Playboy magazine publisher Hugh Hefner has lashed back at a former model whose $5 million lawsuit against him claims he abandoned promises to support her and father a child.

“This is not a ‘palimony’ suit, it is a publicity stunt,” Hefner said.

Carrie Leigh, 24, said in her suit filed on Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court that she had received an engagement ring from Hefner, 61, and was his companion from April 1983 until two weeks ago.

Her attorney, Marvin Mitchelson, said during a news conference that Jessica Hahn, one of the mansion’s newest residents, was responsible for the breakup.

JAPAN GETS SPACE RELIC

Lorna L. Onizuka, widow of one of the Challenger astronauts, presented Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita on Friday with a souvenir panel containing the Japanese flag, the prime minister’s office said.

Onizuka said the panel was designed to commemorate her Japanese-American husband, Ellison Onizuka, who carried the Japanese flag with him on a flight aboard the space shuttle Discovery about a year before the Challenger explosion. Onizuka and the six other crew members were killed in the January 1986 disaster.

PILOT FAULTS NASA PLAN

Voyager co-pilot Dick Rutan criticized the nation’s space program for a lack of vision and said he was “disappointed in America.”

Rutan and Jeana Yeager captured the nation’s attention by flying the ungainly Voyager aircraft around the world in December 1986 without refueling.

At a news conference at the University of Delaware on Thursday, Rutan said Americans in the future will prefer air travel to other transportation, but the nation’s commercial aviation industry’s record matches the space program in ineptness.

WARRANT OUT FOR SLY

An arrest warrant was issued in Los Angeles on Thursday night for rock singer Sly Stone after he failed to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on charges of possessing drugs.

Municipal Court Judge Laurence Rubin ordered that Stone, whose real name is Sylvester Stewart, forfeit bail of $7,500.

The 43-year-old singer pleaded not guilty in court on December 16 to charges of possessing two cocaine “rocks,” a condensed form of cocaine, and drug paraphernalia.

BRIEFLY SPEAKING

— American evangelist Jimmy Swaggart says he came to Nicaragua “to pray for the Nicaraguan government and the Nicaraguan people.” Swaggart was invited by Nicaragua’s Assembly of God churches.

— The Soviet Academy of Sciences has presented its highest award to U.S. physicist John Bardeen, a two-time recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics. The Communist Party newspaper Pravda reported Bardeen, 79, had been awarded the Lomonosov Gold Medal for his overall contribution to physics.

— The New Orleans Symphony may lose conductor Maxim Shostakovich unless symphony leaders can assure him there will be enough money for a 1988-89 season, his manager said. The symphony board last month canceled the remainder of this season’s performances because of financial problems. It said it will decide by April 5 whether to reopen next season.