PHOENIX Southern Baptists see numbers decline

The Southern Baptist Convention baptized fewer people in 2010 than any time since the 1950s and also saw declines in overall membership and attendance, according to internal figures released ahead of the denomination's annual meeting in Phoenix.

At the meeting Tuesday and today, delegates were scheduled to consider a resolution that aims to diversify the denomination. It comes on the heels of a new focus on evangelism and mission adopted last year.

David W. Key Sr., the director of Baptist Studies at Emory University's Candler School of Theology, said the decline reflects the fact that the membership of many Southern Baptist churches is aging. According to statistics released last week from Lifeway Christian Resources, the publishing arm of the Nashville-based SBC, baptisms declined by nearly 5 percent in 2010 over 2009, with churches reporting 332,321 baptisms last year.

Associated Press

Homelessness up 2.2% in 2010

WASHINGTON Despite high unemployment and a stalled economy, the nation's homeless population grew only slightly in 2010 as stimulus-funded initiatives helped to take or keep nearly 700,000 people off the streets, according to a federal report released Tuesday.

The number of homeless people in households with at least one adult and one child has increased 20 percent since 2007, however, and families make up a larger share of those in emergency housing than ever before.

About 1.6 million people spent at least one night in emergency housing last year, up 2.2 percent from 2009. Nearly 650,000 were likely to be homeless on a given night in 2010, compared to 643,000 in 2009. Since the recession first hit in December 2007, the number of chronically homeless Americans has fallen 11 percent to 109,920 in 2010. M cClatchy Newspapers

Gunmen kill 8 at office in Iraq

BAGHDAD Gunmen stormed the local council offices in Diyala province on Tuesday, killing at least eight people in the latest assault on government buildings in Sunni parts of Iraq.

The morning attack in the eastern city of Baqubah lasted nearly two hours before army and police personnel took back control of the council building, according to local politicians and security officials. The gunbattle, coupled with a U.S. military announcement that two American soldiers were killed Monday in the south, stoked a perception that the country was slipping back into violence.

Iraqi politicians warned that armed groups were taking advantage of a feud between the leading government blocs of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a religious Shiite Muslim, and Ayad Allawi, a secular politician. Associated Press

House panel looks at sea lion kill

WASHINGTON A House subcommittee began deliberating Tuesday whether to speed up the killing of an exploding population of California sea lions that is preying on thousands of endangered salmon in the Columbia River. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., and the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said residents in the Pacific Northwest had spent billions to save their salmon only to see aggressive sea lions kill them. Last year alone, he said, 6,000 salmon were killed. M cClatchy Newspapers