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Obama attends funeral services in Chicago for family member of friend

By Associated Press

5:13 PM EST, November 28, 2008

CHICAGO (AP) _ President-elect Barack Obama on Friday attended a funeral for a friend's relative.

The service was for a family member of Eric Whitaker, Illinois' former public health director. Obama's press aides declined to say whose funeral he attended.

Dressed in dark attire, Obama and his wife, Michelle, arrived Friday morning at the Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago. They were inside for almost two hours.

Reporters were not allowed into the service.

Last year Whitaker returned to his alma mater, the University of Chicago, to work on its Urban Health Initiative. Michelle Obama helped to create the program. She has been on leave from her job as a high-level administrator at the University of Chicago Medical Center to help with her husband's presidential campaign.

Barack Obama had no public events scheduled for Friday.