Latest U2 News & Information

Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) — With an appearance by Bono and a concert featuring Gwen Stefani and Alicia Keys, organizers of a Manhattan fundraiser tonight to raise $1.5 million for AIDS promise it won’t be standard benefit fare.

At most galas, “you get your charity chicken, the entertainment goes on too long and the music is awful,” said Leigh Blake, executive director of Keep a Child Alive, a nonprofit that provides medicine for AIDS-infected adults and children in Africa and India. “Our event is not stodgy.”

Bono, the 47-year-old activist and lead singer of the Irish band U2, who was born Paul David Hewson, is being honored and isn’t scheduled to perform at Hammerstein Ballroom. Keys, the 26-year-old R&B singer, will take the stage before 1,200 guests, along with Sheryl Crow and Stefani.

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Hallmark Cards Inc. is joining a growing list of U.S. companies and others who are teaming up with Bono of U2 to fight AIDS in Africa.The Kansas City greeting card producer on Thursday unveiled an initial line of 23 greeting cards and other products affiliated with the fundraising initiative known as (Product) Red, created by Bono and Bobby Shriver, nephew of John F. Kennedy and son of R. Sargent Shriver, the first head of the Peace Corps.

Donations from the sale of products will help raise money for the Swiss-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

A larger collection of 150 additional cards and gift items is scheduled to appear in stores and online in January.

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U2 frontman Bono showered attention on House freshman Democratic lawmakers Wednesday during their weekly breakfast meeting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

The Irish-born rocker-slash-philanthropist was on the Hill to solicit ideas for publicizing the successes of U.S. government programs and his own charitable initiatives in combating poverty, AIDS and other ills in Africa.
Rep. Steve Kagen (D-Wis.) started the morning meal by giving Bono a pop quiz in U.S. geography, asking whether he could locate the congressman’s home state on a map, according to sources.

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The City of Brotherly Love has a thing for Bono.

U2’s do-gooding frontman was feted Thursday in Philadelphia, where he collected the city’s Liberty Medal for his humanitarian work and activism on behalf of Africa’s poor.

“When you are trapped by the poverty, you are not free. When trade laws prevent you from selling the food you grew, you are not free,” the “One” singer told a crowd of VIPs after receiving the accolade from former President George H.W. Bush.

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When Bono was but a boy, the rock-star-to-be heard John Lennon whispering inspirational words in his ear. “That changed the way the world looked outside my bedroom window when I was 12 years old,” says Bono, lead singer of U2 and cofounder of DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa), a Washington-based advocacy group.

Tonight, Bono and DATA will be honored with the Liberty Medal at the National Constitution Center, whose president, Joseph M. Torsella, cited Bono for proving through his activism “that the office of ‘citizen’ is the most important in the world.”

The award puts the 47-year-old Nobel Peace Prize nominee in rarefied company - over 18 years the award has gone to statesmen and justices, world leaders and scientists, to Nelson Mandela and Vaclav Havel, former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, now chairman of the Constitution Center.

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PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The National Constitution Center, in partnership with the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation and WPVI-TV, will webcast the 2007 Liberty Medal ceremony live on http://www.libertymedal.org, making the event available to a worldwide audience for the first time. The 2007 Liberty Medal will be awarded jointly to Bono, U2 lead singer and activist, and DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa), the advocacy organization he co-founded to combat poverty and disease in Africa, on Thursday, September 27, 2007 at 7:00 p.m. at the National Constitution Center in Historic Philadelphia.

“We are thrilled to provide global access to the 2007 Liberty Medal ceremony,” says National Constitution Center President and CEO Joseph M. Torsella. “This year’s recipients serve as inspirational examples of the power of citizens to elevate important issues to the world stage. The global reach of this webcast allows us to generate greater awareness of Bono’s and DATA’s exceptional contributions, and to support those that strive to ensure ‘the blessings of liberty’ throughout the world.”

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