Pop diva Madonna leaves Malawi

Madonna has left Malawi after visiting the projects she has helped support through her Raising Malawi charity. The pop diva and her four children arrived in the southern African country Monday and left Saturday. Madonna visited the 10 school blocks that her charity has helped build or renovate in collaboration with BuildOn. The singer also visited a hospital’s pediatric ward and several orphanages, including the Home of Hope, where she adopted David Banda in 2006. Madonna adopted Mercy James from Malawi in 2009.

Funeral for reality star

Family and friends in West Virginia are saying goodbye to ‘‘Buckwild’’ reality TV star Shain Gandee. Hundreds wearing camouflage filed past two closed coffins Sunday at the Charleston Municipal Auditorium. A private burial was to follow later for the 21-year-old from Sissonville and his uncle, David Gandee. The Gandees and another man were found dead April 1 inside a vehicle partially submerged in a mud pit near Shain’s home near Sissonville. Autopsies determined all three died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Police say the muffler was below the surface and that mud covered the passenger side. A slideshow of family photos focused on Shain’s off-camera life, showing him as a football player, in a tuxedo for prom, graduating high school, kissing brides, and holding babies.

Snipes out of prison

Wesley Snipes has been released from a federal prison in Pennsylvania. Snipes was convicted in 2008 on tax charges. He was released Tuesday and placed under home confinement. A Bureau of Corrections spokeswoman said Friday he’ll be overseen by the New York Community Corrections Office until July 19. Snipes has appeared in dozens of films, from ‘‘White Men Can’t Jump’’ and ‘‘Demolition Man’’ in the early 1990s to the ‘‘Blade’’ trilogy. He entered the McKean prison in December 2010 to begin a three-year sentence for failure to file income tax returns. Snipes belonged to a group that challenged the government’s right to collect taxes. Prosecutors say he failed to file returns for at least a decade and owed millions of dollars. Snipes had appealed in an Atlanta court, saying he didn’t get a fair trial.

Actor crush

“I loved the whole film. But what I want to talk about is the first section, the Gosling section; I want to make love to this section.” — James Franco, on Ryan Gosling in “The Place Beyond the Pines,” on The Huffington Post.