Slider and Latest News on Home Page?

Hi,

I would like to:
1. have a featured slider on my home page as shown in the attached file.
How do I do that in HighEnd? In my old theme, I had to create a post where I define the image that I want to appear on the slider and use the category “Featured Slider”. The image will then appear on my home page.

2. Also, how do I make the latest news snippet automatically appear on the home page? (see image’s right hand side box)

Thanks!