Man who stole Palin e-mail is sentenced

He was an economics major when he deduced the answers to security questions and read e-mail in Palin’s private account.

The former Alaska governor and her daughter Bristol testified at the trial in late April that the hacking, followed by Kernell’s online bragging and providing the password and Palin family telephone numbers to others, caused them emotional hardship. Palin previously declined comment about Kernell’s sentence and said it should be up to the judge.

Murkowski stays confident as Alaska write-ins counted

JUNEAU, Alaska — Senator Lisa Murkowski maintained a healthy 90 percent of the write-in vote in the Alaska Senate race yesterday.

Murkowski said she feels “pretty good about the direction’’ the vote count is headed and expressed confidence that she’ll pull off an improbable write-in victory over Republican nominee Joe Miller.

As of late last night, the state had recorded 98,565 total write-in votes, and 87,517 votes for Miller, with thousands of absentee ballots still outstanding. Of the write-in ballots cast, workers have so far counted 69,249.

The results of those ballots show Murkowski undisputedly has been getting about 90 percent of the write-in vote. Another 7.6 percent have been apparent votes for Murkowski that have been challenged, generally by observers for Miller for things like minor misspellings or penmanship issues.

The hand count is scheduled to go through the weekend and run well into next week to determine if Murkowski got enough write-in votes to win. Murkowski is seeking to become the first US Senate candidate to win a write-in campaign since 1954.

Cindy McCain appears in ad opposing ‘don’t ask’ law

WASHINGTON — Cindy McCain is very publicly differing with her husband, 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, over the ban on gays serving openly in the military, opposing the policy in a new video while her husband works to maintain it.