The Slingshot: Passover candy? Atheist faith? Pope Francis and Harriet Tubman

(RNS) The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights condemns "bathroom laws" and the like as human rights violations.

Matt Weber, a Loyola Press author who is host of the CatholicTV show The Lens, has been nominated for a Boston/New England Emmy® Award in the Commentator/Editorialist category, for a piece entitled “Religiously ‘Ticked Off’.” “The Lens” is a weekly interactive series that looks at what's trending through a faith-based lens. Previously, Weber hosted “A Word with Weber,” short segments featuring a humorous take on life and faith. Weber, director of digital communications strategy for the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is a Harvard-educated humorist and national speaker. He has been called the “voice of a new generation of Catholics” by CBS News. Known for his unique spiritual wit and wisdom, and sometimes zany humor, he has written two books for Loyola Press. The latest, Operating on Faith: A Painfully True Love Story, shows how necessary love, laughter, faith, and a little grit are in facing life-or-death challenges and emerging on the other side. Enduring a painful medical crisis requiring a five-hour emergency surgery that removed 30 percent of his stomach, the book details how he found meaning in his travails as he is stitched back together with a renewed faith in God and the inexhaustible love of his new wife, Nell. His first book, Fearing the Stigmata, grappled with the tension of being holy, but not so good that you’d be blessed with the bleeding wounds of the stigmata CatholicTV, founded more than 60 years ago, is based in Watertown, Massachusetts. Its programming is distributed on broadcast stations and cable systems, as well as on internet and through Roku, Apple TV and other applications. Father Robert Reed, president of the CatholicTV Network, expressed his pleasure with the news and said: "With The CatholicTV Network as a platform and Matt Weber's style and depth of faith exhibited, I'm thrilled that 'The Lens' and this segment have been recognized." The 39th Boston/New England Emmy® Awards Ceremony is Saturday, June 4, 2016 at the Westin Copley Place, Boston, MA.

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Most states require a two-thirds vote to override a gubernatorial veto. Tennessee is just one of six that require a simple majority.

Ding Cuimei was killed when she and her husband stood in front of a bulldozer poised to destroy their home, where they had been hosting a house church in China's Henan Province.

Many Jews are going to be including rice and beans in their Passover diets. The real question is: What does Passover mean to many American Jews?

Why has Mormon growth slowed so much since the heady gains of the 1980s and 1990s, and why is this numeric stagnation considered a step forward?

It serves the opposite of a useful purpose.

When will this hardline fever break so our politics can deal with the world’s real complexities?