Madonna "Excited" Second Malawi Adoption Has Been Approved

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Malawi's highest court has ruled that Madonna can adopt her second child from the African nation, stating the Queen of Pop has a genuine interest in helping the country's orphans and that the four-year-old girl in question, Chifundo "Mercy" James, would have a better life with the star. Madonna told her lawyer she was "excited" by the decision, the BBC reports, which was an appeal she filed in April after being told she had to establish residency in Malawi for 18 months in order to adopt Mercy. Madonna adopted David Banda from Malawi in 2006 and faced a firestorm of criticism when the boy's father stepped forward to protest. She founded the charity Raising Malawi in 2006 to aid the country's orphans living in poverty, and produced the 2008 documentary I Am Because We Are, which documents the harsh conditions parentless children — many of whom suffer from HIV or AIDS — endure there.

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Song Stories

“Everyday People”

Sly and the Family Stone | 1968

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.

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