Near the end of his first day working at the construction site, John Guerrero Jr. stopped sweating. He didn’t know the danger he was in.

It was late May, and temperatures had reached 96 degrees Fahrenheit as he helped to install interior walls, ceilings, and doors at the site in east Austin, according to a federal investigation. Drinking water and Gatorade during his three breaks wasn’t enough. By the end of the day, he died of heat stroke.

Mr. Guerrero was one of at least 279 people to die due to heat in Texas last year, according to The Texas Tribune. And at least 42 Texas workers died from heat-related illnesses on the job between 2011 and 2018, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Given that there is no perfect way to measure heat-related deaths, both figures are likely undercounts.

This statistical uncertainty – estimates of how many people die from heat each year in the United States range from 153 to over 10,000 – is part of a broader lack of clarity, and perhaps even concern, across the country about the dangers posed by extreme heat. As summers have become hotter in recent decades, one fact has become increasingly clear: The U.S. treats heat emergencies differently from other natural disasters.

Extreme heat is the deadliest kind of weather disaster the U.S. faces, but unlike what happens amid most other extreme weather events, life has been expected to continue as normal during severe heat waves. While a hurricane might shut a city down, a bad heat wave often doesn’t. Thanks to air conditioning, many Americans can avoid the worst dangers. But certain workers – like those in construction, transportation, and agriculture – can’t.

Adrees Latif/Reuters

Workers mow the grass at an apartment complex during hot weather in Houston, July 17, 2023.

Workers have faced these dangers for years with few protections. Now, as millions of Americans have baked under record-breaking heat – nearly 40% of Americans faced heat advisories last week, according to the National Weather Service – the risks they face are helping spur a broader rethink of how the country manages extreme heat and labor.

“We haven’t really focused on extreme heat as a climate hazard,” says Ladd Keith, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona who researches heat policy in urban areas.

“We’ve seen a huge change in that in the last couple of years, and that is in part due to an increasing awareness,” he adds. Heat “is breaking records and impacting people’s lives.”

Efforts to keep workers safe

When it comes to heat safety, Austin, Texas, has been ahead of the curve.

In 2010, as policy director of the Workers Defense Project, an advocacy group for low-wage, immigrant workers in Texas, Greg Casar led the effort to establish a city ordinance requiring employers to give construction workers a 10-minute rest break every four hours –  the bare minimum of protections, according to experts. Now, as a U.S. congressman representing the city, he’s helping lead efforts to create federal standards to keep workers safe in extreme heat.

“This is a basic human decency issue,” says Representative Casar, a Democrat and former Austin city councilor.

“Some important preliminary actions [are happening], but they need to be followed up with much stronger actions,” he adds.

Only five states have heat safety standards. Every other state is subject to federal workplace safety rules set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), but the only regulatory tool the agency has for extreme heat is the catchall general duty clause of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.

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Natural Resources Defense Council

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The clause requires employers to shield workers from hazards causing or likely to cause “death or serious physical harm.” And when it comes to heat-related workplace injuries and deaths, it’s been difficult to enforce, experts say.

“The burden of proof for showing a violation of that clause [is] extremely high,” says Juanita Constible, a senior climate and health advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York.

“And fines are often too low to dissuade that behavior, especially when employers can negotiate down,” she adds.

After Mr. Guerrero died, for example, OSHA issued his employer a $4,351 fine, according to public records. Another employer argued a $7,250 fine down to $2,175, according to public records, after an employee died of heat stroke while digging irrigation trenches. The mother of a San Antonio man who died last summer laying fiber-optic cables on a 101-degree day is suing his employer.

What limited rules exist in Texas may soon disappear as well. There are no statewide heat safety rules in Texas, and in September a new state law aimed at creating a uniform regulatory code across the state would effectively nullify local rest break ordinances for construction workers in Austin and Dallas.

Carlos Barria/Reuters

A construction worker drinks a cold beverage during a heat wave in Scottsdale, Arizona, July 28, 2023.

Supporters of that law say the varying city ordinances create a patchwork of regulations that hurt businesses in the state, and members of the Texas construction industry say most employers are already doing their best to keep workers safe.

“The challenge you will always have with this particular issue is every single job site is different, and every single task on a job site is different, so it’s hard to write a one-size-fits-all rule,” says Geoffrey Tahuahua, president of the Associated Builders and Contractors of Texas.

“I’d more so look at what is the behavior we want to encourage, and make sure we’re encouraging that as much as possible,” he adds. “As OSHA inspectors make their way [around] Texas, I think they’ll find there’s a lot of people doing the right thing.”

Last month, Democrats filed a bill in the Texas Legislature that would create heat illness prevention standards to protect workers in indoor and outdoor workplaces. That legislation is unlikely to be looked at until 2025, however, when the Legislature next reconvenes.

“Early days of heat governance”

In the Southwest, scalding summer temperatures have been paired with rapid growth. Austin is a prime example.

Not only has the Austin metro region been experiencing extremely hot summers – last summer was the second hottest on record, and last month was the hottest July on record – but its population almost doubled as well between 2000 and 2020.

For Eva Marroquin, who’s been working construction in Austin since 2005, working in the summer is like stepping into an oven. You start baking from your helmet to your boots, sunlight searing against your reflective vest, she says through a translator.

“Your heart starts beating really, really fast. You feel like you have a fever, but it’s not a fever; it’s heat stroke,” she says. “I have felt it countless times.”

Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor

Eva Marroquin stands outside the Workers Defense Project office in Austin, Texas. A construction worker since 2005, she says workers need to be better protected from extreme heat.

She’s speaking in the Workers Defense Project office, where she’s been a member since 2011. A single mother of five, she stretches her calloused hands across the table, inspecting her bare nails.

“They’re worker’s hands ... but the necessity keeps us having to work,” she says. “If we start rolling back the very little protections workers have and have fought for, it will be incredibly hard to find a dignified job.”

OSHA is working on a rule to prevent heat injury and illness in the workplace, it announced last year. That process usually takes years, however, and members of Congress like Mr. Casar want to accelerate it. Last week President Joe Biden also announced a swath of federal actions that will take effect soon, including increasing inspections of high-risk workplaces like construction and agriculture, and improving weather forecasts. 

“It would be fair to say it’s the most heat-focused administration in the country’s history,” says Dr. Keith at the University of Arizona.

“They’re addressing this in the way you’d hope: a whole-of-government response through multiple agencies,” he adds. “Having said that, we’re at the very early days of heat governance.”

And the workplace is one of many arenas where more awareness of heat safety is needed, experts say, especially as extreme heat begins to touch every corner of the country.

“This summer is not a preview of the future,” says Dr. Keith. “The climate we’re living in today [has] already been influenced by climate change, and the future will be even hotter unless we drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

In June, shipping company UPS reached an agreement with the Teamsters union to install air conditioning in all of its new trucks. It’s part of a larger tentative agreement in July that, if accepted, would avoid a strike by over 340,000 unionized employees around the country.

Oregon offers heat safety lessons

There were no heat safety rules in Oregon in 2021 when a deadly heat wave hit the Pacific Northwest. The 54 people who died didn’t have air conditioning at home, and only a half-dozen had portable air-conditioning units, most of which were either unplugged or not working, according to the county medical examiner. In total, roughly 1,200 people from Oregon to British Columbia may have died of heat-related illnesses due to the event, almost matching the total number of deaths in Hurricane Katrina. 

Two years later Oregon is poised to become a national leader in heat safety. The new rules enacted by the state last year – which include detailed requirements around access to shade, access to drinking water, and training for supervisors and employees – are the only heat safety rules in the country that apply to both outdoor and indoor workers.

Ms. Constible of the Natural Resources Defense Council is “most excited” about the Oregon rules, “but it’s too early to tell if it’s working,” she says. “And as with any regulation, enforcement is key.”

Detailed heat safety rules are already in place in other areas, such as sports and the military. The U.S. Marine Corps has used flag conditions corresponding to temperature and heat acclimation of personnel to train safely since the 1950s. The U.S. Army created a heat center at Fort Moore (formerly Fort Benning) that researches and shares heat safety information with other military branches.

“These aren’t some lefty wacko ideas,” says Ms. Constible.

“I really hope we can come together to find a solution to a preventable problem that has the chance to take away a family member, a loved one,” she adds.

The military sapper points toward a hand-size, green Russian anti-personnel mine with a black rubber pressure plate. It’s one reason Ukraine’s long-expected counteroffensive has – after two months – made only limited gains.

“There are so [expletive] many of these; I can’t even begin to describe it,” says the Ukrainian de-mining specialist, who gives the name Pavlo.

His 128th brigade of Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces helped de-mine the corridors that enabled a 5-mile advance in July as well as the capture last week of the village of Staromaiorske in southeast Ukraine.

The Ukrainians advanced – at high cost in both casualties and lost time – under intense artillery fire and airstrikes, through fortified positions that the Russians, over many months, had laced with layer upon layer of mines, booby traps, and remotely detonated explosive charges.

“It slows down our offensive work by at least 100 times,” says Pavlo, noting that an area of just 30 yards by 30 yards could overflow with more than 100 of the green PMN-2 mines. Never mind the larger explosives often set for Ukrainian troops when they capture Russian trenches.

“Every day you find out something new,” he says as his brigade pauses a few days from front-line duties to refresh soldiers’ trench-storming and anti-mine tactics.

“We are really surprised with how they put together these defensive lines,” says Pavlo. “What helps them is they have so many [mines]. They don’t have to deploy them smartly, just throw them out there.”

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Defused Russian mines and dummy explosives are laid out for soldiers of Ukraine's 128th brigade who are receiving training to contend with Russia's built-up defense lines in the Zaporizhzhia region, Aug. 2, 2023.

The stakes could not be higher for Ukraine. It is aiming to reverse Russia’s continued occupation of some 20% of its territory before weariness with the war and its high cost jeopardizes support from Ukraine’s most generous allies in the United States and Europe.

The Ukrainian push down three axes along the 600-mile front line comes amid a missile and drone war that has seen Russia bombard cities across Ukraine daily, with particular targeting of Ukraine’s port and grain export facilities. That has been met this week by two days of drone attacks against Moscow.

“Ukraine is getting strong,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Sunday, “and the war is gradually returning to Russia’s territory, to its symbolic centers and military bases.”

Ukraine’s counteroffensive began in early June, but initial advances by relatively small units were hobbled by poor coordination, better-than-expected Russian defenses, extensive minefields, and improved Russian drone tactics. Initial Ukrainian losses of soldiers and materiel were far higher than expected.

Ukraine has now reportedly committed several thousand Western-trained troops to the broader assault, which is using billions of dollars of new military hardware, including rockets that have targeted Russian ammunition and logistics hubs far behind the front lines.

As it struggles, Ukraine also appears to have reverted, for now, to a fight of attrition, rather than the combined-arms approach taught by the U.S. and NATO. American officials say that a total of 17 brigades, with more than 63,000 troops, have been trained for this counteroffensive, 15,000 of them by the U.S.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

A Ukrainian jet fighter flies over fields of sunflowers near military positions in southern Ukraine, July 31, 2023. Russian airstrikes and artillery attacks have made it especially difficult for Ukrainian forces to penetrate Russia's heavily mined defenses.

“It will go forward when we cut off their logistics, and then we will go all the way in,” says a Ukrainian military intelligence contractor with five years of experience, who gives the name Oleksandr and works along the Zaporizhzhia fronts. “I am confident it is moving in the right way.”

Russian forces “had enough time to prepare; there are a lot of mines – they are everywhere,” says Oleksandr. “They use a special tactic of putting remotely controlled mines in trenches. When they realize they lost them, they blow it up – with their guys inside, and our guys.”

Oleksandr says a lack of air support, a shortage of armed drones, and limited manpower have complicated Ukraine’s effort.

“There is no sense beginning a counteroffensive without outnumbering the enemy 3 to 1,” he says. “We don’t [have that advantage], but that doesn’t stop us. We know what we are fighting for, but the Russians don’t know why they are here.”

One push to the east has made gains around the hotly contested city of Bakhmut. In the southeast, two thrusts – one toward Melitopol and the other toward Berdyansk, on the Sea of Azov – have sought to cut off Russian resupply lines to troops occupying southern Ukraine and Crimea.

But gains so far on this southeastern front, at no point reaching more than 10 miles into Russian-occupied territory, are a fraction of the distance needed to reach their objectives.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

An instructor who gave the name Andrii (right) watches as Ukrainian soldiers of the 128th brigade refresh their trench warfare tactics in southern Ukraine, July 31, 2023.

American Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has acknowledged the slow pace of the Ukrainian advance, saying on July 18 that war games had “predicted certain levels of advance ... and that has slowed down.” He said that “the problem to solve is minefields,” and that the conflict is “going to be long; it’s going to be hard; it’s going to be bloody.”

Ukrainian Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of the southern front, told BBC last week that “any defense can be broken, but you need patience, time, and skillful action.”

That is what Ukraine is increasingly bringing to the conflict, though it has not replicated the gold standard it set last autumn, when it recaptured vast swaths of territory in the northeast Kharkiv region in a lightning offensive and reclaimed the southern city of Kherson.

Guarded confidence is on display among the 128th brigade’s fighters, despite their losses and the monumental challenges that have decimated some other front-line units since June.

At another session on mines, another sapper who gives the name Oleksandr tests boot attachments made in Ukraine that elevate a de-miner several inches off the ground, to protect against cluster munitions. The boots would “definitely” have saved the legs of two sappers in the unit who lost theirs in the past two weeks, Oleksandr says.

Another mine instructor, also called Oleksandr, is missing three fingers on his left hand that he lost to a past mine incident. He tells the soldiers how to safely dispose of one variety of cluster munitions that can be piled up with gentle handling, doused in kerosene, and burned without exploding.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Ukrainian sapper Oleksandr tests elevated boots designed to help mitigate the blast of cluster munitions and more, as he trains soldiers to negotiate the minefields that litter Russia's defenses in the Zaporizhzhia region, in southeastern Ukraine, Aug. 2, 2023.

Also refreshing his training is a sergeant who gives the name Rustam, who was part of the brigade’s assault group storming Russian positions. Rustam wears kneepads and a pistol on his hip, and he has a small, dirt-smudged skull patch on his hat.

“I was surprised by the amount of ammunition that the Russians had in their positions – with that, we would have held onto it for a week, but the Russians just ran away when they saw us,” he says.

He did not experience booby traps or rigged trenches and says the Russian troops left so fast that they did not have time to set up any surprises. But all the approaches were heavily mined, and his unit had to tread carefully to avoid small explosive cluster munitions that littered their path.

“Even after Ukrainians took Russian positions, the Russians could still fire cluster munitions, so the paths were mined again,” says Rustam. “There were cases where people were not so careful and would step on a mine, even if it had already been cleared. The Russians were trying to break our logistics lines, and it worked, a bit.”

In the latest counteroffensive, Rustam says Russian forces left behind wounded comrades. He tells of one Russian soldier now being held by Ukraine who had been shot in the leg and the clavicle, and asking him why he hadn’t fled.

“They have lines of people who shoot dead those who retreat,” he says the Russian told him, mirroring similar reports elsewhere along the front.

“We honestly thought it [our offensive] would be quicker,” says Rustam, “but even with such advances we are happy.”

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Ukrainian sapper Oleksandr, who is missing three fingers from a past land mine explosion, trains soldiers trying to penetrate Russian defenses in the Zaporizhzhia region, in southeastern Ukraine, Aug. 2, 2023.

An instructor at the trench-clearing drills, who gives the name Andrii and is without hearing in one ear and sight in one eye from earlier battles, speaks of the current challenges.

Mines and booby traps can target three levels of the body at once, he says: If you step over a tripwire, for example, something else aims for the groin, and also the head.

“Our main task at the zero [front] line is to assault the Russian trenches, so we must be quick and smart,” Andrii says. “We put a lot of effort into training. ... I lost some of my people, but I realize this is a war and losses are inevitable.”

Keeping those losses in check is why, during this counteroffensive, mine awareness is drilled into those at the front.

While sapper Pavlo uses a knife to dig a hole to demonstrate how Russian forces can hide a fragmentation grenade under an anti-personnel mine – to minimize chances of detection – another sapper, called Serhii, says failure to detect a similar set-up using an anti-tank mine means “you won’t exist anymore.”

“When you go there, you never know if you will come back,” says Serhii. He details the many precautions that must be taken to avoid catastrophe and that take time and patience.

Ukraine’s offensive is moving forward, he says, but preventing casualties is key: “We are not rushing there.”

Reporting for this story was supported by Oleksandr Naselenko.

Sophie Hills/The Christian Science Monitor

Panelists speak on gun safety at First Presbyterian in Columbia, Tennessee, on July 26, 2023. Churches are hosting conversations and coffees ahead of a special legislative session on Aug. 21.

On a hot evening in Columbia, Tennessee, a pastor, a physician, and a Republican gun owner sit together at the front of a church. The topic is a new one for this congregation: solutions to gun violence in Tennessee.

As people trickle in, neighbors wave to each other and shake hands with the mayor and two members of the Tennessee state legislature. The city’s emergency services departments are present in uniform, “to show community support” for the effort, one member says.

The event on July 28, called Faith, Firearms, and Community Safety in Middle Tennessee, is part of an effort to promote discussion in faith spaces of gun safety and education around gun violence in advance of a special legislative session the state’s Republican governor has pledged to call Aug. 21. 

Conversations like the one at First Presbyterian Church have been happening across the Volunteer State this spring and summer. The choice of venue is a deliberate one. In a state where an overwhelming majority of residents identify as Christian, churches are seen as a place where respectful listening is still possible.

Having conversations about gun safety in a church sanctuary could be “a model for civil dialogue,” says the Rev. Sarah Bird Kneff, pastor of the church in Columbia. 

“For so long the church has taken its cues from the culture,” she says. “In the political realm, or in the cultural realm, in society, people are splitting along all of these different divides.”

Sophie Hills/The Christian Science Monitor

The Rev. Sarah Bird Kneff sits in her office at First Presbyterian in Columbia, Tennessee, on July 26. Ms. Kneff, a mother herself, knows people close to the Covenant school shooting, which inspired her to suggest her church host a discussion on gun safety.

Churches’ reaction to that division are often to divide themselves, says Ms. Kneff. “But the church could be a place where we actually model ... unity and civil discourse and disagreeing and love, with faith being the undergirding, the foundation of those conversations.”

The level of gun-related crimes and accidents has driven many Tennesseans to events like the panel in the church. And the increase in violence toward houses of faith, including in Tennessee, has prompted some faith leaders to begin carrying firearms and faith centers to hire security teams. Nationally, Evangelical Christians are more likely to own guns than other religious groups. Tennessee is the third-most religious state, and as of 2014 was 81% Christian.

The Covenant School shooting, and its aftermath

For some still reeling from a mass shooting at a private Christian school in March, that faith is a cornerstone. For others, it’s cause for reflection.

“A lot of parents are ... questioning their faith,” says Mary Joyce, whose third grade daughter saw the shooter from her hiding spot at the Covenant School in Nashville. “Others are leaning into it. Others are rediscovering it.”

This week in Memphis, a gunman tried to enter a Jewish school but was prevented from doing so by police. And in March, the Covenant School shooting left six people – including three children – dead. That event was a catalyst for many parents in Nashville to form a group, Voices for a Safer Tennessee, to advocate for gun safety measures. 

Tennessee state politics made national headlines in April after the Republican supermajority expelled two Democratic lawmakers for joining protesters at the state capitol calling for gun safety reform following Covenant. One of the lawmakers, Rep. Justin Jones, who is pursuing his masters in theology, spoke about gun reform the next morning with a group of religious leaders. Over 10,000 clergy, all members of the group Repairers of the Breach, were invited. A little over a week later, hundreds of faith leaders and their congregants marched to the state capitol to protest gun violence and the expulsions of the lawmakers. Within weeks, both Mr. Jones and Justin Pearson were returned to the Legislature by their constituents.

In Nashville, projections are swirling about what – if any – measures will pass during the special session. Expectations, to put it mildly, are modest. But in Columbia, around 85 people sit in the pews of the small Presbyterian church to hear what the panelists have to say.

Voices for a Safer Tennessee plans to hold another discussion in a church in Chattanooga in August. Also starting this month, the group is partnering with a Nashville church to hold early morning coffee and moderated discussions about responsible gun ownership, geared toward gun-owning men. 

Voices, which has grown from 1,000 to 20,000 people in just four months, says that a key part of that outreach is education about responsible gun use. It also focuses on the high rates of gun-related crimes in Tennessee that advocates say stem from illegal and irresponsible use. Extreme risk laws, universal background checks, safe storage laws, and mandated reporting of lost and stolen weapons are the main measures the group would like to see codified.

George Walker IV/AP

State Rep. Justin Jones raises his fist to the crowd after taking the oath of office on the steps of the state Capitol, April 10, 2023, in Nashville. Mr. Jones, was expelled from the Tennessee House over his role in a gun-control protest on the House floor after a school shooting. He was reinstated the following week by Nashville’s governing council.

The first Voices panel in May in a Nashville church reached over 500 people – over 200 of whom were in person, sitting shoulder to shoulder. The church in Columbia, an hour south of Nashville, is much smaller. Still, organizers were pleased with the turnout.

After the discussion ended, Dan McEwen lingered, chatting with friends. The owner of a real estate company in Columbia, he’s a gun owner and calls himself “an avid hunter.” But, he says, he’s also a father of four young children. And that, in particular, builds his desire to see “common sense” solutions. 

This is his second time at a Voices event. While it isn’t Mr. McEwen’s first time having conversations with friends and family about gun safety, those talks only started recently. “We didn’t really have to think about this when I was growing up,” he says, adding that it changed for him when, after the Covenant tragedy, his 9-year-old son cried out of fear of going to school.

“There are some common sense things that Tennesseans – even like guys like me that love guns and [hunting] and all that – there are still some common sense things we can do to keep our kids safe in the future,” says Mr. McEwen, who was interested in the measures Voices proposes.

Holding meetings in churches eases people into the discussion, which quickly focuses on facts and statistics about guns with only contextual references to God or faith. The faith setting offers another angle, that of collective love for and responsibility to one’s community, no matter their faith, says Katherine Merrill, a lawyer who serves as faith community outreach chair for Voices.

“I hope that it provides another place for people to feel like their duty as Christians is to do more than just think about themselves,” says Ms. Merrill. “So much of my constructive and critical thinking goes on in and around my faith.”

“I feel that if we want to put our money where our mouth is and say, ‘let’s take politics out,’ well, where’s the other place besides politics or besides government where, historically, people have addressed very complex topics? Well, that’s their church or their place of worship,” Ms. Merrill says.

And this is, indeed, a complex topic, says Todd Cruse, chairman of Voices and one of the panelists at the Columbia event. 

“Tennessee is a Second Amendment culture state, and, you know, there’s nothing wrong with that,” says Mr. Cruse, a Republican and gun owner himself. Voices for a Safer Tennessee isn’t taking an anti-firearm approach, he says, but rather advocating for “pragmatic, incremental steps that can make meaningful change.”

“The Second Amendment’s there, but there are common sense solutions to problems that exist and challenges that we face that don’t infringe on that culture,” he adds.

Faith communities are a great incubator for the conversation about making gun use safer, says Mr. Cruse. “The level of respect and discourse that occurs when you’re having a conversation ... in a faith based community [means that] … you may not all [agree], but you’re gonna listen. And you know, I think at the end of the day, that’s a good place to start.”

Sophie Hills/The Christian Science Monitor

Todd Cruse, chairman of Voices for a Safer Tennessee, calls himself a Republican, a gun owner, and a pragmatist. He spent much of his career in politics in Tennessee, and sees gun safety as something that will grow incrementally in the state.

Mr. Cruse – who has worked for a Republican governor and as a lobbyist – says he’s neither an optimist nor a pessimist. He’s a pragmatist. So, while he doesn’t expect instant results, he’s still hopeful that the more people learn about gun crimes and gun safety, the more possible change will be.

“That’s not going to happen all in August,” he says. “If we get one of the three things that we’ve been talking about, that’s a win.”

A poll in May by Vanderbilt University found that 72% of registered voters in Tennessee support red flag laws. Some 62% support safe storage mandates, 50% support banning assault-style rifles, and 82% support Gov. Bill Lee’s April executive order strengthening background checks.

Democratic Rep. Bob Freeman’s goal for the special session can be described as incremental change. The way to make that happen is through outreach, he says, particularly in communities outside of his Nashville district.

State Sen. Joey Hensley, a Republican from Hohenwald, 80 miles outside Nashville, doesn’t expect any firearms legislation to pass in August because of the short timeline. Special sessions called by Governor Lee have never lasted for more than a week.  

Mr. Hensley opposes the emergency protective order bill proposed by Governor Lee, which the senator says lacks due process. Mr. Lee’s proposal would allow law enforcement to determine whether a person poses a threat. A hearing would then be held, and a judge would rule on whether or not to temporarily remove the individual’s firearms for up to 180 days at a time. 

“I want to protect children and do all we can, and protect people’s constitutional right, too,” says Mr. Hensley. 

Holding discussions like the panel event in churches certainly can’t hurt the search for solutions, Mr. Hensley says, though he does think it can be inappropriate for pastors to preach about gun safety. When it comes to firearms, members’ opinions vary more within churches he’s exposed to than opinions on social issues, he says.

A gun-owning pastor on gun safety

For the Rev. William Green, pastor of The Tabernacle of Glory church, which meets on the campus of the American Baptist College in Nashville, protection is a reason to carry. The rise in violence toward churches and the Charleston, South Carolina, church shooting were catalysts for Mr. Green to buy his first gun about six years ago. He began encouraging his congregation to carry, as well. He’s organizing a talk for the congregation on de-escalation, given by the owner of a private security company.

Sophie Hills/The Christian Science Monitor

The Rev. William Green, who pastors The Tabernacle of Glory church in Nashville, started carrying a gun not long after the Charleston, South Carolina, church shooting. He signed an open letter in support of gun safety measures because it reflects “how and why” he carries.

Mr. Green, whose household of four now owns eight guns, plans to purchase more. He signed his name alongside more than 140 other faith leaders to an open letter calling for gun safety measures because it aligns with “how and why” he carries.

Mr. Green often asks himself, “How would a compassionate God show up in this space?”

That, he says, and, “How do we minimize human suffering and enhance human well-being?”

When he finds answers to those questions that resonate with him, he trusts his instinct. “For me, the gun reform letter that I signed is a spiritual principle. And all spiritual principles are in harmony, no matter where they come from,” he says.

At the panel event in a Nashville church in May, former Sen. Bill Frist told the Monitor that while passing gun safety measures will not be simple, it is possible in Tennessee.

“I know you can go directly to Tennesseans with a story and they will listen,” says Dr. Frist, who was the senior senator from the state for 12 years. “It has to be outside of political partisanship. It needs to be through places of worship. It needs to be through the medical profession. It needs to be through the communities themselves.”

Maya Alleruzzo/AP

An Israeli settler (right) shouts at an activist leading chants at a protest against plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to overhaul the judicial system, in the West Bank settlement of Kdumim, which is the home of right-wing lawmaker and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, July 28, 2023. While many lawmakers' homes have been the site of anti-overhaul protests, this was a rare protest inside an Israeli settlement.

The crowds are chanting demokratiya – democracy! And the immediate focus of the struggle convulsing Israel is on moves by an unprecedentedly far-right government, sworn in seven months ago, to neuter any judicial oversight of its actions.

But that tug-of-war is part of a deeper reckoning: over the country’s political, economic, social, and cultural identity.

It’s a contest between two broadly competing visions that won’t be easily resolved: a pluralistic, socially tolerant, outward-looking Israel; and a country more inward-looking, explicitly religious, and nationalistic. 

But the battle over the role of Israel’s Supreme Court has brought long-simmering tension between these starkly rival views of the country’s identity to the surface.

That explains the raw passion, and the iron determination to prevail, on both sides. 

It’s also why last week’s initial step to limit the power of the court – passage of a law barring the justices from striking down decisions on the broadest of their litmus tests, “unreasonableness” – is just an opening skirmish.

An unparalleled crisis

With Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, now in summer recess, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is clearly hoping he has weathered the worst of the popular pushback: weekly protests by hundreds of thousands of Israelis, signs that Israel’s cutting-edge businesses may shift their funds and operations abroad, and the move by members of elite air force and army units to stop reporting for reserve duty.

But while he is now in his sixth stint as prime minister, Mr. Netanyahu has never faced a challenge he appears less equipped to control. 

That’s in part because his political rivals and much of the protest movement believe he has a personal interest in reining in the judiciary: court cases he’s facing over charges of fraud, breach of trust, and bribery, which he has denied.

Yet the main reason is that Mr. Netanyahu is not the main impetus behind the effort to gut judicial oversight.

Corinna Kern/Reuters

Police use water cannon as protesters block Ayalon Highway during a demonstration following a parliament vote on a contested bill that limits Supreme Court powers to void some government decisions, in Tel Aviv, Israel, July 24, 2023.

The driving force, and the reason the controversy has tapped into a more fundamental struggle over Israel’s identity, is a handful of far-right coalition partners whom Mr. Netanyahu needs to retain his narrow Knesset majority and remain in power.

Two, in particular: Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, convicted in an Israeli court for incitement of anti-Arab racism; and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has described himself as a “fascist homophobe” and has backed the idea of banning Arab political parties and segregating Arab women into separate maternity wards.

The agenda

Their agenda is to prioritize the interests of strictly Orthodox Jews over others in Israeli society: less observant Jews, LGBTQ+ citizens and other minority groups, and Arab citizens, who make up one-fifth of the population. Then there are the millions of Palestinians in the West Bank, territory these ministers and their supporters are determined to continue to populate with Jewish settlers and make formally part of Israel.

Even without the key role of Mr. Ben-Gvir and Mr. Smotrich, the court changes would have likely faced popular opposition.

Judicial oversight is important in all democracies. But it’s critical under Israel’s system. Israel lacks a written constitution. It has only a single parliamentary chamber, unlike the United States or Britain.

The Supreme Court is the sole institutional check on a government’s power. And under the full series of changes being proposed, not only would the “reasonableness” check be removed, the government would have a more direct say in picking the judges. And any court oversight could be brushed aside, overridden by a simple Knesset majority.

But what has driven the unprecedented breadth and staying power of the protests is the prospect of handing such unfettered power to this government, with the outsized influence of ministers like Mr. Ben-Gvir and Mr. Smotrich.

Mr. Netanyahu will still hope he can find a way to navigate a way out of crisis when the Knesset reconvenes in September.

Yet as he found during fraught coalition discussions over last week’s initial Knesset vote on the court changes, his far-right partners appear resolved to bring down the government rather than stop short of wholly ending Supreme Court oversight.

Meanwhile, the court confirmed last week it would hear an appeal against the law striking down its “unreasonableness” standard, setting the hearing for September.

With tensions again building with the Iranian-backed army of Hezbollah, across Israel’s northern border in Lebanon, there’s also the additional prospect of armed conflict. That could test the resolve of the hundreds of reservists who have vowed to stay away.

Still, there’s every sign that even those likely to pause that act of protest in the event of renewed conflict will take it up again when the guns fall silent.

More broadly, they're determined to challenge a vision of Israel they can't accept.

Amid the chants of “democracy,” some of the protesters’ banners and T-shirts have carried a decidedly more unwieldy slogan.

“We are loyal to the Declaration of Independence,” it says. The reference is to the document adopted in May 1948 as the state was proclaimed – long a touchstone for the court.

That founding text defined Israel as a Jewish state. Yet it also pledged to ensure “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex” and “guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.”

Scott Morgan/Reuters

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the Family Leadership Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, July 14.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is not backing down. His state’s new public school curriculum on slavery does the seemingly unthinkable, suggesting that slavery held benefits for Black people. One unit mandates instruction on “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”  

There’s debate about what this does or doesn’t mean. One analysis in The Bulwark suggests that, in its full context, the unit is about showing how enslaved people showed agency even amid the horrors of slavery.

But Mr. DeSantis’ defense of the curriculum has placed him at odds with members of his own party, including presidential primary opponents and Black Republicans. He commended the curriculum for presumably showing “that some of the folks ... eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.”

Such words, however hurtful and ahistorical, are not unprecedented. They remind me of the words of former Vice President John C. Calhoun. In 1837, he argued that slavery was a “positive good”:

Be it good or bad, [slavery] has grown up with our society and institutions, and is so interwoven with them that to destroy it would be to destroy us as a people. But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the slaveholding States is an evil: – far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition. I appeal to facts. Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually.

Neither Florida’s curriculum nor Mr. DeSantis’ comments go nearly that far. Yet for generations, Calhoun’s pro-slavery and anti-Black views have been hidden in plain sight. In North Augusta, South Carolina, there is an obelisk that honors the only white man killed when white supremacists massacred members of a local Black militia in an effort to overthrow civil rights in 1876. It reads: “In life he exemplified the highest ideal of Anglo-Saxon civilization. By his death he assured to the children of his beloved land the supremacy of that ideal.”

That obelisk stands in Calhoun Park.

Lindsey Hodges/The Aiken Standard/AP

The Meriwether Monument in Calhoun Park in North Augusta, South Carolina.

A few miles downhill, as the waters of the Savannah River turn North Augusta into Augusta, Georgia, the major roadway is the John C. Calhoun Parkway.

A few dozen miles upriver lie Calhoun’s native Abbeville County and Secession Hill. On Nov. 20, 1860, citizens gathered there to adopt South Carolina’s secession from the Union. It has since been heralded as the “birthplace of the Confederacy.”

My father is from Abbeville County, and I still live in the Augusta area. For me, John C. Calhoun and his words are not a part of history. They stand not far from my door, inscribed in stone. They follow me as I drive my car. They mercilessly stalk the present, carefully cultivated reminders of a past never quite rejected, often embraced.

How can such inhumanity endure – the adamant assertions of second-class citizenship? One answer could be that the strength of past ideologies and institutions endures until the rebuke of them is stronger.

It starts with how we present history. In U.S. classrooms, there are efforts to dilute or erase Black studies and Black history by co-opting and weaponizing words and phrases such as “woke” or “critical race theory.” Those words have a meaning, but rather than working to understand their relevance, opponents have dismissed them – and so have dismissed the people to whom those words matter deeply. We will define you and your lexicon as we see fit, they appear to be saying. This is part of the white supremacy ethos.

In 1850, Calhoun fought against California’s admission to the Union as a free state. As a solution, the Compromise of 1850 was struck. California could enter as a free state, but fugitive slave laws would be strengthened. The slave trade would be outlawed in Washington, D.C., but slavery itself could continue.

I look at the Compromise of 1850 and various compromises in the years to follow, and I see the wiggle room that allows for injustice. A land established in the name of independence and good conscience – in which many founders acknowledged the terrible moral cost of slavery and yet allowed it – once again refused to live by its own ideals. As a result, its capitalism became inextricably intertwined with chattel slavery.

So history has repeated itself. The Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts, for all of their nobility, were still concessions. They represent allowances, in a still-unequal nation, of the rights that are essential to democracy – not just voting, but the rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness through housing and health care. When our rebuke of racism is mild, disparities find space to endure.

How do we teach Black history? How do we treat monuments to white supremacy? How do we talk about slavery? These questions are just the beginning, frankly. The goal has always been full citizenship, and beyond that, to never have to compromise when it comes to our humanity.

AP

Music students from Kyiv National University play the bandura, a Ukrainian folk instrument, at a shopping mall in the capital Kyiv, July 14.

When Ukraine’s military launched its big counteroffensive in June, it was aimed at entrenched Russian forces. Yet just as critical to Ukraine’s independence is another campaign started last year. It is aimed at challenging one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s premises for the war: that Ukraine lacks the cultural identity to be an independent state.

Russian forces have destroyed many icons of Ukrainian heritage – religious sites, opera houses, libraries, monuments, and museums. But Ukrainians have also rallied to embrace their pluralistic and rich culture with a newfound national dignity.

“Putin appears not to have grasped that hitting Ukraine’s culture would instead fuel its vitality,” Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, wrote in Time after visiting the country. 

Ukraine’s initial response was to “de-Russify” much of its Russian and Soviet past. Many Russian speakers have learned Ukrainian. Soviet-era public symbols have been torn down. On July 28, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a law moving the Christmas holiday to Dec. 25 from Jan. 7, the day the Russian Orthodox Church observes it. An explanation of the law cites Ukrainians’ “relentless, successful struggle for their identity” and “the desire of all Ukrainians to live their lives with their own traditions, holidays.”

People also have emphasized qualities that mark Ukrainian life. Concerts and shows by Ukrainian artists are often sold out. Petty bribery has dropped as Ukrainians demand honesty in government. A fashion brand now touts the slogan “Bravery Is Ukraine’s Brand.” With foreign help, Ukraine’s museums have moved their collections to safe places while ensuring the artworks are available to inspire people.

“The strength of Ukraine’s resistance has depended less on the military assistance provided by NATO members than on the Ukrainian people’s insistence on their own agency and destiny,” wrote Yuriy Gorodnichenko, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Ilona Sologoub, editor of VoxUkraine, for Project Syndicate.

Ukraine’s spirit of independence shines not only in its military efforts but also in its cultural revival. Or, as journalist James Meek wrote in the London Review of Books, “One ​of the most striking things about Kyiv this summer is the freedom with which people are imagining, and in some cases already making, their own future.”