Providence Journal education reporter Jennifer Jordan had a fine cover story in Sunday's paper about the controversy over the prayer banner, recently deemed unconstitutional, at Cranston High School West.

She also had a smaller piece that was, in essence, an interview with Charles C. Haynes, a scholar at the First Amendment Center in Washington who, as the article puts it, "specializes in the intersection of public schools and religion."

The Providence Phoenix gathered a nice little clutch of awards at this weekend's New England Newspaper & Press Association's annual fete - this one covering work from mid-2009 to mid-2010.

The paper took first place in the religious reporting category for a piece on Brown University biology professor Ken Miller's quest to reconcile religion and evolutionary theory - to the consternation of the atheist crowd.

The clash between Patrick Kennedy and Bishop Thomas J. Tobin is but the most public flare-up in a broader effort by the church to build abortion restrictions into health care reform. The Associated Press has a good overview:

WASHINGTON — The call came in from Rome, just as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her top lieutenants were scrambling to round up scarce votes to pass their sweeping health overhaul.

E.J. Dionne, one of the most incisive political observers in the land, will be speaking in Rhode Island in a week-and-a-half. This just in from former Brown political science professor Darrel West, now with the Brookings Institution in Washington:

Washington Post Columnist E.J. Dionne will deliver a lecture on “The Good News: The Future of Religion is Not Extremism” at 6 p.