River Dance: “The agreement, announced on Monday, will involve the three states, water districts, Native American tribes and farm operators cutting about 13% of the total water use in the lower Colorado basin, a historic reduction that will probably trigger significant water restrictions on the region’s residents and farmland.” US states agree breakthrough deal to prevent Colorado River from drying up. (Now let’s see if Mother Nature signs onto the deal.)

+ Pain American: Want to find an issue that unites Americans? Consider chronic pain. It’s more common than diabetes or depression, and it’s getting worse each year.

+ From Victim to Suspect: An update on a case I covered last week: Mexico prosecutors withdraw case against woman sentenced to prison for killing man raping her. She faced six years in prison and was going to have to pay a fine to her rapist’s family. Sadly, blaming the victim in rape cases is anything but rare. (I’ll share more about this in Weekend Whats, but a great documentary is dropping this week in Netflix. Victim/Suspect follows a journalist from the Center for Investigative Reporting as she uncovers a pattern of authorities turning the tables on rape victims. Incredible reporting on a terrible trend.)

+ Stampede: “Fans angry at being blocked from entering a Salvadoran soccer league match despite having tickets knocked down a small access gate to the stadium, creating a crush that killed 12 people and injured dozens.”

+ American Exceptionalism: WiredUK on Why Suicide Rates Are Dropping Around the World. Well, not everywhere around the world. “One high-income country is a particular exception to the downward trend: the US. Though rates in the country declined throughout the 1990s, at the turn of the century they began to rise again. Between 2000 and 2018, the suicide rate jumped 35 percent. Suicide is the second-highest cause of death among young Americans aged 10–14 and 20–35 years old. You might be shouting: The answer is guns! And you’d be mostly right.”

+ Babs of Steal: “The Streisand effect is an unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information, where it instead leads to increased awareness of that information.” It’s incredibly common. How did it get that name? Tech journalist Mike Masnick gives the backstory (and he should know it, since he came up with the term). Twenty Years Ago Today: Barbra Streisand Sued A Photographer And The Streisand Effect Was Born.

+ The Have Knotts: This is the story of what happened when people liked one woman’s fried chicken. Like, really liked it. “The restaurant exploded in popularity. On a Sunday, they’d feed something like 6,000 people. When all those people started coming to the restaurant, some had to wait three or more hours for a meal. All those hungry people needed something to keep themselves occupied.” Her fried chicken drew crowds. He built Knott’s Berry Farm to keep them busy.