Here are your Apple rumors and AAPL news items for today:

Half of Verizon Customers Use Smartphones: Verizon (NYSE:VZ) sold 2.7 million of Apple‘s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhones during its second quarter, Apple Insider notes. That was just slightly less than the 2.9 million smartphones sold by the wireless carrier that use Google‘s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating system. Roughly half of all Verizon wireless subscribers now use smartphones. Second quarter iPhone sales at Verizon were down from the first quarter’s 3.2 million sales, as consumers await the launch of the next generation iPhone later this year.

DOJ Urged to Drop e-Book Suit: New York’s senior Senator Charles Schumer (D) penned an editorial in the Wall Street Journal warning that the Department of Justice’s price-fixing lawsuit against Apple over e-books could kill the publishing industry. Schumer argues that Apple is providing balance in the e-book market against an increasingly dominant Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). Without Apple’s iBooks store, Amazon would end up with a monopoly over e-books and could charge whatever it wanted, the senator contends. Apple has denied allegations that it colluded with publishers to fix the prices of e-books sold at its iBooks store.

North Carolina Gets Second Apple Facility: Apple is building a second, smaller data center in Maiden, North Carolina, according to the Hickory Daily Record. The company opened a new $1 billion facility housing data servers last year. It will now construct a second 21,000 square-foot building to house additional servers and equipment. The new facility will cost $1.9 million and feature significant security measures to keep intruders at bay, including “man trap” doors.

For more about the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors stories.