Madonna Mum On Adoption Reports

Madonna dashed from the airport to an impoverished Malawi village to discuss a school she is planning to build, saying nothing to the hordes of reporters on her trail Sunday about whether she is planning to start the process of adopting a second Malawian child.

The singer, casually dressed in a white fedora, walked in Chinkhota, a village near the capital of this AIDS- and poverty-stricken southern African country, holding the hand of her 12-year-old daughter, Lourdes. Dozens of reporters looked on.

The 50-year-old Madonna refused to answer questions about reports that she was in Malawi to adopt a 4-year-old girl. She said it was "amazing" to be back in the country where she runs a charity organization and from where she adopted her son David, 3, last year.

Then she rushed away in a convoy of at least three sport utility vehicles, as crowds of shouting, waving children ran after her.

Madonna was expected to appear today in court in Lilongwe, the capital, to sign adoption papers.

A security guard with the convoy said Madonna spoke to villagers about building a school, and she was seen looking at an artist's impression of the proposed building.

Exhibit Puts Spotlight On Duchamp

The artist who famously gave the "Mona Lisa" a mustache and called an overturned urinal his "Fountain" is getting a rare treatment at the National Portrait Gallery.

The new exhibit "Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture" focuses on the lasting legacy of the French-American artist. The extensive presentation, drawing on Duchamp's self-portraits as well as portrayals of him by Richard Avedon, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and others, opened over the weekend and will remain on view in Washington through Aug. 2.

"One of the things we discovered is that while Duchamp is still a giant in the art world ... he still is not terribly well-known to the American public," said Anne Collins Goodyear, co-curator of the exhibition. "We had the opportunity to pull Duchamp out of the shadows."

The exhibit, developed over five years, is essentially the first to look at Duchamp as an American, curators said. It's also the first to compile Duchamp's self-representations with portraits of him by other artists. Curators found more than 800 works with Duchamp as the subject and narrowed their findings from various collections down to about 100 portraits and self-portraits.

Their findings included the discovery of a lost 1937 portrait of Duchamp in front of his "Nude Descending the Staircase" by Daniel MacMorris. The painting is being publicly exhibited for the first time in more than 70 years. Duchamp died in 1968.

Today's Birthdays

Game show host Peter Marshall is 83. Actor-director Warren Beatty is 72. Rock musician Eric Clapton is 64. Actor Robbie Coltrane is 59. Rap artist MC Hammer is 46. Singer Tracy Chapman is 45. Singer Celine Dion is 41. Actor Mark Consuelos is 38. Disc jockey DJ AM is 36. Singer Norah Jones is 30.

Source: The Associated Press