SPARTANBURG

U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said he returned from Iraq determined to reduce the deployment time of National Guard members serving there.

DeMint spent four days in Iraq, Kuwait and Germany with a congressional delegation to see how reconstruction funds are being spent.

DeMint said long tours of duty can be difficult on guardsmen who, unlike active duty troops, were not expecting such deployments.

GREENVILLE

• Woman sentenced for trying to hire hitmen

A mother of three has been sentenced to five years in prison after authorities said she tried to hire two undercover police officers to kill a friend she lived with.

Wendy Darnell Boyd, 40, was sentenced Thursday for conspiracy to commit a felony.

Prosecutors said a friend gave Boyd the idea to hire someone to kill Johnny Medlin after he punched her in a fight over a cable bill.

Medlin and his wife let Boyd move in with them after they met about eight years ago.

Boyd’s attorney Skip Goldsmith said his client never really wanted Medlin killed and was scared that if she backed out the supposed hitmen would kill her.

WESTMINSTER

• Woman sentenced to jail after animals seized

A Westminster woman has been sentenced to 30 days in jail after more than 200 animals were seized from her home last month, Oconee County officials said.

Evelyn M. Nelson pleaded guilty to three counts of mistreating animals before Judge Will Derrick, the Oconee County Magistrate Court’s office said Thursday.

Nelson was ordered to serve 30 days in prison on one count and was given the option of paying $2,175 in fines or serving an additional 60 days on the other two counts, the magistrate’s office said.

Oconee County officials seized 102 dogs, 93 birds and 15 cats from Nelson’s home Feb. 7. Nelson, who was hospitalized at the time, operates Sandie’s Pets and Supplies in Toccoa, Ga.

CHARLESTON

• Man charged in fatal hit-and-run incident

A man has been charged in a hit-and-run incident that killed a 13-year-old boy who was walking along a North Charleston road with his stepfather to get help for a flat tire.

Investigators said Robert Franklin Hanawalt, 23, struck Donald Ackerman with a van shortly before midnight Wednesday and drove away.

Donald died a short time later at the Medical University of South Carolina Hospital.

Police arrested Hanawalt Thursday on Kiawah Island after matching vehicle fragments from the crime scene to a damaged work van he had been driving. Hanawalt is charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident, police said.

Contributing: The Associated Press