PHP programmer versed in WordPress customization

Im running this theme on a wordpress powered site [login to view URL] What i need is... 1, below the featured news, the theme settings allows you to display the latest X amount of news stories for one admin defined category -- shown in the theme demo as CELEBRITY GOSSIP. the thumbnails are shown in vertical format. what we need is to display the latest X amount of news stories for 8 different categories. Each category should have its own box/featured section, such as CELEBRITY GOSSIP. 2, admin ability to assign Order, to each category -- which in return displays the latest stories for each category in a certain hierarchy. this is a time sensitive project! payment via PayPal only.