Stockholm (AFP) – Ecstatic Beyonce fans sang and danced in feverish excitement in Stockholm Wednesday as the superstar kicked off her first solo tour in seven years with a futuristic spectacle featuring a lunar rover, an airborne horse and wall-to-wall rhinestones.

Hours before the doors opened hundreds of people were thronging outside the stadium, including some who had travelled halfway around the world to catch the show, anxious to see the global music icon — one of the world’s best-selling artists.

Once the concert was about to begin, the tens of thousands of fans in the 60,000-capacity Friends Arena — filled to the brim — erupted in cheers as their “queen” emerged on stage. 

“Just want to say: Y’all make me so happy,” Beyonce said as the concert began. 

“I see familiar faces, people that flew from very, very far to come see the first show tonight,” she told the audience at the outset of the three-hour space and science fiction themed show.

The show features Beyonce performing atop a lunar vehicle, playing the role of a news anchor while dressed as a queen bee, and suspended above the crowd as she sits on a model horse completely covered in sparkling rhinestones.

“This was another level. Amazing, I can’t wait for the rest of the tour,” Abdul Ibraimoh, a 33-year-old artist manager from London, told AFP after the show.

“There was a lot of anticipation for what she was going to do, and yes I’m speechless, it was just incredible,” Shane Barkey, a 31-year-old radio host from Ireland, said.

Beyonce, who has a record 32 Grammy awards; is in the top 10 biggest grossing female artists. She is also a fashion icon, with designers queueing up for her attention.

Many of the fans in Stockholm sported cowboy hats and rhinestones, mimicking the look of the performer’s outfit in the ads announcing the 57-stop European and North American tour.

Julie Vargas, who flew in from Houston, Texas — Beyonce’s hometown — confessed to having a “shrine” dedicated to the star at home.

“I don’t want any spoilers, I wanted to be the first to see it and take the news back to H-town baby!” the 38-year-old surgical technologist told AFP as she waited in line in the early afternoon.

‘The queen’

The “Renaissance World Tour”, announced in February after being teased last autumn, is the star’s first solo tour since 2016.

Tickets sold out so quickly for the opening show that tour organisers added a second concert at the same venue for Thursday. From there, she goes to Brussels this weekend.

The tour, which continues until September, is expected to earn the international artist nearly $2.1 billion, according to business magazine Forbes. She is already a multi-millionaire.

“We love Beyonce, she’s the queen, that’s why we are here of course,” 36-year-old artist Kasher Bloom from Riga told AFP.

“Beyonce is the queen! Our mother, everything! I would do anything for her,” Jarra Jatta, a 21-year-old fan from Helsingborg in southern Sweden. 

In February, Beyonce made history by becoming the most successful artist in the history of the Grammys, surpassing the late classical conductor Georg Solti’s long-standing record of 31 lifetime trophies.

But despite winning another four Grammys, fans were disappointed that she missed out on the award for album of the year for her seventh studio album, the house-tinged “Renaissance”. The 16-song 2022 album was an instant hit and earned wide praise for its deep ambition.

Decades at the top

Born Beyonce Giselle Knowles, the now-41-year-old has been in the upper echelons of pop music since her teenage years.

She initially rose to fame as part of Destiny’s Child — whose smash hits included “Survivor” and “Say My Name” — before embarking on a wildly successful solo career.

From setting the standard for the overnight album drop to delivering her earth-shattering “Homecoming” show at Coachella in 2018, Beyonce has long bucked the industry’s conventional wisdom. She is simultaneously one of music’s most private and most watched stars.

Her paradigm-shifting 2016 album “Lemonade,” which emphasised Black womanhood against the backdrop of America’s heritage of slavery and culture of oppression, remains one of the most venerated musical projects in recent memory.

Then she dropped the critically acclaimed song “Black Parade” in June 2020, amid nationwide protests ignited by the murder of an unarmed Black man, George Floyd, at the hands of a white police officer.

About a year ago, a rainbow flag was hoisted at the German parliament for the first time, and now the flag is to be brought to a museum.

Bundestag President Bärbel Bas presented the flag to the German Historical Museum in Berlin on Wednesday.

“The first-ever raising of the rainbow flag on the German parliament building was an important moment for German history,” said museum director Raphael Gross.

The flag with its colourful stripes was hoisted on a tower of the Reichstag building in July for Berlin’s Pride festival.

Bas announced that the German Bundestag would continue to set an example in the fight against discrimination against queer people and for tolerance and respect.

The term “queer” includes, for example, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

According to the statement, the Reichstag building will again fly the rainbow flag – both on May 17 for the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia and on July 22 for the next Berlin Pride celebration.

Dolly Parton is “so excited” to be putting out her long-promised rock album.

The country star, 77, vowed to make a rocky record after she was last year inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and has now released a statement and full track listing for the release, due out 17 November.

She said: “I’m so excited to finally present my first Rock and Roll album ‘Rockstar’.

“I am very honoured and privileged to have worked with some of the greatest iconic singers and musicians of all time and to be able to sing all the iconic songs throughout the album was a joy beyond measure.

“I hope everybody enjoys the album as much as I’ve enjoyed putting it together!”

Dolly’s announcement came with a 30-song track list, which showed artists including Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr had joined her on the album for a cover of The Beatles’ ‘Let It Be’.

Brandi Carlile and Pink will join the singer for a rendition of The Rolling Stones’ ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, while Emmylou Harris and Sheryl Crow will be her guests on a song most popularised by Linda Ronstadt, ‘You’re no Good’.

Other collaborators on the album include Judas Priest’s Rob Halford, Lizzo and Sasha Flute.Stevie Nicks, Chris Stapleton, Simon Le Bon, John Fogerty, Melissa Etheridge, Michael McDonald, Richie Sambora, Ronnie McDowell, the Jordanaires and Kid Rock.

One contributor has died since recording a part for the album, Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington, who sat in on the final track, ‘Free Bird’.

The first single from the album, ‘World on Fire’ will be released on Thursday (11.05.23) night, following Parton’s live premiere of the tune at the end of the Academy of Country Music Awards, which she is co-hosting with Garth Brooks.

Nine of the 30 songs on ‘Rockstar’ are originals, and the other 21 are covers of familiar material.

Sia has secretly married her boyfriend Dan Bernard.

The singer, 47, and her partner reportedly got hitched in a candlelit ceremony in Portofino, Italy, with only four guests to witness the nuptials, held under a gazebo decorated with flowers.

It was captured in photos printed by The Sun and comes after Sia had kept her relationship with Dan quiet aside from sharing one picture of him on Instagram in October.

The images showed her walking down the aisle at Villa Olivetta, a luxury residence owned by designers Dolce and Gabbana – and the

same house where Kourtney Kardashian, 44, and rocker Travis Barker, 47, exchanged their vows in May 2022.

Sia’s turbulent love life has included her marriage to filmmaker Erik Anders Lang, 42, from 2014 to 2016.

She was also left devastated in 1997 when her boyfriend Dan Pontifex was killed in a car crash weeks after she moved to London to be with him.

The singer – born Sia Kate Isobelle Furler – told the Sunday Times newspaper in 2007 about her grief, saying: “I was pretty f***** up after Dan died. I couldn’t really feel anything.

“We were all devastated, so we got s***-faced on drugs and Special Brew. “Unfortunately, that bender lasted six years for me.”

Sia also dated female singer J D Samson, 44, from 2008 to 2011, and is now a grandmother, after she adopted two teenagers in 2019 – one of whom welcomed twins the following year.

She has admitted to being bisexual, telling the gay and lesbian site SameSame:

“I’ve always dated boys and girls and anything in between. I don’t care what gender you are, it’s about people. I have always been, well, flexible is the word I would use.”

Paris (AFP) – Forty years after the discovery of HIV, AFP looks at how far we have come in fighting a deadly virus that was once shrouded in fear and shame but is now treated as a manageable chronic condition.

1981: First alert

In June 1981, US epidemiologists report five cases of a rare form of pneumonia in gay men in California.

It is the first alert about Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), still unknown and unnamed. 

Doctors then identify “opportunistic infections” among intravenous drug users and in haemophiliacs and Haitian residents in the United States.

The term AIDS appears for the first time in 1982. The disease is wrongly presented as a “homosexual disorder”.

1983: Identifying HIV

In January 1983, researchers in France, Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Jean-Claude Chermann, working under Luc Montagnier, identify the virus that “might be” responsible for AIDS. 

Their discovery is published on May 20 in the journal Science.

The following year, US specialist Robert Gallo is said to have found the “probable” cause of AIDS, the retrovirus HTLV-III.

The two viruses turn out to be the same, and in May 1986 it becomes officially known as the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV.

1987: Anti-retroviral treatment

In March 1987, the first anti-retroviral treatment known as AZT is authorised in the US. It is expensive and has severe side effects.

The United States and France agree that Gallo and Montagnier should get joint credit for discovering HIV. But the 2008 Nobel prize goes to Barre-Sinoussi and Montagnier.

Early 1990s: Fallen stars

In July 1985, US actor Rock Hudson announces he has AIDS. His death three months later is the first high-profile AIDS death. 

A host of other stars succumb to the disease, including legendary pianist Liberace (February 1987), British singer and Queen frontman Freddie Mercury (November 1991), and the Russian dancer and choreographer Rudolf Nureyev (January 1993).

In 1994, AIDS becomes the leading cause of death among Americans aged between 25 and 44.  

1995-96: New approach

Two new classes of drugs signal the start of combinations of different anti-retroviral therapies. 

Called tri-therapies, they provide the first effective treatment for HIV.

1996 is the first year in which the number of AIDS deaths declines in the United States. While US numbers decline, they rocket in Africa, where AIDS is the biggest killer by 1999.

2001: Generic medicine

In 2000, UNAIDS and five major drug companies sign a deal to distribute affordable treatments in poorer countries.

A year later, the World Trade Organization changes intellectual property rules to allow developing countries to make generic versions of patent-protected HIV treatments.

In 2004, the country with the world’s highest HIV caseload, South Africa, ends years of AIDS denialism and makes anti-retroviral treatments available through the public health system.

2010: First cure

Timothy Ray Brown, an American man who had been living with HIV for over a decade, is cured of the virus after undergoing cancer treatment. 

Brown underwent two bone marrow transplants containing a mutation of a gene that blocks HIV from attacking host cells. 

2012: Preventive pill

In July 2012, the first-ever daily pill to help prevent HIV infection is approved by US regulators. Truvada is a pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, taken by high-risk people who are HIV-negative in order to prevent them from being infected.

2017: Treatment spreads

For the first time, more than half of all people living with HIV are receiving anti-retroviral treatment.

The proportion rises to three-quarters: 28.7 million people are being treated out of 38.4 million who are infected, according to UNAIDS in 2021.

2020-2021: Covid setback

The Covid-19 pandemic disrupts access to health systems, testing and treatment, slowing progress in the fight against AIDS, which in 40 years has killed 40.1 million people.

In 2021, 650,000 AIDS deaths and 1.5 million new infections are recorded.

UNAIDS hopes to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Republican U.S. Representative George Santos, who has resisted calls to resign for lying about his resume, was charged with fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds, the Justice Department said in a statement on Wednesday.

He was expected to appear later in the day at a federal court in New York.

Santos’ attorney and his congressional office did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters late Tuesday, after CNN first reported the news about the charges.

An Associated Press reporter who reached him by phone Tuesday quoted Santos as saying: “This is news to me. You’re the first to call me about this.”

Shortly after the election of the 34-year-old Santos in November, in a district largely comprising a wealthy area of New York’s Long Island, the New York Times and other media outlets revealed that Santos had fabricated almost every aspect of his personal and professional history.

Among other claims, Santos said he had degrees from New York University and Baruch College, despite neither institution’s having any record of his attending. He claimed to have worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, which also was untrue.

He said falsely that he was Jewish and that his grandparents escaped the Nazis during World War Two. Santos, who identifies as gay, also failed to disclose that he was married to a woman for several years ending in 2019.

He has since admitted to fabricating large parts of his resume.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York and Sarah N. Lynch in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Leslie Adler)

Tucker Carlson is reportedly growing increasingly “antsy” to return to Fox News and has launched a “coordinated pressure campaign” from some of his biggest supporters to help make it happen, RadarOnline.com has learned.

In the latest development to come two weeks after Carlson was abruptly axed from the Rupert Murdoch-owned conservative news network, the 53-year-old former host is reportedly set to “hit Fox News hard” in an effort to get back on the air.

Also surprising are reports that Carlson has called on his “rogues gallery of surrogates” – such as former NFL star Brett Favre, former Fox News colleague Megyn Kelly, and MAGA House Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene – to help him reach his demands.

That is the revelation shared by Daily Beast on Monday after Carlson’s purported “pressure campaign” was launched with a tweet from Favre calling for a boycott of Fox News until Carlson is reinstated.

“I’m with Tucker,” Favre wrote on Monday afternoon. “Time to boycott Fox until they come to their senses and let the man speak.”

Kelly, House Rep. Greene, and GOP Senator J.D. Vance have also called for a boycott of Fox News following Carlson’s firing in April and, according to Daily Beast, more Carlson supporters are expected to speak out in his defense in the coming days.

“This is like putting some smelling salts under Fox’s nose,” one insider familiar with Carlson’s “coordinated pressure campaign” told the outlet.

Meanwhile, Lachlan Murdoch is scheduled to report Fox Corp’s quarterly earnings on Tuesday morning and network analysts are reportedly anxious to inquire “what a post-Carlson Fox will look like.”

As RadarOnline.com previously reported, the network’s prime-time ratings have plummeted since Carlson’s departure on April 24 with millions of viewers leaving Fox News alongside the former Tucker Carlson Tonight host.

Fox News Tonight – the program that replaced Tucker Carlson Tonight at 8 PM – garnered 1.5 million fewer viewers than Carlson after it was confirmed he was out at Fox News.

Never miss a story — sign up for the RadarOnline.com newsletter to get your daily dose of dope. Daily. Breaking. Celebrity news. All free.

Carlson’s “coordinated pressure campaign” also came just hours after one of the former host’s closest friends revealed Carlson is “preparing for war” against Fox News in the wake of his firing.

“We’re going from peacetime to Defcon 1,” Carlson’s friend told Axios over the weekend. “His team is preparing for war.”

“He wants his freedom,” the source added, while another Carlson insider claimed the former Fox News host “knows where a lot of bodies are buried.”

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Sexual abusers are disgusting “enemies” who deserve to be condemned and punished – but also deserve Christian love and pastoral care because they too are children of God, Pope Francis said.

Francis made his comments on April 29 in a private conversation with Jesuits while he was visiting Hungary.

Francis is also a Jesuit and the comments were published on Tuesday in the Italian Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica, as is customary after such meetings.

Abuse scandals have shredded the Church’s reputation and have been a major challenge for the pope, who has passed a series of measures over the last 10 years aimed at holding the Church hierarchy more accountable, with mixed results.

During Francis’ visit, a Hungarian member of the Jesuits religious order asked Francis how it was possible to follow Jesus’ commandment to love enemies when the enemy was a sexual abuser.

“How do we approach, how do we talk to the abusers for whom we feel disgust? Yes, they too are children of God. But how can you love them? It’s a powerful question,” Francis responded.

“The abuser is to be condemned, indeed, but as a brother,” Francis said, calling it “a form of loving the enemy”, although he acknowledged that such an attitude was difficult to live out because of the effect abusers have on people’s lives.

“The abuser is an enemy. Each of us feels this because we empathise with the suffering of the abused … even talking to the abuser involves revulsion; it’s not easy. But they are God’s children too. They deserve punishment, but they also deserve pastoral care,” he said.

Last week the pope praised the work of an international Vatican commission on sexual abuse prevention and encouraged it to move forward, following the recent acrimonious resignation of a high-profile member who accused it of lacking transparency.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Washington (AFP) – As the last continents to be settled by humans, the question of how and when people first came to the Americas has long intrigued scientists. 

A new genetics study published Tuesday in Cell Reports finds that some of the first arrivals came from China during two distinct migrations: the first during the last ice age, and the second shortly after. 

“Our findings indicate that besides the previously indicated ancestral sources of Native Americans in Siberia, the northern coastal China also served as a genetic reservoir contributing to the gene pool,” Yu-Chun Li, one of the report authors, told AFP.

Li added that during the second migration, the same lineage of people settled in Japan, which could help explain similarities in prehistoric arrowheads and spears found in the Americas, China and Japan.

It was once believed that ancient Siberians, who crossed over a land bridge that existed in the Bering Strait linking modern Russia and Alaska, were the sole ancestors of Native Americans.

More recent research, from the late 2000s onwards, has signaled more diverse sources from Asia could be connected to an ancient lineage responsible for founding populations across the Americas, including Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and California.

Known as D4h, this lineage is found in mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited only from mothers and is used to trace maternal ancestry.

The team from the Kunming Institute of Zoology embarked on a ten-year hunt for D4h, combing through 100,000 modern and 15,000 ancient DNA samples across Eurasia. They eventually landed on 216 contemporary and 39 ancient individuals who came from the ancient lineage.

By analyzing the mutations that had accrued over time, looking at the samples’ geographic locations and using carbon dating, they were able to reconstruct the D4h lineage’s origins and expansion history.

The results revealed two migration events. The first was between 19,500 and 26,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum, when ice sheet coverage was at its greatest and climate conditions in northern China were likely inhospitable.

The second occurred during the melting period, between 19,000 and 11,500 years ago. Increasing human populations during this period might have triggered migrations.

Coastal migration

In both cases, the scientists think the travelers were seafarers who docked in America and traveled along the Pacific coast by boats. This is because a grassy passageway between two ice sheets in modern Canada, known as the  “inland ice-free corridor,” was not yet opened.

In the second migration, a subgroup branched out from northern coastal China to Japan, contributing to the Japanese people, especially the indigenous Ainu, the study said, a finding that chimes with archeological similarities between ancient people in the Americas, China and Japan.

Li said a strength of the study was the number of samples they discovered, and complementary evidence from Y chromosomal DNA showing male ancestors of Native Americans lived in northern China at the same time as the female ancestors, made them confident of their findings.

“However, we don’t know in which specific place in northern coastal China this expansion occurred and what specific events promoted these migrations,” he said. 

“More evidence, especially ancient genomes, are needed to answer these questions.”