Madonna Extreme

Madonna caused a minimal stir by sniping at Lady Gaga, referencing her during a concert and adding, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” At Chicago’s United Center, the first of two concerts there this week, Madonna again slipped the chorus of Gaga’s “Born This Way” into the bridge of her own “Express Yourself” — i t’s a seamless match, for sure — but let it go without comment. Well, almost. She shouted a bit from “She’s Not Me” at the end. It seems like pretty catty paranoia from the indisputable queen of pop, as if the Material Girl — a 1 percenter if ever there were — has adopted the Republicans’ new slogan (“We built it!”) and its false sense of rugged individualism. Madonna broke ground for women in pop during the ’80s and easily can justify her worldwide love, but her success is a pastiche quilt, a smart synthesis of the best of the best. Wednesday’s show only lengthened the long list of film and mu

In the world of entertainment, only a few stars are big enough to be known far and wide by just a single name. And it turns out that one of the biggest of those one-name stars has a whole second calling ... a mission of hope and healing in a place that badly needs it. Tracy Smith reports our Cover Story:   Malawi, a landlocked African nation of 17 million, is about the size of Pennsylvania, and one of the poorest countries on Earth. Disease is rampant here -- and pediatric health care is almost unheard of. But this past July, Malawi's children got some help. To you and me, she's Madonna. But to people in the city of Blantyre, she's the lady behind the new hospital, and she was there for opening day, along with Mercy, Esther, Stella and David, four of her six children (and all from Malawi). Correspondent Tracy Smith and Madonna at the Mercy James Institute for Pediatric Surgery and Intensive Care, at the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre, Malaw