Top al-Qaida militant killed in U.S. drone strike - Detroit Free Press

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Drone strike

A U.S. drone strike Sunday killed a top al-Qaida militant wanted for allegedly masterminding a 2002 attack on a French oil tanker, Yemeni military officials said.

In a separate incident, Yemeni warplanes killed 14 civilians in an errant air strike, officials said.

The Defense Ministry said in a statement that Khaled Batis, wanted in connection with the attack on the Limburg off the coast of Yemen that killed one person, was among five militants riding a vehicle struck by a drone Friday in the southern city of Hadramawt.

Private equity probe

Bain Capital among those investigated

New York's attorney general is investigating tax strategies of some of the nation's largest private equity firms, including Bain Capital, founded by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, an official familiar with the investigation said Sunday.

Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, is examining whether the firms have abused a tax strategy to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe. The practice involves converting some fees collected for managing accounts into fund investments, resulting in a lower tax rate.

Schneiderman sent subpoenas to more than a dozen firms, according to the official. A spokeswoman for Schneiderman declined to comment Sunday.

Quick hits

Quran case: A Muslim cleric is accused of stashing pages of a Quran in a Christian girl's bag to make it seem like she burned the Islamic holy book, a surprising twist in a case that caused an international outcry over Pakistan's strict blasphemy laws.

Stabbings: A sleeping 6-year-old boy was stabbed to death inside a bedroom of his Trenton, N.J., home early Sunday and his 12-year-old sister, who was asleep in another room, was critically wounded, prosecutors said. Two other children in the home were unharmed.

Meanwhile in Nashville, Tenn., authorities said Sunday that a man suspected of fatally stabbing a woman, her teenage son and her mother in their home lived nearby. The bodies were discovered about 3 a.m. Sunday.

Acid attack: A 69-year-old man hurled acid in his daughter's face in a gruesome attack Saturday in Brooklyn that sent her into a street screaming for help as her skin peeled and her clothes disintegrated, police and witnesses said. The woman, 49, is in critical condition.

Amusement ride accident: A spinning amusement ride whirled into a worker's head and killed him as he stood underneath it at a carnival on New York's Long Island, police and festival organizers said Sunday. A few weeks into his job with ride owner Zorlenzan Amusements, Michael Austin, 22, ducked under the Scat ride Saturday evening at the Feast of Mother Cabrini festival in Brentwood, police said.