Washington: Cheney’s daughter gets State post

Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter, Elizabeth Cheney, has been appointed by the State Department as a deputy assistant secretary of state and is scheduled to begin work later this month, concentrating on Middle East economics.

State Department officials said Cheney, a lawyer and economic specialist, would join two other deputy assistant secretaries in the Near Eastern Affairs bureau.

Cheney has worked on economic and development issues at the World Bank and International Finance Corp. She also was previously employed by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Alaska: Pipeline-shooting trial ends in conviction

An Alaska man accused of blasting a gunshot hole in the trans-Alaska pipeline, causing a leak that gushed 285,000 gallons of crude oil, was convicted of a federal weapons charge.

Daniel Carson Lewis, 37, faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the conviction Friday of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Sentencing was set for May 6.

Lewis, who prosecutors said had eight prior felony convictions, was accused of firing a hunting rifle at the trans-Alaska oil pipeline Oct. 4. The cleanup from the leak, about 80 miles north of Fairbanks, has cost more than $7 million.

Lewis still faces more extensive state charges related to the pipeline shooting.

South Carolina: ‘Border patrols’ protest Stars and Bars display

Travelers driving into South Carolina on Saturday were met by protesters waving signs telling them to take their money elsewhere as the battle over the Confederate battle flag hit the state’s borders.

The new protests are the latest push in an NAACP boycott of South Carolina that was launched two years ago over a Confederate flag that flew atop the Statehouse dome.

The Legislature eventually agreed to bring the flag down, but in a compromise it raised another at a Confederate monument a few yards away. The compromise satisfied some groups, but the NAACP says the Confederate flag now flying is still on state-owned property and must go.