in Buffalo.

Three days into a new school year, a 10th grader apparently smuggled a .32-caliber handgun past metal-detectors, then shot and gravely wounded another student at Sheepshead Bay High School in Brooklyn yesterday. The incident, which left one teen-ager in critical condition and another in jail, marred what Board of Education officials were calling a remarkably smooth and peaceful beginning to the school year.

Transit Officer Desmond Robinson, offering a chilling account of his shooting in a Manhattan subway by an off-duty officer, said yesterday that he had little recollection of a bedside meeting with the officer that police officials and the Mayor had portrayed as a tearful reconciliation. And he added that he could not imagine forgiving a man who shot him in the back. He also said Police Commissioner William J. Bratton had been premature in asserting that the incident involved "two good cops who got caught up in an awful situation."