Company came for dinner last night, and the train went by as we talked long into the evening, the same train my brother said had gone in one ear and out the other, pantomiming as he stumbled sleepless from the guest room that time he came to visit. It’s too close to the house. The neighborhood is used to it, of course, to the point of not hearing, just as you don’t see notes stuck too long to the refrigerator.

Alabama is no stranger to a triple-digit heat index. It’s what makes the cotton grow and what brings tourists to its beaches. Even so, on Coosa Street in downtown Montgomery this August, visitors waiting to enter the new Legacy Museum appeared ill-prepared for the stifling temperatures. They fanned themselves with brochures collected from the visitor’s bureau and rolled up their shirt sleeves. A few blocks away, the heat also worked on ticket holders at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. In that outdoor structure, history—the full weight of it—hung as heavy as the humidity.

In September 1918 the Boston Red Sox won the World Series. Some boys pasted a diamond-shaped sticker onto their baseball bats: “Speed! Aim! Ambition! Make a good ball player. Liquor injures all three. Ask the Red Sox.” It was a time of wild baseball optimism in Massachusetts—yet the next World Series win wouldn’t come until 2004.

Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, begins the evening of Sept. 9. This is the 70th year of Israel’s existence, which owes much to the support various camps of U.S. Christians have given it—for various reasons.

Some Christians are supersessionists who say Christians have replaced Israelites as God’s people. Most still cheer for Israel because it is a David amid Goliaths. Others, dispensationalists, say the spiritual sons of Abraham have not replaced the physical sons, so the land of Israel is still the Jewish inheritance.

Thirty years have gone by since Ronald Reagan in 1988 spoke to students at Moscow State University. At a time when the Soviet Communist Party still claimed to be the vanguard of wisdom, Reagan said, “Freedom is the recognition that no single governmental authority has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious.”

Two Japanese torpedoes sank the USS Indianapolis on July 30, 1945. Some 300 sailors died right away. Nearly 900 made it into the water alive, but only 316 survived until rescued four to five days later. U.S. Navy vet and former WORLD Features Editor Lynn Vincent is now a best-selling author, and July 10 is publication day for her new book, Indianapolis, co-authored with award-winning filmmaker Sara Vladic. Here’s an excerpt from the book that shows how faith in God helped some to survive—although other believers perished.

We will celebrate this coming Wednesday the work of a brilliant writer, Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson. Here’s what’s less known: Jefferson worked hard at writing because he was a lousy speaker. I’ll discuss that, then note his way of neutralizing Christian opponents, then look at his small government principles and his pacifism in regard to Britain—and how that worked out. He’s a fascinating figure.