Actress, 16, killed in Los Angeles gang violence

Los Angeles

Actress, 16, killed

in gang violence

Actress Tara Correa-McMullen, 16, who portrayed a former gang member in the TV show "Judging Amy," was shot to death amid gang violence, police said.

Authorities in Inglewood, a suburb south of Los Angeles, said the actress was shot several times as she stood outside an apartment complex Oct. 21. Two men with her were wounded.

Correa-McMullen's parents, Devora Correa and Thomas McMullen, wrote in the eulogy for the funeral Friday that their daughter made friends with everyone, "whether they were a grip or a caterer."

After filming her first movie, "Rebound," which was released over the summer, Correa-McMullen won a recurring role on "Judging Amy" as a former gang member named Graciela.

Chicago

Pope's only car

sells for $690,000

The only car the late Pope John Paul II ever owned sold at auction for $690,000 Saturday to a Houston attorney and car collector.

The car attracted four or five bids before being purchased by John O'Quinn, said a spokeswoman for the Kruse International auction house.

The 1975 powder-blue Ford Escort went on the auction block in Las Vegas after a father-son ownership spat was resolved earlier this month.

Pope John Paul, who died in April, drove the car himself and put 60,000 miles on it before giving it in 1996 to Kruse International, an Indiana rare-automobile museum and auction house, to sell with the proceeds going to charity.

Decision delayed

on inhalable insulin

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is delaying a decision on the first inhalable form of insulin for three months while it reviews chemistry data on the diabetes treatment.

The agency's decision had been expected last week on whether the drug, to be marketed as Exubera, could be sold to the public. The drug companies that developed the treatment said Friday the FDA notified them of the extended review.

Last month, an FDA advisory committee twice voted 7-2 to recommend that the agency approve the drug and inhaler device for sale in the United States. The separate votes were for each of the two major types of diabetes. The FDA usually follows the recommendations of its advisory committees.

Developers Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis and Nektar Therapeutics said the FDA wanted to review "additional technical chemistry data" they submitted. They did not provide details.

Bush to announce

plans to fight flu

The Bush administration's long-awaited plan on how to fight the next superflu will likely include beefed-up attempts to spot human infections early, both here and abroad.

Governors and mayors are on notice to figure out who will actually inject stockpiled vaccines into the arms of panicked people.

Bush on Tuesday is visiting the National Institutes of Health to announce his administration's strategy on how to prepare for the next flu pandemic, whether it's caused by the bird flu in Asia or some other super strain of influenza. Federal health officials have spent the past year updating a national plan on how to do that.

The president will ask Congress for unspecified new money, not just for a vaccine against bird flu but to pay for a buildup of infrastructure ready to deal with any pandemic, said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Compiled from The Associated Press and Reuters