Dead woman’s husband barred from seeing child

Dead woman’s husband barred from seeing child

COLUMBUS — Months before an Ohio police officer was accused of killing his girlfriend and her fetus, a California court suspended contact between him and his 9-year-old daughter based on evidence that he was emotionally and physically abusive, court documents show. Bobby Cutts Jr., 30, is accused of killing 26-year-old Jessie Davis and her unborn daughter at her Northeast Ohio home June 14. Davis was missing for about a week before her body was found in a Summit County park Saturday, still carrying the baby she was due to deliver July 3. Cutts was arraigned Monday in Canton Municipal Court on two murder charges and ordered held on $5 million bond. Hours before Cutts’ arraignment, Stark County Family Court Judge David Stucki dismissed an Ohio custody case between Cutts and his former girlfriend, Nikki Giavasis, over the 9-year-old girl. Stucki cited the charges against Cutts as one factor in his decision, said Jeffrey Jakmides, an Ohio lawyer representing Giavasis.

U.S. House approves
nearly $4,400 pay raise

WASHINGTON — Despite record-low approval ratings, House lawmakers voted Wednesday to accept an approximately $4,400 pay raise that will increase their salaries to almost $170,000. The cost-of-living raise gets lawmakers back on track for automatic pay raises after a fight between Democrats and Republicans last year and again in January killed the pay hike due this year. That was the first interruption of the annual congressional pay hike in seven years. The blowup came after Democrats last year fulfilled a campaign promise to deny themselves a pay raise until Congress raised the minimum wage. Delays in the minimum wage bill cost every lawmaker about $3,100 this year. On a 244-181 vote Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans alike killed a bid by Reps. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Lee Terry, R-Neb., to get a direct vote to block the cost of living adjustment, which is automatically awarded unless lawmakers vote to block it. The Senate has not indicated when it will deal with a similar measure.

Wrestler, wife argued about 7-year-old’s care

ATLANTA — In the days before pro wrestler Chris Benoit killed his wife and child and hanged himself, the couple argued over whether he should stay home more to take care of their mentally retarded 7-year-old son, an attorney for the wrestling league said Wednesday. “I think it’s fair to say that the subject of caring for that child was part of what made their relationship complicated and difficult, and it’s something they were both constantly struggling with,” said Jerry McDevitt, an attorney for World Wrestling Entertainment. “We do know it was a source of stress and consternation.” McDevitt said the wrestling organization learned from the couple’s friends and relatives that the Benoits were struggling with where to send the boy to school since he had recently finished kindergarten. He also said Benoit’s wife didn’t want him to quit wrestling, but she “wanted him to be at home more to care for the kid. She’d say she can’t take care of him by herself when he was on the road.”

Test vote looms in Senate for revived immigrant bill

WASHINGTON — The Senate’s revived legislation to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants faces a critical test today after surviving potentially fatal challenges. Attempts from the right and left to alter key elements of the delicate bipartisan compromise failed Wednesday, including a Republican proposal to deny illegal immigrants a path to citizenship and Democratic bids to reunite legal immigrants with family members. The Senate killed, by a 56-41 vote, an amendment by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., to provide more green cards for parents of U.S. citizens. By a 55-40 margin, it tabled a proposal by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., to give family members of citizens and legal permanent residents more credit toward green cards in a new merit-based points system. A make-or-break procedural vote was set for today, however, as the Senate plowed through a half-dozen amendments that supporters hoped would address waverers’ concerns.

U.N. inspectors head
to North Korea reactor

PYONGYANG, North Korea — U.N. inspectors headed to North Korea’s key nuclear reactor today for the first time since 2002 to discuss the country’s plans to shut the plutonium-producing facility under an international accord. APTN reported that the team had left its Pyongyang hotel for the Yongbyon reactor, about 60 miles northeast of the capital. Olli Heinonen, the agency’s deputy director, told APTN that his team would tour the facility and continue their talks with the North Korean side, without giving specific details.

Associated Press