Backstreet Boy Howie Dorough’s father has died in his sleep. Hoke Dorough has passed away after three months of battling cancer on Sunday. He was 69.Hoke had been diagnosed with lung and brain cancer in March. He was a longtime code enforcement supervisor in Orange County.Howie, 34, has released a statement on behalf of his family as saying, “Our family just wants to say thanks for all your prayers for my father, Hoke Dorough. His strong will helped him to fight cancer for the past three months. I was blessed to be able to spend the last month with him and create some memories that I will take with me forever.”Hoke’s services would be private. Supporters may send flowers to the Williamson Funeral Home and cards to the Dorough Lupus Foundation, a charity founded by the singer. [Source]

Backstreet Boy Howie Dorough is mourning his father, Hoke, who died in his sleep, PEOPLE has confirmed. He was 69.Dorough’s father, a longtime code enforcement supervisor in Orange County, Fla., had been diagnosed in March with lung and brain cancer. Howie, 34, and his bandmates previously canceled their South Africa concerts so the singer and his wife Leigh, 34, could be with his dad.”Our family just wants to say thanks for all your prayers for my father, Hoke Dorough. His strong will helped him to fight cancer for the past three months. I was blessed to be able to spend the last month with him and create some memories that I will take with me forever,” Howie said in a statement on behalf of his family.Earlier this year, Howie, in an open letter to fans on Myspace, said his father had grown weaker following radiation and chemotherapy treatments.Still, his father had “been very brave and positive with everything. He is not giving up.” In the statement released Monday, Howie added: “This past week my family and I rented a RV and took him to his hometown in Georgia where he had a family and high school reunion of over 50 people. He held on the whole trip and had an amazing time, bringing things back full circle. Unfortunately, within the last few days he took a turn for the worse. He passed away Sunday morning peacefully in his sleep and is no longer suffering.”Thank you for all the love and support you sent to me and my family during this difficult time. Your kind words and thoughts have been very much appreciated. God bless.”In lieu of flowers, the Dorough family has requested that donations be made in Hoke’s name to the Dorough Lupus Foundation, PO Box 110697, Palm Bay, FL 32911. For more info, see: www.doroughlupusfoundation.org. [Source]

The Backstreet Boys have fleshed out the North American portion of their ongoing world tour, adding a full slate of summer dates behind their latest set, “Unbreakable.”The teen-pop idols, who recently completed a brief run of shows in South Africa, kick off the American outing July 29 in St. Johns, Newfoundland. The first leg of the tour has the group hitting 25 cities through early September, including the beginnings of a West Coast leg. Details are below.”Unbreakable,” the group’s most recent album, hit stores last fall. The Boys enlisted an all-star roster of producing talent including Billy Mann (Sting, Celine Dion) and ‘N Sync’s JC Chasez to complete the album, which is the follow-up to 2005′s “Never Gone.”"We spent about 14 months on it,” group member Brian Littrell told LiveDaily during an interview late last year. “We’re happy and proud of the record. It’s really the Backstreet Boys of old and where we’re headed in the future. We’ve been at it for quite some time. It’s still an honor to be in the fickle music business after 15 years and still making CDs and still having fans who want to hear the music. So we’re proud of it.”The album, which peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 chart, marking the group’s weakest chart performance to date, is Backstreet Boys’ first effort without founding member Kevin Richardson, who departed the group on amicable terms in 2006.”Vocally, we wanted to have it as strong as it could be and the songs be as strong as they can be,” Littrell said. “A lot of people know what the Backstreet Boys sound like. It is what it is. We have to continue to sound like that with or without him.”Backstreet Boy A.J. McClean surprised fans this week when he put tickets on sale for a pair of sneak-preview solo concerts this weekend in Los Angeles.

The Backstreet Boys, arguably the top-selling boy band in music history, are bringing their Unbreakable world tour to Regina’s Brandt Centre on Aug. 30.The band, which has sold over 100 million albums worldwide, recently completed the first leg of its tour. Starting in February in Japan, the 50-date leg went through Malaysia, Indonesia, China, South Korea, Australia, Mexico, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Russia and South Africa.The second leg of the tour features 26 dates in the United States and Canada, beginning July 29 in St. John’s, Nlfd. Fourteen of the dates are in Canada — following two shows in St. John’s, the Backstreet Boys are scheduled to make stops in Moncton, Halifax, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver and Victoria.

2008-June-09 – A. J. McLean from Backstreet Boys arriving at Mahiki night club, London. UK. If you take the photos, credits goes to incomplete-men.com

The Backstreet Boys will no longer be performing in the Aids event POSI+IVE 2008