Madonna’s Sticky and Sweet world tour made $408m (£250m), making it the highest grossing tour ever for a solo artist, promoters Live Nation said.

The Material Girl played her last gig on Wednesday in Israel, after performing in 32 countries.

The 51-year-old has broken her own record, set by her Confessions tour, which was named the all-time top in 2006, after it made $194m (£118m).

The Rolling Stones’ Bigger Bang tour is the highest grossing tour of all time.

The tour, which ran from 2005 to 2007, made $558m (£341m).

“She is absolutely one of the great performers of all time,” said Arthur Fogel from Live Nation.

“That this tour will take its place as the second highest grossing tour in the history of our business says it all.”

Madonna played 85 shows and attracted thousands.

The star even set an attendance record for the biggest crowds in history in Zurich, Switzerland, where she drew 72,000 fans.

And in Helsinki, Finland, Madonna sold more than 85,000 tickets, making it the biggest single show by an artist in history in Scandinavia.

A private funeral for Michael Jackson will be held Thursday in Glendale, California, his family says.

Seventy days after his sudden death, Michael Jackson will be interred in what may or may not be his final resting place Thursday evening.

A private funeral for Michael Jackson will be held Thursday in Glendale, California, his family says.

Only his family and closest friends will attend the private burial starting at 7 p.m. PT (10 p.m. ET) inside the ornate Great Mausoleum on the grounds of Forest Lawn cemetery in Glendale, California.

They’ll then drive to an Italian restaurant eight miles away in Pasadena, California for “a time of celebration,” the nine-page engraved invitation said.

The first page inside the invitation holds a quote from “Dancing the Dream,” a book of essays and poems published by Jackson in 1992:

“If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with

The news media — which have closely covered every aspect of Jackson’s death — will be kept at a distance, with their cameras no closer than the cemetery’s main gate. The family will provide a limited video feed that will only show mourners arriving.

Little is known about the planned ceremony, though CNN has confirmed that singer Gladys Knight — a longtime friend to Jackson — will perform. Her song has not been disclosed.

The massive mausoleum, which is normally open to tourists, was closed Wednesday as preparations were completed for the funeral. A security guard blocking its entrance said it would reopen to the public on Friday.

Fans of Clark Gable, Carole Lombard and dozens of other celebrities buried on the grounds have flocked to Forest Lawn-Glendale for decades, but Jackson may outdraw them all.

It is unclear how close tourists will be allowed to Jackson’s resting place. Security guards — aided by cameras — keep a constant vigil over the graves and crypts, which are surrounded by a world-class collection of art and architecture.

The Forest Lawn Web site boasts that the mausoleum, which draws its architectural inspiration from the Campo Santo in Italy, “has been called the “New World’s Westminster Abbey” by Time Magazine.

Visitors will see “exact replicas of Michelangelo’s greatest works such as David, Moses, and La Pieta” and “Leonardo da Vinci’s immortal Last Supper re-created in brilliant stained glass; two of the world’s largest paintings,” the Web site says.

Jackson’s burial has been delayed by division among Jackson family members, though it was matriarch  who would make the final decision, brother Jermaine Jackson recently told CNN.

He preferred to see his youngest brother laid to rest at his former Neverland Ranch home, north of Los Angeles in Santa Barbara County, California.

That idea was complicated by neighbors who vowed to oppose allowing a grave in the rural area — and by Jackson family members who said the singer would not want to return to the home where he faced child molestation charges, of which he was ultimately acquitted.

The mystery of where Michael Jackson would be buried became a media obsession in the weeks after his death.

After his body was loaded onto a helicopter at UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Medical Center hours following his June 25 death, it stayed in the custody of the Los Angeles County coroner for an autopsy.

It was only later disclosed that Jackson’s corpse was kept in a refrigerated room at the Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn cemetery until his casket was carried by motorcade to downtown Los Angeles for a public memorial service in the Staples Center arena.

Again, speculation about Jackson’s whereabouts grew when the media lost track of his casket after his brothers carried it out of sight inside the arena. Though the family has not publicly confirmed where the body was taken, most reports placed it back at the Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn while awaiting his family’s decision.

Though Thursday’s interment may settle one Michael Jackson mystery, a more serious one remains. The coroner announced last week that he had ruled Jackson’s death a homicide. A summary of the coroner’s report said the anesthetic propofol and the sedative lorazepam were the primary drugs responsible for the singer’s death.

Los Angeles police detectives have not concluded their cr

The Group of 20 richest nations must adopt “binding rules” to regulate bank behaviour, the leaders of the UK, France and Germany have said.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel made the comments in a joint letter.

They also agreed to explore ways of limiting bonuses at banks to prevent future financial meltdowns.

The leaders also said banks could not go on as if the crisis never happened.

Bonuses will be on the agenda when the G20 leaders meet in Pittsburgh later this month.

‘Reprehensible’

In the letter, the three leaders say “speculative activities that constitute a risk to financial stability should also be discouraged by increasing capital requirements”.

They also discussed bankers’ pay, which has been the subject of much debate in the run-up to the G20.

“We should explore ways to limit total variable remuneration in a bank either to a certain proportion of total compensation or the bank’s revenues and/or profits,” they said.

Finance ministers meet in London from Friday, ahead of the G20 meeting, to discuss the agenda.

“Our citizens are deeply shocked at the revival of reprehensible practices, despite taxpayers’ money having been mobilised to support the financial sector at the height of the crisis,” the letter said.

“The abatement of financial tensions has led some financial institutions to imagine they can return to the same modes of action prevalent before the crisis. This is not an option.”

The statement is a sign of unity on bank bonuses, after mixed signals on the European Union’s willingness to act on the issue.

‘Partying like 1999′

France is proposing a series of mandatory caps on bonuses - which the head of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers, Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker, said he “totally supported”.

The comments came ahead of this weekend’s finance ministers’ meeting

The UK opposes curbs on bonuses, with Gordon Brown preferring payouts based on long-term success.

However, it has been acknowledged that the UK must be persuaded to give its support if French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s desire to push through strong G20 regulation on the issue is to succeed in Pittsburgh.

UK Chancellor Alistair Darling told the Independent newspaper that the French plan to cap bonuses would be “unworkable”.

But he saw “no problem” with the French plans to claw back bonuses after three or four years if they were not justified by performance.

In comments ahead of the finance ministers’ meeting in London, Sweden’s Anders Borg said it was “very important that we as politicians give a clear message that old bonuses must come to an end”.

“The bankers are partying like it’s 1999, and it’s 2009. The bonus culture must come to an end and it must come to an end in Pittsburgh,” he said, calling for finance ministers to have a “common message” on bonuses.

Observers say the issue of bonuses is not one on which consensus will be easily reached.

Exit strategies

Removing government stimulus packages will also be on the agenda at the G20 meeting.

Germany and France want the G20 to discuss “exit strategies” from the measures used to stimulate economies at a meeting of finance ministers.

With Japan, France and Germany officially out of recession, minds are turning to co-ordinating the withdrawal of billions of aid and stimulus measures that were injected into countries by their governments over the past year.

But Mr Darling told the Independent: “The biggest single risk to recovery is that people think the job is done.”

“There is a real risk that either governments or people generally think, ‘We have done that, we are on the path to recovery’.”

“A lot of obstacles” remained to be negotiated on the path to recovery, including rising oil prices and unemployment, Mr Darling said. “We are at a critical stage,” he added.

Rifqa Bary claims her father wants her dead after she converted to Christianity.

A Muslim teenager from Ohio says her father threatened to kill her because she converted to Christianity.

Rifqa Bary claims her father wants her dead after she converted to Christianity.

Rifqa Bary, 17, ran away from her family in Columbus, Ohio, in July and took refuge in the central Florida home of the Rev. Blake Lorenz with the Global Revolution Church in Orlando.

The teen heard of the pastor and his church through a prayer group on Facebook. The girl’s parents reported her missing to Columbus police, who found her two weeks later in Florida through cell phone records.

The teenager, in a sworn affidavit, claims her father, Mohamed Bary, 47, was pressured by the mosque the family attends in Ohio to “deal with the situation.” In the court filing, Rifqa Bary stated her father said, “If you have this Jesus in your heart, you are dead to me!” The teenager claims her father added, “I will kill you!”

Mohamed Bary told CNN a lot of false information has been given and “we wouldn’t do her harm.” He knew his daughter was involved with Christian organizations.

“I have no problem with her practicing any faith,” he said, but Bary admitted he would have preferred his daughter to practice the Muslim faith first.

Although Mohamed Bary said he did not expect his daughter to run away, Rifqa Bary was placed in foster care by an Orlando judge in August while the Florida Department of Children and Family investigated the threat allegations against the parents.

In a court filing Monday, John Stemberger, Rifqa Bary’s attorney and president of the Christian advocacy organization Florida Family Policy Council, accused the parents’ Ohio mosque of having ties to terrorism and radical Islam. The Noor Islamic Cultural Center has denied the allegations.

Stemberger told CNN he agreed with his client that she would be killed by radical Muslims if she is returned to Ohio.

“She is a person who is ripe for apostate killing or mercy killing. I’m not going to let my client slip away in the night by going back,” said Stemberger.

Roger Weeden, the mother’s attorney in Florida, said the filing had no credible evidence but instead was meant “just to inflame the community and the court.” Weeden said he believes the teen’s attorney is trying to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.

The teen’s attorney said his client has endured a history of abuse from her family. Stemberger said the young girl was forced to wear the Muslim headscarf called a hijab and was punched in the face by her father for being ashamed while wearing it.

Stemberger is asking the court to keep Rifqa Bary in the custody of the state of Florida until she turns 18 in a year.

Mohamed Bary, who is not a United States citizen, said he can’t believe all the false allegations and the bad image caused by the situation.

“We are not bad people,” Bary said. “We are not like that, we are normal.”

The mother’s attorney said the teenager was a normal girl, a cheerleader in Ohio, and what Muslim extremist would allow his daughter be a cheerleader?

At a court hearing scheduled for Thursday in Orlando, the parents will have an opportunity to respond to the allegations against them. Their attorney said the parents will deny all allegations.

After the court hearing, the judge may force all the parties involved into mediation, followed by an adjudication hearing.