GOP mailings worry Census

WASHINGTON — Republican groups are raising money under the guise of the U.S. Census Bureau, leaving the government’s people-counters worried that a flurry of misleading letters could make some Americans less likely to respond to the real thing.

After the Republican National Committee raised money with such mailings, congressional Republicans are now conducting a fundraising “census” of their own.

House Minority Leader John Boehner writes in a new mailing that people were specially chosen to receive “the enclosed CENSUS DOCUMENT containing your 2010 Census of America’s Republican Leadership.”

Like other solicitations in recent months, Boehner’s seeks to capitalize on the name of the Census Bureau, which mails official forms to the nation in mid-March.

Astronauts start on new room

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A pair of shuttle astronauts ventured out on a spacewalk Thursday night to help put the last big addition onto the International Space station: a new room with a heavenly bay window.

Spacewalkers Robert Behnken and Nicholas Patrick quickly moved over to Endeavour’s payload bay, where the new compartments were launched, and got the pieces ready for installation on the space station.

The job is so big and complicated it will require three spacewalks. Thursday night’s excursion — expected to last well into the wee hours of today — was the first.

Retrial ordered in milkshake case

HONG KONG — Nancy Kissel has always maintained that she killed her investment banker husband in self-defense, fending off a physical and sexual attack, but a Hong Kong jury found her guilty four years ago of sedating him with a laced milkshake before bludgeoning him to death.

In a stunning reversal Thursday, however, the territory’s highest court overturned that conviction, ordering a retrial in the case that has grabbed headlines and spawned a book and TV special with its lurid tale of adultery, drug use and sex abuse in the rarefied world of wealthy American expatriates.

Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal said that prosecutors had improperly cross-examined the 45-year-old mother of three during the trial and that the judge wrongly allowed hearsay evidence.

Kissel, who is four years into a life sentence, will remain in jail but can now apply for bail pending her new trial, the court said.

China: Cancel on Dalai Lama

BEIJING — China urged the United States today to immediately cancel plans for President Barack Obama to meet with the Dalai Lama next week, warning the move could further hurt ties.

The meeting is likely to enflame tensions between China and the United States, already strained over disputes over trade issues and U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu issued the remarks hours after Washington announced Obama would meet with the Tibetan spiritual leader at the White House on Feb. 18.

China accuses the Dalai Lama of pushing for Tibetan independence, which the Dalai Lama denies, and believes that shunning the exiled Tibetan monk should be a basic principle of international relations.

— From wire reports