Madonna defends adoption on ‘Oprah’

Chicago – Madonna said Wednesday she had to whisk a year-old boy out of Malawi because he needed medical attention and that the baby’s father thanked her and gave her his “blessing.”

In her first interview since her controversial adoption, the pop superstar insisted Yohane Banda, an impoverished farmer, understood that she was planning to keep little David.

“He looked into my eyes and said to me that he was very grateful that I was going to give his son a life, and that had he kept his son with him in the village he would have buried him,” Madonna said on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

“I didn’t really need any more … confirmation … that I was doing the right thing, and I had his blessing,” she said.

Critics have accused Madonna of using her wealth and celebrity to bend the rules and speed up the adoption process. But Madonna insisted she had to act quickly after meeting David in the orphanage where he had been placed after his mother’s death.

“When I met him, he was extremely ill,” she said. “He had severe pneumonia, and he could hardly breathe. I was in a state of panic, because I didn’t want to leave him in the orphanage because I knew they didn’t have medication to take care of him.”

Madonna said David is thriving now that he is at the London mansion she shares with her husband, Guy Ritchie, and children Lourdes, 10, and Rocco, 6.

Dick Clark to auction memorabilia for charity

New York – Fifty years after his first appearance on the show that became known as “American Bandstand,” Dick Clark is ready to let go of the microphone.

The famed host is auctioning off a number of items from his personal collection of musical memorabilia, including the microphone he used beginning July 9, 1956 – his first day on the rock ‘n’ roll show that made him famous.

“It’s tough to part with that one,” Clark, 76, said of the microphone, which was valued by Arlan Ettinger, president of Guernsey’s auction house, at between $10,000 and $100,000.

Other items to be sold include a bass guitar that Paul McCartney played when he was a Beatle, a beaded glove that Michael Jackson wore in his moonwalking phase and the harmonica that Bob Dylan played in “The Last Waltz.”

The auction was planned for Dec. 5-6 at Jazz at Lincoln Center in Manhattan.

Much of the profits from the sale were to go to the T.J. Martell Foundation, which was founded by the music industry to raise money for research on cancer and AIDS, Ettinger said.

New king crowned

New York – Twelve years after his death, grunge rocker Kurt Cobain is making millions upon millions. He is even richer than the King, Elvis Presley.

Cobain, who raked in an estimated $50 million between October 2005 and October of this year, has edged Presley from the No. 1 spot on Forbes.com’s list of “Top-Earning Dead Celebrities.”

Presley, who sat atop the list each year since its debut in 2001, ranks second with earnings of $42 million. Presley died in 1977.

He is followed by Peanuts cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, John Lennon, Albert Einstein, Andy Warhol, children’s book writer Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel), Ray Charles, Marilyn Monroe, Johnny Cash, J.R.R. Tolkien, George Harrison and Bob Marley.

Cobain, lead singer of the grunge-rock band Nirvana, committed suicide in 1994. In March, his widow, rocker Courtney Love, sold 25 percent of Nirvana’s song catalog to Primary Wave Music Publishing.

Residency status of Smith questioned

Nassau, Bahamas – An opposition leader called on the government Wednesday to investigate whether Anna Nicole Smith has legal residency status in the Bahamas, where her baby daughter was born and her son died three days later.

Hubert Ingraham, head of the main opposition Free National Movement, said he has learned that another person owns the waterfront mansion that Smith claimed was hers in an application for permanent residency.

“Clearly, Anna Nicole Smith is not a fit and proper person to become a permanent resident of the Bahamas,” said Ingraham, a former prime minister. “Her general character and reputation don’t commend her for such status.”

The law says a person owning a house in the Bahamas valued at more than $500,000, having the means to reside without being employed and being of good character can be eligible for Bahamian residency.

Ingraham said he has been told by several people that the owner bought the home in his own name with the intention of selling it to Smith.