MEXICO CITY — Mexico and the United States said Monday they had reached an agreement that involves Mexico immediately sending more water from their shared Rio Grande basin to Texas farmers after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened tariffs and sanctions earlier this month.

“Mexico has committed to make an immediate transfer of water from international reservoirs and increase the U.S. share of the flow in six of Mexico’s Rio Grande tributaries through the end of the current five-year water cycle,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.

Bruce thanked Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum for her involvement in facilitating cross-border cooperation.

The countries’ joint statement Monday, while lacking specific details of the agreement, said both countries had agreed that the 1944 treaty regulating how the water is shared was still beneficial for both countries and not in need of renegotiation.

Under the treaty, Mexico must deliver 1,750,000 acre-feet of water to the U.S. from six tributaries every five years, or an average of 350,000 every year. An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to cover 1 acre of land to a depth of 1 foot.

But Mexico is at a high risk of not meeting that deadline as the end of the current cycle approaches in October.

The treaty allows Mexico to run a water debt in the first four years of each cycle, if it can make it up in the fifth.

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CHICAGO — The Chicago River is once again glowing kelly green as the city opens its annual St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.

Thousands lined the river and packed bridges Saturday and erupted in cheers as members of the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Union Local 130 sprayed dye into the water from boats, carrying on a tradition they began some 63 years ago.

The dyeing immediately precedes the annual downtown St. Patrick’s Day parade. The day — which falls on Monday this year — celebrates Irish culture. St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and is credited with having brought Christianity there in the fifth century.

The dye is nontoxic. While the river stays bright for several hours, some trace of color can remain for days.

A second St. Patrick’s Day parade was scheduled for Sunday on Chicago’s South Side.

Spotting a dog struggling to stay afloat in a icy Vermont River, Chris MacRitchie never hesitated.

He jumped into the frigid waters and waded over to the dog, gently pulling it ashore where his wife, Erica, draped it with a sweatshirt. The dramatic rescue of the dog Friday afternoon in Berlin, Vermont, was caught on video by his son and has been shared widely on social media.

MacRitchie’s son, Ace, first spotted the dog as they were going through the drive-thru of a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts. When they reached the river embankment, the father of two felt he had no choice but to save the pooch.

“It was like one of those moments everyone probably has in their life like you’re going to make a decision … either trying to get in the water and help her or the alternative,” MacRitchie said. “So, I felt I was obligated to at least try to fetch this dog out of the river, as I have two dogs myself, and I would hope someone would do that for them if they were in that spot.”

The video shows MacRitchie — dressed in a T-shirt, sweats and boots — approaching the river embankment as the dog struggles to get out. He calls out to the dog at first and his wife, Erica, can be heard encouraging him to rescue it.

MacRitchie gingerly steps through the ice and into the river, audibly gasping as he wades about 20-feet toward the dog, which was on the other side of the frozen tributary of the Winooski River. His wife repeatedly shouts “c’mon” to the dog and exclaims “Oh, my God” as MacRitchie lifts the dog, later identified as Arizona, out of the water and onto the icy embankment. He carries it over to his wife.

“The only real stress I had about it wasn’t getting in the cold water. It was the depth. I did not know if it was 20 feet deep or it was 2 feet deep,” MacRitchie said. “When I broke through and I got on my feet and it was like waist high, I was actually relieved by that. In my mind, during the moment, I thought, OK this isn’t that bad. Yeah, it’s cold, but I feel this is a very doable situation.”

After retrieving the dog, MacRitchie called the dog’s owner, Morgan Cerasoli, whose number was listed on the dog tag.

Cerasoli said she had been looking for her dog, a seven-year-old mutt who had originally been rescued from the side of the road in South Carolina, since Thursday. She was heading to pick up her daughter from school, when she got the call from MacRitchie who said he had “pulled a drowning dog” out of the river.” He wanted to confirm it was her dog.

“I started crying, and I told him, oh, my God, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. Let me pull a U-turn and I’m coming right back,” she said, as she sat besides Arizona during an interview. She said the dog has mostly recovered, though a checkup did find it was suffering from Lyme disease.

After reuniting with her dog, Cerasoli said she saw the video and was brought to tears again — over MacRitchie’s exploits as well as the poor condition of Arizona in that moment.

“It’s brave, it’s selfless, it’s commendable. It’s everything that I think that we were on this Earth to be,” she said of the rescue. “Sometimes it feels like that’s very rare these days.”

The District of Columbia on Friday filed a lawsuit against the federal government over pollution in the Anacostia River, arguing it has inflicted “catastrophic harm” on the mostly poor and minority communities living along the urban waterway.

The lawsuit argues that federal government, which owns and controls the riverbed, has since the 1800s dumped toxic waste, heavy metals and chemicals including carcinogenic PCBs in the river and refused to clean it up. The 9-mile (14-kilometer) river flows through Washington, D.C. and parts of Maryland. For decades, it was treated as a municipal dumping ground for industrial waste, storm sewers and trash. That contamination largely affected communities of color.

The lawsuit alleges that PCBs from the Washington Navy Yard were dumped in the river along with hazardous chemicals from the Kenilworth Landfill and chemical waste from federal printing facilities. It also blamed the federal government for poorly managing the District of Columbia’s sewer system, which led to the dumping of raw sewage and toxic waste into the river.

That pollution has led to swimming bans and warnings about fishing along the river, the lawsuit alleges, calling the federal government its biggest polluter.

“It has systematically contaminated the River through the indiscriminate dumping and release of hazardous substances and through destructive dredge and fill operations,” the lawsuit says.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb said pollutants in the river don’t break down and cause long-lasting harm to the environment, aquatic wildlife, and human health, including cancer, neurological and developmental disorders and birth defects.

The District of Columbia is demanding that the federal government pay for the river’s cleanup.

The lawsuit comes as the District of Columbia has made progress in cleaning up the river and returning to a time where residents fished and boated and wildlife including bald eagles, osprey, cranes, kingfishers and eel thrived there.

A $3.29 billion sewer upgrade, including a series of tunnels drilled under the city to capture storm and sewage water, has reduced overflows into the river by 91%, according to DC Water, the city’s water utility. The final section of the Anacostia Tunnel System went online in 2023, and the overall system is expected to reduce overflows by 98%.

Pepco, the city’s utility, also reached an agreement with the District of Columbia to pay more than $57 million for discharging hazardous chemicals from their power plants into soil, groundwater and storm sewers for decades that polluted the Anacostia and other areas. The settlement was believed to be the largest in the utility’s history.

The payments will be used in part to clean up the river. Other measures the city government instituted like a fee on plastic bags since 2009 have also helped keep trash out, experts say.

Still, the Anacostia remains polluted. It received a failing grade for the third time in six years in 2023 from a nonprofit that grades the river’s health based on its fecal bacteria content and the state of its aquatic vegetation.

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LULING, La. — The crew of a tugboat was quickly rescued when their vessel sank into the Mississippi River following a collision with a tanker ship in Louisiana.

St. Charles Parish Sheriff Greg Champagne said his office received a report of the collision between the ship and tugboat near the Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge in Luling, Louisiana, on Sunday night.

“Preliminary reports are that all crew members from the tug have been rescued,” Champagne said in a Facebook post around 10 p.m. Sunday.

The sheriff’s office said the tanker was traveling upriver when it struck the tugboat and caused the smaller vessel to sink, WWL-TV reported.

Emergency medical personnel evaluated the crew and would transport them to a hospital for treatment if necessary, the sheriff’s office said.

The U.S. Coast Guard’s 8th District office in New Orleans, known as Coast Guard Heartland, said it dispatched personnel to the scene but the people who went into the river during the crash already had been rescued when the Guard crews arrived, WWL reported.

The Coast Guard told WWL there will be an assessment of possible environmental impacts of the accident site in Luling, about 23 miles (37 kilometers) west of New Orleans.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Peter Frank has paddled from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in June to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland this month in his 1982 Sawyer Loon decked canoe, but he’s still got a long way to go.

The 23-year-old is about a quarter of the way on his planned journey of roughly 6,000 miles (9,656 kilometers) to complete the Great Loop route. This continuous watercourse includes part of the Atlantic and Gulf intracoastal waterways, the Great Lakes, part of Canadian Heritage Canals and inland U.S. rivers.

For Frank, the voyage is largely a way to express his gratitude for still being alive and having the ability to take on the physical challenge, almost a decade after a car accident left him with 14 broken bones and nearly paralyzed. He had been hiding in a pile of leaves to surprise a friend when a carful of teens drove through the pile without knowing he was there.

“It’s my form of showing the appreciation for being alive and being able to walk and do the things that I can do,” he says during a break in Annapolis, Maryland, earlier this month, a day before setting out again.

He also enjoys writing about his experiences on his blog and meeting people along the way.

“I’m grateful to be out here and to share this story,” Frank says. “In some regard, I feel that I have a responsibility to document the things that I experience for people who don’t get to experience them or that dream of experiencing them. That is why it’s important to me.”

Clad in a rabbit-fur hat and clothes he made himself to resemble a pirate, he generally paddles between six and 10 hours a day in his 1982 decked vessel, its shell hollowed to stow supplies. Many nights, he sleeps in a tent by the water. However, he often gets invitations from readers of his blog to stay in their homes.

To keep warm, he’s picked up a 1970s vintage heavy down coat, an ultra-light Patagonia jacket he found in a thrift store, 1950s German military cold weather mittens, a set of warm thermals, and several wool socks. Recently, when he felt underdressed, he designed and sewed his own pants that he quilted over cotton flannel for extra layering.

He carries 10 portable power banks, plus cords and outlet plugs. He says his electronics bag alone, holding only batteries and cords, weighs almost 25 lbs.

“I find that 10 is a good amount and will keep me charged on GPS, radio, cameras and phone battery through any predicament,” he says. “I also carry a solar panel as a backup and can charge almost anything I need.”

He doesn’t carry much for self-defense: only a small filet knife for fish and a pocket knife for cutting rope. Frank says he’s confident in his ability to protect himself, such as being mindful in bear country, tying up food, or simply avoiding populated areas.

“In the long run, it’s never been much of a concern, and anything beyond my control isn’t something I can prevent with anything I can take with me,” he says.

The Eagle Scout, who still visits with a local scout troop in his hometown, has prepared a hearty portion of his food for the long adventure. He dehydrated game meat and ground beef in an oven and vacuum-sealed it for the trek.

Frank earns some income by writing about his experience. His blog also helps him pay grocery bills via his “Rotisserie Chicken Fund,” where people can click to send him money.

“Every now and then, somebody will send me $20 online, which helps out a lot for like food and stuff, but in the meantime, I also write for magazines, and the magazines will publish my work,” he says.

Frank has made long-distance trips by bicycle, unicycle and canoes before. For example, he’s already explored Florida by canoe, which took him about 11 months, ending in May 2023. That’s a significant portion of what he’s trying to do now. He knows he’ll eventually tie his canoe to mangroves during one stretch to sleep.

“I really, really do enjoy them,” Frank says of the adventures. “I enjoy being alive most of all, and so I guess for me these expeditions are not only my college and my education, but it’s also my form of worship in a way, my giving thanks to the world for being alive and being able to walk.”

The Great Loop is his most challenging trip yet. While the journey is a bucket-list route for avid boaters, it’s rarely done with reliance on muscling a canoe.

Frank also travels clockwise, which he says is the harder route because he’s paddling against the current on inland rivers for more than 25% of the trip.

Frank launched his trip on June 27 in Escanaba, Michigan, where he’s from. He paddled into Canada and crossed Lake Ontario, where he camped on islands. On his way south, he went through New York City, floating by the Statue of Liberty.

While he’s given some long study to the Great Loop route, not everything has been perfectly mapped out for the canoeist. He says he’s had to do some wayfinding on his own.

While leaving New York, he took the Delaware and Raritan Canal, using portages he says he found on his own that weren’t mentioned in route plans he had seen previously. Frank says he hopes to write an informational guide to fill in some gaps about details of the route. He’s also thinking about writing an autobiography.

“I’d like to put something together that’s purely educational that would be a guide, and then I’d like to put something together that’s kind of like the story of a young man finding himself in a world that he doesn’t fully understand yet,” Frank says.

He was living with his parents before he started traveling when he left home to unicycle across the United States for charity when he was 19.

“I’ll sometimes go back and visit for a couple of months between expeditions, but for the last three years I’ve just been traveling full time,” he says.

Everything he owns is in his canoe.

He says he doesn’t need much money to keep on flowing.

“Contrary to what most people think, it doesn’t cost a tremendous amount to travel, especially when you eliminate plane tickets, gas, assets and accommodations like hotels and restaurants,” he says.

He’s never had a lot of money, and he’s done previous expeditions with less than $1,000.

“Is this comfortable or practical? Absolutely not, but through the struggles of following my dreams with little to nothing, I’ve developed the capacity to enjoy less, and as a result, I live well with little,” he says.

He also describes the trip as a voyage in self-discovery.

“It’s very hard to picture where I will be three years from now, as I’m still young and growing, but I’m hoping that on this journey, this very long journey of self-discovery, I’ll perhaps find that,” he says.

He estimates it will take roughly 17 months to finish the loop. He’ll need to complete it by next November, he says, due to a natural deadline set by the freezing of the lakes he’ll need to cross.

“I would say that nature is my biggest competitor, most definitely,” Frank says.