The guts of the house spill through its blown-out windows like entrails from a sacrificed animal. The resident of this house in Kfar Aza, Israel, died during the attacks that tore it to pieces on October 7, 2023. The debris of his life—books, board games, furniture, lamps, clothes, pillows—pour out onto the front yard where they are now being soaked by the rain.

I’m standing on the porch, making sure my recording equipment is covered and dry. A corrugated metal roof, ripped halfway ...

June Fulton felt weird sitting in the third pew.

At every service since she joined the choir when she was 12 years old—her whole life, basically—she has sat with them on the stage behind the pulpit at Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church (UMC), in Trinity, North Carolina.

But there was no singing at the disaffiliation vote. So Fulton, now one of the matriarchs at Mt. Vernon, took a spot in the pew next to a friend.

“Everybody filled out their piece of paper, a ballot, and they had to ...