GARY, Ind. – The city where Michael Jackson spent the first 11 years of his life bade farewell to the late pop icon Friday evening as several thousand people showed up to watch performers sing and dance to his hits.

Gary Mayor Rudy Clay said Jackson had made the city known worldwide and told the crowd that he has moved on to a better place.

“He’s going to put on those golden slippers and he’s going to dance all over God’s heaven,” Clay said to the more than 6,000 people gathered at the Steel Yard, Gary’s minor league baseball park.

Palin appears on gun rights radio talk show

the Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Outgoing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has made an appearance on a radio talk show where she was welcomed by gun rights enthusiasts, including rock n’ roller turned avid hunter Ted Nugent.

Palin was in Fairbanks Friday to sign a gun rights bill and appeared on the Michael Dukes’ “Firearms Friday” show on KFAR radio.

Nugent called in to the show from his home in Michigan and told Palin that he was firing up the grill to cook up Alaskan black bear backstrap in her honor.

The governor said that was “awesome.”

Nugent encouraged Palin to stay strong and fight the forces against her.

Palin announced Friday she is resigning.

Couple in astronaut

assault case to marry

The Associated Press

MELBOURNE, Fla. – A Florida attorney says a couple who were rocketed into the public eye because of ex-astronaut Lisa Nowak are getting married.

Kepler Funk, a Melbourne attorney who represents Colleen Shipman, said Friday that she and former space shuttle pilot Bill Oefelein (OH’-fuh-lyn) have gotten engaged. The couple, who now live in Alaska, have not set a date.

Authorities say Nowak, who worked with Oefelein in the space program, drove from Houston to the parking lot of Orlando International Airport in February 2007 to confront Shipman.

Nowak is set to go on trial Dec. 7 on charges of attempted kidnapping, burglary and battery with assault. She was dismissed from the astronaut corps after her arrest and has since been on active duty at a Navy base in Corpus Christi, Texas.