The tour had attracted about 8,000 people as of last night, said a spokeswoman for DATA -- Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa -- the sponsoring organization that the Irish singer helped found last year. Bono and the group are urging Americans to try to persuade lawmakers to increase funding for the fight against AIDS in Africa, and they want the U.S. government to forgive debts of African nations to free up money that could be used to fight the disease.

Northeast Christian Church was chosen as the Louisville-area stop because of its support of the humanitarian organization World Vision, which is helping the tour with some of its arrangements, said Darin Bennett, executive pastor.

''AIDS is a disease that has spread, and we as a church feel we can help,'' he said.

Bono said he took his message to the Midwest because it's the nation's ''moral compass.''

''In this neck of the woods, people have a sense of what's right and wrong,'' he said. ''People back East say people in the heart of America don't care; I say they're wrong.''

In Louisville, Judd was filling in for her actress sister, Ashley, who had been on the tour since it began but couldn't make the Louisville stop.

Before the tour began, Ashley Judd -- a graduate of Ashland (Ky.) Blazer High School and a former University of Kentucky student -- said: ''I believe Americans truly want to reach out and make a difference. No mother should face giving her own child a death sentence by HIV/AIDS in childbirth. Every father should have the hope of living to see his children grow up. This tour is about showing that we can help bring hope back to millions of African families.''

Also touring with Bono were comedian/actor Chris Tucker and Agnes Nyamayarwo, a nurse from Uganda whose husband died of AIDS, leaving her to raise eight children. She later found out that she is carrying HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and that she had unknowingly passed the virus on to her youngest child at birth. The child died six years later.

Tucker, who once went to Africa with Bono, said last night that when he learned about the situation there, ''it shook me. More people should know what's going on -- 6,500 people are dying every day. We can help solve this problem.''

According to DATA, about 9,500 Africans contract HIV/AIDS each day -- including 1,400 newborns.

For more information about the situation in Africa and to learn how people can help, go to DATA's Web site: DataData.org

December 5, 2002

It was an emotional day Wednesday on the road in Chicago with Bono's Heart of America tour to raise consciousness about the AIDS pandemic in Africa. Four days into a seven-day tour of the Midwest, Bono, actress Ashley Judd and comedian Chris Tucker, who joined the tour late Tuesday night, showed signs that the stories they have been telling time and again about suffering and death in Africa have worn their emotions raw.

1pm - Apostolic Faith Church 38th and Indiana:

The tour pulls up to this South Side church to meet with members of a Christian humanitarian group and congregants to give the same kind of talk about the crisis in Africa and what Americans can do to intervene that Bono has been giving at truck stops, high schools, churches and diners from Nebraska to Illinois.

During the private meeting in the church sanctuary (the three celebrities briefed the media outside before ducking out of the cold), Judd began to weep, saying all the stories, the statistics and the frustration of knowing that 6,500 Africans die each day from AIDS had become too much for her.

Judd has been traveling with Bono since Nebraska in a cherry red tour bus accompanied by her husband, Scottish race car driver Dario Franchitti, and their two poodles. She soon excused herself and retreated to the bus in tears.

A few minutes later, Tucker, who was relating stories from his four trips to Africa this year--including one with Bono and U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill in May--also became teary as he remembered one village with so many people suffering from AIDS, where there was just one well and the water was not clean.

"In every good work the Holy Spirit is there," Tucker said. "It will do a lot for us to shine a light on the devastation."

3pm - Chicago Sun-Times editorial board meeting:

Bono stepped into the board room raving about the reception the tour had received in the Midwest.

"What I expected from the Midwest was a kind of no nonsense, we-can-sort-out-this-problem-we don't-care-how-hard-it-is. . . . What I wasn't expecting was for people to get angry. People are getting really upset," he said. "There is a decency that lives here. There is a moral compass here that sets the course for the rest of the country."

About a half hour into the discussion, during a heated exchange with the Sun-Times editorial board about why Americans should be responsible for problems in Africa when there is an AIDS problem, particularly in the African-American community, at home, red began to creep up the back of the Irishman's neck and ears.

"There is unimaginable wealth in the United States," he said, his voice rising. "Don't give me that 'poor man' for the United States, please! I hate the idea that somehow the masses are just consumed with self-interest and don't give a sh--. . . . I don't care how you do it. It has to be done. And if you don't, you will reap an ill will."

Bono compared the United States stepping forward to help Africa now with President John Kennedy's space program 40 years ago. "When JFK said he wanted to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, polls would not have told him to do that. This was not high on the list of American priorities. But he led, we followed."

"We're not looking for incremental moves, we're not looking for 'Here's a bit more money.' You know why? The president won't get applause. No one will notice," he said. "We're talking about stepping right out in front. Like a moon shot. Flag in the sand. Our time--I promise, I am convinced--will be remembered by three things and how we let an entire continent burst into flames and stood around with watering cans."

7:30pm - Edman Chapel at Wheaton College:

The applause from the standing room only crowd at Wheaton's chapel was deafening as Bono and company took the stage for a two-hour program about AIDS in Africa.

"I am blown away by your joy," Judd said, her voice cracking with emotion.

Bono took a lighthearted tone with the rambunctious audience at the evangelical Christian school. "So this is Wheaton College," he said, looking around. "It gave the world Billy Graham and Wes Craven. Get them frightened and then you know where to send them."

Bono also quoted British author C.S. Lewis, whose papers are kept in a special collection at the college.

"All that is not eternal, is eternally out of touch," he said. "AIDS in Africa is going to divide us tonight. But Jesus said, 'I came to bring a sword.' "

The Heart of America tour will leave Chicago today, headed for Indianapolis and Cincinnati.

December 4, 2002

I was sick yesterday and I'm swamped with stuff to do today so I'm gonna advise you guys to check out some Ashley info from my affiliates GLITZ and ALBERTO. ALBERTO has photos and 2 new articles from the Heart of America Tour. GLITZ has a transcript and cool screenshots from the AIDS lecture. The 2 of us chatted like 2 old ladies after church during the lecture. That was fun. LOL! Speakin of chats. Why dont you guys let me know when the next chat should be. I posted it on the forum, but I dont think that anyone has joined it *weeps* OK, enough of my whinning. Go visit my affies, show the sites some luvin'. Alberto has a sexy new layout too. YUM YUM!!

December 2, 2002

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - More than 2,300 people gathered to listen to Irish rocker Bono, even though he wasn't in town to sing.

The U2 lead singer appeared in Lincoln on Sunday to urge Americans to do what they can to help stop the spread of AIDS in Africa, headlining one of the many events held around the nation to mark World AIDS Day.

"It's not about charity. It's about justice and equality," Bono said. "I'm not here to lecture, and even though it's Sunday I'm not here to preach."

The event at the Lied Center for Performing Arts was the singer's first stop in a seven-city tour for an organization called Debt, Aid, Trade for Africa.

Bono has called on Americans to try to persuade their lawmakers to increase funding for the fight against AIDS in Africa. He also wants the American government to forgive the debts of African nations so money can be used to battle the disease.

Bono was also joined in Lincoln by actress Ashley Judd and four-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong.

"We're extraordinarily honored to be here to learn and to challenge other people around the world to say, 'You know what, a $4 dollar shot can prevent a mother from transmitting the HIV virus to her infant,'" Judd said.

In New York, the HIV + Sinikithemba Choir, composed of HIV-positive South Africans, marked World Aids Day by singing in Zulu and English on a Harlem church altar.

"To have AIDS is a stigma and we are trying to help people share the information and to accept their illness," said choir member Ntombi Mbuthu, 39, a mother of three children, all of whom have tested negative for the disease.

Mbuthu, who gets medicine through her work as a clinic counselor, is the only one of the 21 traveling choir members who is undergoing treatment for HIV. The others are too poor.

"Most South Africans don't get tested because they know there's no cure, and they cannot get the drug treatment because it's too expensive," said Mimi Badumuti, 32, who supports herself doing beadwork after losing her job as a corporate receptionist.

Former President Clinton, in an opinion column published Sunday in The New York Times, urged governments to do more to bring treatment to the developing world.

"Given that medicine can turn AIDS from a death sentence into a chronic illness and reduce mother-to-child transmission, our withholding of treatment will appear to future historians as medieval, like bloodletting," Clinton wrote.

About 1 million Americans are infected with HIV, which causes AIDS. Worldwide, there are 42 million HIV positive people, with sub-Saharan Africa home to 75 percent of them, according to UNAIDS, the U.N.'s AIDS agency.

President Bush, in his World AIDS Day proclamation, praised groups that are working to combat AIDS and help the people who suffer from it. He noted that his administration is seeking increases in spending for domestic and international AIDS programs.

"By working together, we can provide hope and comfort to all those affected by this devastating disease," Bush said.

The tour that brought Bono to Nebraska will wind its way through the nation's heartland, with stops in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. The singer said there was a reason those stops were chosen.

"There is a sense of community, of family, a certain decency that we need to convince the politicians," Bono said. "There is a moral compass in this part of the country that reads clearly when it knows the facts.

In San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, about 250 people, many wearing red ribbons and some carrying flowers, attended a quiet ceremony Sunday in the National AIDS Memorial Grove.

"I came today to remember," said Hank Donat, a 36-year-old San Francisco writer. "The gay community in San Francisco was devastated in the early years. We'll never be able to know the full breadth of the loss to our culture. But we feel it, we measure it with our hearts. "

Singer Jaqui Naylor performed a song written for World AIDS Day and the Rev. G. Penny Nixon of the Metropolitan Community Church spoke about working toward a cure for the disease.

"The theme of World AIDS Day is live and let live, but I want to have a different theme for a moment. I want to talk about hope," Nixon told the crowd. "It is more important than ever that we feed the hope."

In the Los Angeles area, predominantly black churches held services with sermons dedicated to the AIDS theme.

"The black community continues to suffer terribly from the devastation caused by AIDS," said the Rev. Norman S. Johnson Jr. of First New Christian Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. "Therefore, we must stand together and act now."