WASHINGTON (RNS) Following a rash of recent attacks, a coalition of more than 150 organizations is calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee to conduct hearings next month on hate crimes and hate groups in the United States. By Chris Lisee.

(RNS) The Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious comprises convents with a total of about 10,000 nuns, and you probably won't be reading about any Vatican investigation of their practices. By David Gibson.

Obama and Romney talk religion. Bryan Fischer agrees with Todd Akin on rape. German rabbi arrested for circumcision.

(RNS) A new study finds that social media like Twitter and Facebook tear down economic and geographic barriers to help homeless people connect to their families and support networks. By Chris Lisee.

ST. LOUIS (RNS) Two pages from a 1972 article have influenced two generations of anti-abortion activists hoping to build a medical case to ban all abortions without exception. By Tim Townsend and Blythe Bernhard.

(RNS) President Obama doesn’t think it’s his job to defend his Christian faith against doubters who suspect he’s a secret Muslim. His GOP challenger, Mitt Romney, says religion is “integral” to his life, even as he avoids mentioning his Mormon faith by name. By Daniel Burke.

(RNS) Multisite churches -- congregations meeting at more than one physical location -- have grown to more than 5,000 in the last decade, outpacing the advance of megachurches, new research shows. By Adelle M. Banks.

(RNS) More than 20 lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides, including one nude congressman, took a booze-fueled late-night swim in Israel’s Sea of Galilee last summer, Politico reported on Monday. Which leaves at least one question: Is skinny-dipping at the biblical site sacrilegious? By Daniel Burke.

CLEVELAND (RNS) Federal prosecutors will be allowed to question witnesses about Amish leader Sam Mullet’s sexual activities when the hate-crime trial of Mullet and 15 followers begins next week, a federal judge ruled Monday. By James McCarty.

(RNS) With their eyes focused on power, the shrill apparently have a bottomless well for funding their cause. They are certainly whipping each other into a frenzy. The question remains: Is anyone else listening? By Tom Ehrich.

PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) A federal judge on Monday (Aug. 20) dismissed the Vatican from a lawsuit filed by a former Portland teenager who says he was sexually abused by a pedophile priest, ruling that the accused priest did not work directly for the Holy See. By Aimee Green.

(RNS) A lawsuit that was filed by the group American Atheists to keep a revered cross out of the National September 11 Museum is being challenged by Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice. By Steve Strunsky.

(RNS) The 2012 GOP ticket _ two Christians who are neither evangelical nor mainline Protestants _ isn't a major marker of social change, experts say, but rather a refection of today's wider, less brand-specific Christian culture. By Cathy Lynn Grossman.

A federal judge in Oregon rules the Holy See is not the employer of molester priests. Romney tears into a skinny dipping congressman. And some say you can get high off a megachurch service.

(RNS) Two conservative groups released a “Survey of Religious Hostility in America,” which seeks to draw attention to a “relentless onslaught” against religious people and institutions. By Lauren Markoe.