In brief: Wendy Davis running for Texas governor

Austin, Texas – Democrat Wendy Davis, a state senator who catapulted to national prominence this summer with a filibuster over access to abortion, is running for Texas governor.

Two Democrats with knowledge of her decision told the Associated Press on Thursday that Davis would announce her candidacy next week.

A Davis campaign had been widely expected, but she has held off making her decision public.

Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott announced his candidacy this summer and is considered the early favorite to succeed Gov. Rick Perry, who is not seeking re-election after 14 years in office.

Executive arrested for aiding Madoff’s fraud

New York – An accounting executive was arrested Thursday on charges he helped Bernard Madoff maintain his historic fraud with false bookkeeping meant to deceive some of the wealthiest victims.

The executive, 77-year-old Paul Konigsberg, of Greenwich, Conn., was charged with five crimes in an indictment unsealed in federal court in Manhattan. Prosecutors said Konigsberg was a senior tax partner at the accounting firm Konigsberg Wolf & Co. when he directed others since at least the early 1990s to falsify records to conceal a fraud that cheated thousands of investors out of nearly $20 billion.

Konigsberg pleaded not guilty at an arraignment to charges carrying a potential penalty of up to 40 years in prison. His lawyer, Reed Brodsky, insisted he was a victim of Madoff, the onetime high-flying financier who pleaded guilty to fraud charges in 2009 and was sentenced to 150 years in prison.