U2 singer Bono organizing 3rd auction to benefit HIV/AIDS research

LONDON — Bono has a message for the U.S. Congress: Thanks for ignoring President Donald Trump.

Trump has sought to slash hundreds of millions of dollars from U.S. funding for AIDS programs at home and abroad, but the U2 frontman says members of Congress “have so far turned down this president’s request to cut AIDS funding — right and left in lockstep together on this.” His message to them? “Thank you for your leadership.” Bono is caught between hope and frustration as — for the third time in a decade — he organizes an auction to raise money for the fight against HIV/AIDS. Sotheby’s announced details Monday of the Dec. 5 sale in Miami to benefit (RED), the charity founded by Bono in 2006.

Two previous sales, in 2008 and 2013, raised $68 million. Five years on from the last, Bono says big strides in prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS are threatened by a slackening of global resolve.

“We could be at the dumbest moment ever, which is we’re almost at the moon and we turn back,” Bono told The Associated Press by phone from Dublin.

Almost 37 million people worldwide have HIV, with nearly 22 million of them receiving antiretroviral therapy, the most effective form of treatment, according to UNAIDS. The number of annual infections has fallen by almost half since 1996, to 1.8 million, and the number of deaths has halved since 2004.