Catholic schools, lobbyists, global warming ...

More than 1,300 Catholic schools in the U.S. have closed since 1990, most of them in big cities, according to a report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Overall Catholic school enrollment in the U.S. now stands at 2.3 million, down from a peak of 5.2 million in the early 1960s.

USA Today

Corporations, unions, and other interest groups spent a record $2.79 billion on lobbying in 2007, the Center for Responsive Politics reported, eclipsing the previous record in 2006 by $200 million. The biggest spenders were health-care interests, Wall Street firms, the real estate industry, and insurers.

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The New York Times

A new report on global warming’s impact on American wildlife has prompted traditionally conservative sportsmen’s groups to push for more action on climate change. The Wildlife Management Institute found that by century’s end, warming could wipe out elk and deer in the West, trout could vanish from Appalachian streams, and most of the nation’s waterfowl could disappear.

Associated Press

Adults are catching up with kids in the use of text messaging. In the past two years, texting by adults ages 45 to 54 increased 130 percent. Half of texting adults say they started sending messages so they could communicate with their children.

The Washington Post

Of the 10,177 homicides that involved guns in 2006, the FBI has determined that only 195, or 1.9 percent, could be classified as “justifiable”—the shooting of a criminal by a private citizen in self-defense.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution