After the Parkland, Fla., school shooting, Dick’s Sporting Goods checked its sales records and found that Nikolas Cruz had purchased a gun from one of its stores in November. It wasn’t the gun he used in the attack. But that connection was enough.

“It came to us that we could have been part of this story,” said CEO Edward Stack, a gun owner himself. “It got to us.”

And it drove the announcement today that Dick’s, one of the largest sports retailers in the United States, will no longer sell assault-style rifles or high-capacity magazines. Nor will it sell firearms to customers under age 21.

The connection came differently for Dennis Magnasco, who belongs to #VetsForGunReform and served in Afghanistan. When he heard audio of the Las Vegas attack last October, he said, “it shook me to my core because it sounded like combat.” He doesn’t want that sound in high schools.

Then there’s Rep. Brian Mast (R) of Florida, a gun rights supporter and an Afghanistan veteran who lost his legs to a roadside bomb. He wrote in a recent op-ed, “I cannot support the primary weapon I used to defend our people being used to kill children I swore to defend.”

Their prescriptions for action differ. But the three are modeling a shift in thinking: a recognition that staying in our corners, unwilling to connect with those with whom we disagree, will not yield the conversations – the openness of thought – that will drive progress.

Here are our five stories today, which connect you more deeply to stories making headlines around the world.