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The water off the coast of the Riviera Maya was warmer than I expected, but far murkier. Endless pieces of seaweed, floating on and just below the surface, wrapped themselves like wet masking tape around my flippers and mask as I examined the second-largest reef in the world.

"It's the sargassum," my divemaster from Tulaka Diving told me resignedly. "It's coming over from Brazil, and getting worse every year."

Updated at 6:32 a.m. ET

A suicide bomber killed at least 63 people and wounded 182 in an explosion at a packed wedding hall Saturday night in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to the country's interior ministry.

An Afghan government spokesperson said the bomber detonated inside the wedding reception, where more than 1,000 guests had gathered to celebrate a marriage.

"Everybody was running," a waiter at the hall, Sayed Agha Shah, told Reuters.
"Several of our waiters were killed and wounded."

Workers at a petrochemical plant in western Pennsylvania were given a choice ahead of President Trump's visit to the site on Tuesday: attend the president's speech, stay home without pay or use up part of their paid time off.

Many of the construction workers did not find it a difficult choice. Seeing Trump's event at the ethane cracker plant operated by Royal Dutch Shell in Beaver County, Pa. was a welcome sight, Ken Broadbent, business manager for Steamfitters local 449, told NPR.

Marium, an orphaned dugong cared for by biologists in southern Thailand, had what it takes to win over the internet; few could resist pictures and videos of the button-eyed mammal being fed sea grass and bottled milk and even cuddling her caregivers, all while seeming to wear a satisfied smile.

The shooting of six police officers in Philadelphia earlier this week has provoked the region's top federal prosecutor to take swipes at the city's district attorney.