📌 Buffer Zone, Rail Strike, Dolphin Attacks

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Ukraine’s military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region aims to create a buffer zone.

The Ukrainian president said: “Our primary task in defensive operations overall is to destroy as much Russian war potential as possible and conduct maximum counteroffensive actions.”

He said this includes “creating a buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory.” Ukraine’s attack is the largest on Russia since World War II, which took the Kremlin by surprise and led to scores of villages and hundreds of prisoners.

Ukraine on Sunday struck a second key bridge in the Kursk region to disrupt Moscow’s supply routes.

Canada’s leading railway companies are on the verge of a strike that could inflict billions in economic damage and affect US supplies.

Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City say they will start locking out workers in the early hours of Thursday if they cannot reach a deal.

Both rail operators and some of their US competitors have begun to refuse certain cross-border cargoes that rely on the CN and CPKC networks.

CPKC has said it would halt new rail shipments originating in Canada and new US shipments destined for Canada starting Aug. 20 if talks with the Teamsters union in Canada fail to progress.

The railways move grain, autos, coal and potash, among other shipments.

Activists are expected to publicize abortion rights, the war in Gaza and economic injustice at the Democratic National Convention.

Activists say they learned lessons from last month’s Republican National Convention and predict bigger crowds and more robust demonstrations this week at the DNC in Chicago.

Things kicked off Sunday on the convention’s eve with a march along Michigan Avenue against the war in Gaza and for abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

The largest group, the Coalition to March on the DNC, has planned demonstrations on the first and last days of the convention and expects at least 20,000 activists.

Extreme heat at a Colorado airshow caused about 100 people to seek emergency treatment on Saturday, officials said.

Most patients were treated by emergency personnel on-site at the Pikes Peak Regional Airshow, held about 81 miles south of Denver.

The National Weather Service in Pueblo, Colorado, issued a heat advisory warning on Saturday afternoon of anticipated temperatures between 93–100º Fahrenheit for the area.

The Pikes Peak Regional Airshow had advised attendees to stay hydrated, announcing a free water station near the medical station in the center of the grounds.

Opposition supporters gathered across Venezuela to protest Nicolas Maduro's victory in last month's presidential election.

Opposition leader María Corina Machado joined thousands of protesters in the capital, Caracas, and urged them not to be afraid.

"We won't leave the streets," Machado told protesters, many of whom waved copies of election records from their voting stations as proof of victory.

Maduro has insisted he won a third six-year term, but the opposition released tallies showing its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, winning by a wide margin.

Similar demonstrations have been held in cities worldwide. The European Union, the United States and many Latin American nations have refused to recognize the result.

Advances in computing and gene sequencing revealed distinct groups of great white sharks.

Groups in the North Pacific, southern Pacific and Indian Ocean, and North Atlantic and Mediterranean, separated up to 200,000 years ago, have taken on their own genetic profiles.

"It has long been considered that sharks lost from one area would be compensated for with the movement and matings of sharks from other locations,” a biologist said. The finding suggests this is unlikely.

“As top predators, they play a crucial role in maintaining the health and diversity of local marine ecosystems, which are responsible for 20% of [the] protein in our diet,” said Les Noble, an aquatic bioscientist at Nord University in Norway.

“In the last 50 years, white shark abundance has almost halved, and it is recognized as critically endangered in Europe,” Noble said.

In Wakasa Bay, about 200 miles west of Tokyo, dolphin attacks have injured at least 47 people since 2022.

Since July, 16 have been injured in dolphin attacks—two were severe hand injuries that needed dozens of stitches.

An aquarium director said the photos and videos he reviewed of 2022 and 2023 attacks appeared to show the same male Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin.

A marine researcher said dolphins can inadvertently harm humans in their mating behavior because of their sheer strength. “Dolphins, mating, can be very wild,” she said.

In the 2000s, a bottlenose dolphin visited a coastal stretch in New Zealand for three years. His behavior veered into the unsettling, such as when he refused to let a woman return to shore.

In Japan, dozens of underwater acoustic devices emitting high-frequency noise have been installed to deter dolphins. Beach signs warn that dolphins can bite or drag swimmers out to sea.