News stories from Sunday May 23, 1976

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

Jimmy Carter's poor showing in the Michigan and Maryland primaries last week cost him support over the weekend when delegates to the Democratic National Convention were selected in four states. His biggest disappointment was in Virginia, which gave him only 23 delegates instead of the expected 35 out of 54. But he got more delegates from the series of state and district conventions than any other candidate, adding 27 and making a total of 740, about three times as many as his nearest rival, Representative Morris Udall, who gained 17 delegates. President Ford was the victor in the four states that held Republican conventions, getting 55 delegates compared with 14 committed to Ronald Reagan. In addition, 88 members of the Pennsylvania's 103-member delegation, voting in Harrisburg, committed themselves to Mr. Ford. [New York Times] Karen Anne Quinlan, who has been in a coma for 13 months, reportedly has been breathing without the aid of a mechanical respirator for more than four days at the New Jersey hospital that has been caring for her and has been moved from the intensive care unit to a private room. Her physicians were said to have been "weaning" Miss Quinlan from the respirator for longer and longer periods for the last three weeks. However, she is still described as in a "chronic vegetative state." [New York Times] Cheating at West Point has been more widespread than had previously been indicated, according to Gen. Sidney Berry, the Superintendent of the United States Military Academy. He announced a new review panel of officers and cadets that will study "new evidence" that he said was recently found by faculty members of the electrical engineering department. Many of the 48 cadets who have been formally charged with improper collaboration on an engineering examination said that "hundreds" actually had been involved. [New York Times] A government-appointed panel of lawyers and scientists sharply criticized Dr. Alexander Schmidt, the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, for "serious deficiencies" in a report he made after investigating charges of mismanagement within the agency. The panel said in a report that important accusations were left unresolved by Dr. Schmidt, that his broad conclusions favorable to the agency were unsupported by the evidence and that fundamental questions were virtually ignored. [New York Times] After they exploded grenades on the plane setting it afire, three of the six hijackers who seized a Philippines Air Lines jet Friday were killed today with 10 of their 86 hostages when a gun battle broke out between the hijackers and troops in Zamboanga, 530 miles south of Manila, where the plane's captors had forced it to land. Twenty-two other passengers were wounded, and 54 escaped through emergency exits. Seventeen other hostages had previously been released by the hijackers. The three remaining hijackers were captured, but were seriously wounded. They had identified themselves as members of a Moslem separatist movement. [New York Times] Prominent officials of the leftist opposition in France attacked President Valery Giscard d'Estaing's proposal to send troops to Lebanon, and a national political dispute seemed to be growing. Two cabinet members are supporting the President -- Finance Minister Jean-Pierre Fourcade and Justice Minister Jean Lecanuet. But there has been no comment from the two men who were sent by the President to Lebanon over the past six months to try to mediate in a settlement of the civil war -- former Prime Minister Maurice Couve de Murville, and Georges Gorse, a Middle East expert. [New York Times]