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Former President Barack Obama and Sen. Raphael Warnock on Thursday urged Democratic voters to keep pushing an apparent head start in early voting in the Georgia Senate runoff against Republican Herschel Walker, ahead of Friday's last day of early in-person voting and Tuesday's election day. If they didn't get tired, you can't get tired, Obama told a crowd gathered in a cavernous former railroad repair shop east of downtown Atlanta. Voters have already cast more than 1.4 million ballots amid an all-hands-on-deck push by Democrats to bank as many votes as possible while Republicans, especially Walker, have taken a less aggressive approach that could leave the GOP nominee heavily dependent on runoff Election Day turnout. We've got to keep on showing up, Warnock told the crowd at his largest event of the four-week runoff blitz. We've got to keep on voting. We cannot let up for even a moment. We've got to keep our foot on the gas all the way to victory. Both Obama and Warnock criticised
Barack Obama is trying to do something he couldn't during two terms as president: help Democrats succeed in national mid-term elections when they already hold the White House. Of course, he's more popular than he was back then, and now it's President Joe Biden, Obama's former vice president, who faces the prospects of a November rebuke. Obama begins a hopscotch across battleground states on Friday in Georgia, and he will travel on Saturday to Michigan and Wisconsin, followed by stops next week in Nevada and Pennsylvania. The itinerary, which includes rallies with Democratic candidates for federal and state offices, comes as Biden and Democrats try to stave off a strong Republican push to upend Democrats' narrow majorities in the House and Senate and claim key governorships ahead of the 2024 presidential election. With Biden's job approval ratings in the low 40s amid sustained inflation, he's an albatross for Democrats like Senators Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Catherine Cortez Ma
Barack Obama is halfway to an EGOT. The former US president won an Emmy Award on Saturday to go with his two Grammys. Obama won the best narrator Emmy for his work on the Netflix documentary series, Our Great National Parks. The five-part show, which features national parks from around the globe, is produced by Barack and Michelle Obama's production company, Higher Ground. He was the biggest name in a category full of famous nominees for the award handed out at Saturday night's Creative Arts Emmys, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, David Attenborough and Lupita Nyong'o. Barack Obama is the second president to have an Emmy. Dwight D Eisenhower was given a special Emmy Award in 1956. Barack Obama previously won Grammy Awards for his audiobook reading of two of his memoirs, The Audacity of Hope and A Promised Land. Michelle Obama won her own Grammy for reading her audiobook in 2020. EGOT refers to a special category of entertainers who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.
Former US President Barack Obama has bought a stake in the NBA's Africa business through his foundation, the NBA said Tuesday. Obama will have a minority equity stake in NBA Africa, a new entity set up this year to run all the league's business on the continent. The NBA said Obama would use any profits to fund the Obama Foundation's youth and leadership programs in Africa. Obama has been linked to the NBA's Africa operations since 2019, although it wasn't clear until Tuesday exactly what his involvement would be. NBA Africa and world body FIBA combined to set up the first pro basketball league in Africa. The Basketball Africa League held its inaugural season in May after being delayed for a year by the coronavirus pandemic. It featured the top teams from 12 African countries.