Possible Madoff ties

Possible Madoff ties

VIENNA — U.S. and British investigators have joined Austrian prosecutors in examining possible ties between a Vienna fund manager and disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, whose multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme wiped out thousands of investors and charities worldwide, an official said Monday.

Gerhard Jarosch, spokesman for the Vienna public prosecutor’s office, told The Associated Press his office is aiding the U.S. Justice Department and Britain’s Serious Fraud Office in separate investigations of Bank Medici AG and its chairwoman, Sonja Kohn.

Ethnic clashes in China

URUMQI, China — China’s state news agency says police have arrested 1,434 suspects in connection with the worst ethnic violence in decades in the Xinjiang region, which killed at least 156 people.

Xinhua News Agency did not immediately give any further details today.

In Urumqui, where the riots took place Sunday, hundreds of paramilitary police with shields, rifles and clubs have taken control of the streets. Mobile-phone service and the social-networking site Twitter have been blocked.

The unrest began after 1,000 to 3,000 protesters gathered at the People’s Square and protested the June 25 deaths of Uighur factory workers killed in a riot in southern China. Xinhua said two died.

Palin on Facebook, Twitter

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Sarah Palin is communicating through social-networking sites after her surprise announcement last week that she will resign as Alaska governor.

Throughout the holiday weekend, the governor has provided frequent updates to supporters on Twitter while otherwise laying low.

She also turned to Facebook, citing a “higher calling” to unite the nation along conservative lines.

Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said Monday the governor often Tweets on weekends.

Political analyst Larry Sabato says online networking is a perfect vehicle for “a controversial politician to communicate with her public in an unfiltered way.”

Zelaya, Clinton to meet

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya vowed Monday to widen protests and block trade nationwide as the deposed leader headed to Washington for a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Thousands of Zelaya supporters have demonstrated since his overthrow eight days ago, including 2,000 who rallied peacefully Monday near the presidential palace. Anger increased after the death of a teenager shot by soldiers Sunday as a crowd tried to break through an airport fence where a plane carrying Zelaya was prevented from landing.

Clinton was to meet today with Zelaya.

Affidavit in cat killings

MIAMI — Tyler Weinman, accused of killing 19 cats, eagerly detailed to police how to dissect cats, even describing the “tearing sound” made when cutting open a feline’s flesh, according to an arrest affidavit released Monday.

Miami-Dade police detectives concluded that Weinman fits the bill of a “sociopath.”

The arrest affidavit, released one month after Weinman’s arrest, details a circumstantial case based on the teen’s suspicious late-night forays, cat-claw scratches on his body and cryptic, disturbing comments about feline dissection.

But in initial talks with police, Weinman did not acknowledge killing any of the dozens of cats found mutilated across South Miami-Dade between April and June, according to the warrant. And no eyewitnesses to the killings were cited in the document.

Weinman was formally charged Monday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. He has pleaded not guilty.

Slaying suspect shot dead

GAFFNEY, S.C. — The serial killer who terrorized a South Carolina community by shooting five people to death before police killed him Monday was a career criminal paroled just two months ago, authorities said.

Patrick Burris, 41, was shot to death by officers investigating a burglary complaint at a home in Gastonia, N.C., 30 miles from where the killing spree started June 27. Bullets in his gun matched those that killed residents in and around Gaffney over six days last week, said State Law Enforcement Division Chief Reggie Lloyd.

Senate finances online

WASHINGTON — How your senators are spending their multimillion-dollar budgets for staff salaries, travel and office expenses may soon be just a computer-mouse click away.

The Senate is planning to follow the House in posting office expenses on the Internet instead of in volumes that must to be purchased or viewed in Capitol office buildings.

The idea, says Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is to let people see what their lawmakers are doing with their taxpayer-funded accounts.

Combined dispatches