The body of a Pennsylvania woman believed to have fallen into a fresh sinkhole this week while searching for her cat has been found in a long-abandoned mine that the sinkhole exposed, state police said Friday.
Elizabeth Pollard, 64, was found dead Friday in the mine in the southwestern Pennsylvania community of Marguerite shortly after 11:15 a.m., Pennsylvania State Police spokesperson Trooper Steve Limani said. Crews still were working to recover her body early Friday afternoon, he said.
Pollard’s family has been notified, Limani said.
“The family … kept telling us, ‘We really want to have the body back so we can lay her to rest,” Limani said. “As a group, we just really wanted to make sure that we were able to do that.”
Pollard’s body was found “not far away from where we believe that she’d been when she fell through the sinkhole,” Limani said. “It was just a matter of the work to remove all the dirt.”
Officials are expected to hold a news conference about the situation Friday afternoon, Limani said.
The discovery ends a dayslong search that started early Tuesday when, according to state police, a relative told authorities that Pollard and her 5-year-old granddaughter had left in a car to look for her cat Monday afternoon and had not been heard from since.
Police who were looking for the woman then discovered her vehicle early Tuesday – with her granddaughter unharmed inside after being there nearly 12 hours – parked near a restaurant. A fresh, deep sinkhole was just steps away.
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Rescue workers searched Thursday for Elizabeth Pollard at a sinkhole in Marguerite, Pennsylvania. (Photo credit: Matt Freed/AP via CNN Newsource)
Spices bring up feelings of comfort, cultural belonging, and holidays. They can make our homes smell amazing and our food taste delicious. They can satisfy our cravings, expand our culinary horizons, and help us eat things that we might normally dislike. Spices have health-enhancing properties and, in medicine, have been used to heal people since the ancient times.
Recently, however, spices have been getting a bad rep.
In September 2024, Consumer Reports, a nonprofit organization created to inform consumers about products sold in the U.S., investigated more than three dozen ground cinnamon products and found that 1 in 3 contained lead levels above 1 part per million, enough to trigger a recall in New York, one U.S. state that has published guidelines for heavy metals in spices.
The Food and Drug Administration issued three alerts throughout 2024, warning consumers about lead in certain brands of cinnamon products. Such notices rightfully put consumers on alert and have people wondering if the spice products they buy are safe – or not.
As an environmental epidemiologist with training in nutritional sciences, I have investigated the relationship between nutritional status, diets, and heavy metal exposures in children.
There are several things consumers should be thinking about when it comes to lead – and other heavy metals – in cinnamon.
Why is lead found in cinnamon?
Most people are familiar with cinnamon in two forms – sticks and ground spice. Both come from the dried inner bark of the cinnamon tree, which is harvested after a few years of cultivation. For the U.S. market, cinnamon is largely imported from Indonesia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, India, and China.
One way that lead could accumulate in cinnamon tree bark is when trees are cultivated in contaminated soil. Lead can also be introduced in cinnamon products during processing, such as grinding.
When ground cinnamon is prepared, some producers may add lead compounds intentionally to enhance the weight or color of the product and, thus, fetch a higher sale price. This is known as “food adulteration,” and products with known or suspected adulteration are refused entry into the U.S.
However, in the fall of 2023, approximately 600 cases of elevated blood lead levels in the U.S., defined as levels equal to or above 3.5 micrograms per deciliter – mostly among children – were linked to the consumption of certain brands of cinnamon apple sauce. The levels of lead in cinnamon used to manufacture those products ranged from 2,270 to 5,110 parts per million, indicating food adulteration. The manufacturing plant was investigated by the FDA.
More broadly, spices purchased from vendors in the U.S. have lower lead levels than those sold abroad.
There is some evidence that cinnamon sticks have lower lead levels than ground spice. Lead levels in ground cinnamon sold in the U.S. and analyzed by Consumer Reports ranged from 0.02 to 3.52 parts per million. These levels were at least 1,500 times lower than in the adulterated cinnamon.
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Homemade Snickerdoodle cookies rolled in cinnamon and sugar. indasPhotography/Getty Images
We’ve all been in that situation where we competed hard to win, only to come up short. At times like these, it can be tough to remain focused on your achievements and instead dwell on the feeling of having lost. For me, that moment came when I was nominated as a finalist for Young Entrepreneur of the Year—and I came in second place.
Don’t worry, I eventually built a successful career as a leader at some of the world’s biggest companies including Deloitte and Meta. But at the time, coming in runner-up felt like a crushing defeat from which I’d never recover.
Here are five lessons I learned along the way.
Don’t fixate on goals, focus on outcomes
It might seem presumptuous, but I had fully expected to win the award. I had started my first business at the age of 8, was the founder of a tech startup by age 21, and by 31 Australian Financial Review had published a full-page feature on me. Who could possibly be more deserving?
Along the journey to what I saw as my defeat, I had lost sight of those achievements and how they’d positively impacted the lives of my cofounders, colleagues, and clients. The collective benefit of these outcomes far outweighed the glory of a single award.
Be mindful of the halo effect as you work towards personal milestones and professional achievements. When you’re doing it right, the impact of your work can be used as a powerful tool to raise the bar and create positive effects for those around you.
Follow the leader
When you lose out on a deal to a competitor or get passed over for a promotion in favor of a colleague, it’s natural to focus on the negatives and obsess about all the reasons you were more deserving. At these times, you have two choices: You can grumble about it or use it as an opportunity to get better.
I asked for feedback when I placed second for Young Entrepreneur of the Year. The judges told me it was a dead heat between me and the winner. The only difference was the winner had worked abroad to gain international experience and I hadn’t. So after licking my wounds for a few weeks, I decided to fill that gap. Within a few months, I had secured a new role in Singapore and boarded a flight that would transport me to the next chapter of my life and career.
They say comparison is the thief of joy but if you can look at your losses objectively and are willing to act on the feedback you receive, coming in second place can be just the motivation needed to see what’s been holding you back.
Make your failures public
For the longest time, I was ashamed to share that I’d come second place. I agonized over the decision of whether to speak about it publicly or not. As it turns out, no one even knew I was in the running. Once they found out I had been a finalist, people congratulated me and thought it was great news.
The truth is no one cares about what we’re doing as much as we do ourselves. The message people take away is usually not about winning or losing, but rather that we deserve a seat at the table.
As leaders, we are often pressured to always paint a good news story. More often than not, talking about the high-stakes opportunities we lost or resulted in failure can be beneficial. Being invited to pitch for a huge account and coming in second place can be something you hide away, or it can be the very thing that gets you invited to compete for other large deals.
CLIMATEWIRE | President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for NASA administrator is an experienced commercial astronaut who staunchly supports increased investment in human-crewed space exploration.
But Jared Isaacman’s views on climate change — a major NASA research priority — remain unclear.
The billionaire has described himself as a “moderate who occasionally weighs in on various issues” and who is “firmly anchored in the middle.” Some of his posts on the social media platform X suggest he may be supportive of climate action. He has also responded occasionally to other posts criticizing commercial space travel for environmental reasons, suggesting that humans can prioritize both space exploration and threats to humans on Earth.
“[W]e can attempt to unlock the mysteries of the universe and improve the climate here at home,” he said in an Aug. 30 post on X. “Those who see this as a binary choice, where resources must be allocated to one side or the other, are incredibly shortsighted.”
But Isaacman hasn’t publicly commented on his climate change views in interviews, to the knowledge of POLITICO’s E&E News. That leaves some researchers unsure about the future of NASA’s vast Earth science functions, given Trump’s denial of climate change and conservative plans to dismantle climate research initiatives across the federal agencies.
“It’s clear that he’s a big fan of human spaceflight and would go every day if he could. He understands science because he jam-packed as much science as he possibly could into his missions,” said former NASA employee Keith Cowing, who runs the watchdog site NASAWatch.com. “But as far as the other stuff like climate, I don’t know what his stance is on there.”
Isaacman did not respond to a direct message on X asking him to clarify his views on global warming, and the Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
Isaacman’s stance on climate change is also unlikely to be “the final arbiter of what NASA does,” Cowing said. “That will come from the bigger picture that the Trump administration will put forth, and you know they’ve expressed doubts about climate change being a priority.”
Trump has repeatedly questioned the science of human-caused climate change, has vowed to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement for a second time, and has doubled down on his promise to expand the development of fossil fuels. Climate scientists are also concerned that Trump may turn to Project 2025, a 900-page conservative policy plan spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, as a road map for federal research priorities.
Project 2025 calls for major overhauls of some federal science agencies, particularly those focused on climate change. The plan suggests that Trump should dismantle NOAA and calls for his administration to “reshape” the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which coordinates federal research on climate and the environment.
The blueprint doesn’t outline specific plans for NASA’s Earth science capabilities. But it asserts that the “Biden Administration’s climate fanaticism will need a whole-of-government unwinding.”
While Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 during his campaign, he recently tapped a number of the plan’s architects and supporters for his new administration. The announcements have rekindled concerns among climate scientists that the Project 2025 blueprint will heavily shape the incoming administration’s strategies.
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NASA conducts crucial climate science, such as monitoring Earth’s rising temperature. NASA Earth Observatory video by Lauren Dauphin, using GEOS data from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA GSFC
Have you ever worked for a leader who made a mistake, a bad decision, or didn’t know the answer to something and, rather than admit it, they deflected it by blaming someone else, justifying it, or acting like it didn’t happen? This lack of accountability happens all too often in the workplace and it undermines trust, engagement, and communication. Leadership accountability is at the heart of any organization’s ability to achieve optimal performance and build a strong culture.
Workers today place a higher premium on their leaders walking the talk and being more accountable. At a time when we continue to experience accelerated change, increased complexities, growing pressures, and competing priorities, demonstrating accountability as a leader couldn’t be more critical. In fact, accountability was one of eight key factors driving positive work-related outcomes according to McKinsey & Company’s The State of Organizations 2023 report. The report also found that organizations with high leadership accountability tend to be healthier.
Without accountability, even the most talented and well-intentioned leaders fail. They fail to meet their performance goals, develop their teams, hire top talent, coach their employees, communicate clearly, and optimize performance. In short, they fail the business overall. This is a lot of failings, but when leaders are committed to achieving optimal performance by aligning their thinking, behaviors, and attitude with their words, they can avoid these kinds of failures.
I’m a big believer that leaders are the thermostat in any organization—meaning they have the power to set the right temperature and create the right environment for how things are done and how people are treated. Here are five behaviors that matter the most for leaders to demonstrate accountability and make a real impact on team performance, personal relationships, and the success of the organization.
Consistency matters
Being predictable is okay. The reality is employees want to be led. They want to work for a leader who provides them with guidance and helps them navigate the terrain of uncertainty and change. When people know what to expect from you and how you’ll respond, it enhances engagement, increases satisfaction, and improves decision making . . . all of which leads to greater productivity. I asked more than 50 people what it meant for a leader to be consistent. The most consistent responses were:
“They do what they say they’re going to do.”
“Who I see today is the same person I will see tomorrow.”
Sweeping restrictions on abortion across the U.S. have already had major ripple effects in reproductive health care. During president-elect Donald Trump’s next administration, restrictions on abortion are likely to ramp up, and birth control may be next. The double hit is causing some people to urgently consider long-acting reversible contraception such as intrauterine devices (IUDs), or permanent contraception such as sterilization.
“I’ve definitely noticed a change post-Dobbs,” says Rachel Flink-Bochacki, an ob-gyn who practices in New York State, referencing the 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that eliminated the nationwide right to abortion. In particular, Flink-Bochacki noticed an increased level of interest in sterilization among her patients. “It was a common conversation among ob-gyns, where we were all sort of saying, ‘Does anyone feel like we’re getting way more consults for this?’”
The data suggest this perception had some truth to it, says Xiao Xu, a health economist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. In a recent report in JAMA, she and her colleagues found a statistically significant increase in sterilization procedures nationwide in the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs decision, which overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion. The study also found that states with abortion restrictions continued to show higher rates of sterilization six months later. Other research has shown increases in long-acting reversible contraception use and sterilization procedures since Dobbs. These measures can prevent pregnancy for years at a time or for the rest of someone’s life. They are also less prone to failure than a daily pill and other short-term and temporary contraception.
The results of the 2024 election appear to have further amplified this interest: reports from Planned Parenthood, which provides family planning and other reproductive health services, suggest sharp increases in appointments for vasectomies, IUDs, and birth control implants at centers nationwide. That’s not surprising. “If abortion is becoming more difficult to do, women may turn to contraception to prevent a need for abortion,” Xu says. “Any abortion-targeted policy can have an impact broader than abortion care itself.”
Long-Acting Contraception
Three methods of long-term birth control are currently available: an arm implant, several varieties of IUDs, and sterilization procedures. All are extremely effective, with fewer than one pregnancy per year for every 100 people using them. In a survey conducted between 2017 and 2019, when abortion remained legal nationwide, some 24 percent of women relied on either their own or a partner’s sterilization for birth control, while 10 percent relied on an IUD or arm implant. People interested in any of these approaches will first consult with their doctor before scheduling the IUD or implant insertion or surgery, all of which are usually outpatient procedures.
Sterilization involves procedures such as a vasectomy, which cuts or blocks the tubes that carry sperm out of the testes, or a bilateral salpingectomy, which removes the fallopian tubes that carry eggs to the uterus. Both procedures are conducted under anesthesia but are typically minimally invasive; they are also irreversible. Flink-Bochacki notes that the consultation process includes a doctor evaluating that someone has fully thought through the decision, although some practitioners may refuse to perform these procedures on people without children. In the wake of Dobbs, she notes, reproductive health advocates have created online lists of doctors who are willing to perform these procedures on people without children.
The arm implant and IUDs only work on people who can get pregnant, and they are long-lasting but not permanent. “They are phenomenal options, and they are reversible, so if you don’t like [them], you can obviously have [them] removed, and your fertility returns and there’s no long-term effects,” Flink-Bochacki says. (She notes that IUDs and implants are also the most popular form of contraception among ob-gyns themselves.)
“Brain rot” is the official Word of the Year for 2024, according to the Oxford English Dictionary’s publisher, Oxford University Press. Here’s how that august chronicler of English defines the phrase: brain rot is the “supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state,” resulting from the “overconsumption” of trivial material—especially stuff found on the Internet.
Brain rot is a symptom of mindless scrolling through nonsense memes and sludge content. It is the sensation of faculties warmly smothered by one too many AI-generated pictures; see the off-putting depictions, popular on Facebook, of Jesus fused with crustaceans.
Of course, the term doesn’t describe literal decomposition, which happens rapidly to most dead human brains (although, curiously, not all of them). “‘Brain rot’ speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time,” Oxford Languages president Casper Grathwohl said in a press release. “It feels like a rightful next chapter in the cultural conversation about humanity and technology.”
The expression’s usage frequency spiked 230 percent between 2023 and 2024, the dictionary-maker says, and it was especially common this year on TikTok. It beat out five other words du jour curated by Oxford’s linguists and submitted for public voting, in which 37,000 people participated. (Another shortlisted word was “slop,” which describes the low-quality images and text churned out by large language models.)
Notably, the expression is probably most used by the people who consume or produce most of the content blamed for brain rot. Gen Z and Gen Alpha have readily adopted the phrase, Grathwohl notes, with an attitude both tongue-in-cheek and self-aware. It’s a joke, but it may have some teeth: 2024 was also a year of pronounced concerns about mental health harms and Internet use. In June U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for warning labels on social media platforms.
To be sure, brain rot has been with us for years. Before the Internet, television was the great brain-rotter of its time. And Oxford has traced the expression to its first recorded use in Walden, the 1854 book by protohippie Henry David Thoreau. “While England endeavours to cure the potato rot,” Thoreau wrote, “will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot—which prevails so much more widely and fatally?” Our distractions may change, but our worries and complaints about them are ageless.
Working with family members in a business setting is a unique experience that brings both opportunities and challenges. Entrepreneurial families—those engaged in creating and managing businesses over generations—often rely on the strength of family ties to create long-lasting ventures. However, combining family and business dynamics introduces complexities that need to be managed in order to avoid heaven becoming hell.
Fortunately, by understanding the potentially difficult dynamics of working with relatives, you can navigate potential pitfalls and increase your family business’s odds of long-term success.
Here are the key advantages and disadvantages of working with relatives:
The pros of working with relatives
1. Strong trust and loyalty
One of the most significant advantages of working with family members is the inherent trust that comes from a lifelong relationship. Family members often feel a strong sense of loyalty to each other, which can lead to more dedication to the business and a willingness to go the extra mile. This trust can foster a safe and supportive work environment where individuals feel comfortable sharing ideas, taking risks, and stepping up when needed. With family members involved, there’s often less worry as interest is closely aligned with the business’s success. This trust helps families make difficult decisions together and endure challenges, which is especially important for businesses that aim to sustain success across generations.
2. Shared vision and values
Family businesses often benefit from a strong, shared vision that unites family members around a powerful sense of purpose. This shared vision drives both the business and the family forward. When family members share similar beliefs about what they want to achieve (e.g., commitment to quality, customer service, and/or ethical practices), decision-making becomes more cohesive and unified. This alignment of values can set a family business apart, creating a unique culture and identity that resonates with both customers and employees.
3. Long-term commitment
Family members often have a vested interest in the business’s success over the long term, as the company is not just a job but a representation of the family’s legacy. This long-term commitment means that family members are more likely to make sacrifices for the good of the business, such as reinvesting profits instead of taking dividends or working extra hours during challenging times. This perspective encourages sustainable growth rather than short-term gains, helping family businesses weather economic downturns and build a resilient foundation for future generations. The motivation to pass on a healthy business to the next generation can drive family members to make decisions that protect and preserve the business over time.
4. Flexibility and support
In family businesses, members are often willing to step into various roles or take on additional responsibilities to keep the company running smoothly. Family members may support each other through personal and professional challenges, providing a level of flexibility and understanding that might not be found in nonfamily businesses. This adaptability can be especially valuable in smaller or growing
businesses, where resources are limited, and everyone must wear multiple hats. Additionally, family businesses often provide a supportive work environment that encourages family members to develop their skills and talents, knowing that their success directly contributes to the family’s legacy.
The cons of working with relatives
1. Blurring of professional and personal boundaries
One of the biggest challenges in working with family members is maintaining a clear separation between personal and professional lives. Family dynamics—such as sibling rivalries, parental expectations, or longstanding disagreements—can easily reverberate into the workplace, complicating relationships and decision-making. And vice versa, disputes in the working environment can be brought home, rusting family relationships. Without clear boundaries, work-related issues can strain personal relationships, and personal conflicts can negatively affect business performance. This blurring of personal and professional lines can lead to stress, resentment, and even burnout if family members feel they can never truly leave work behind.
Earth’s surface is a turbulent place. Mountains rise, continents merge and split, and earthquakes shake the ground. All of these processes result from plate tectonics, the movement of enormous chunks of Earth’s crust.
This movement may be why life exists here. Earth is the only known planet with plate tectonics and the only known planet with life. Most scientists think that’s not a coincidence. By dragging huge chunks of crust into the mantle, Earth’s middle layer, plate tectonics pulls carbon from the planet’s surface and atmosphere, stabilizing the climate. It also pushes life-fostering minerals and molecules toward the surface. All of those factors add up to a place where life thrives from ocean abysses to towering peaks.
But researchers don’t know why or when plate tectonics started, making it hard to determine how essential this process was to the evolution and diversification of life. Some think plate movement fired up as little as 700 million years ago, when simple multicellular life already existed. Others believe only single-celled organisms reigned when Earth’s plates first cracked apart.
In fact, as new methods allow scientists to look ever-deeper into the past, some are now arguing that plate tectonics emerged very soon after Earth’s formation — perhaps predating life itself. If this hypothesis is true, it may suggest that even the most primitive life evolved on an active planet — and that means plate tectonics could be an essential ingredient in the search for alien life.
“The only way we can reliably see a long-term history is on our own planet,” said Jesse Reimink, a geoscientist who studies early Earth history at The Pennsylvania State University. “We really need to understand the life cycle of a planetary body before we can do a lot with the exoplanet data.”
Destruction of evidence
Only Earth has jigsaw-like tectonic plates that crash together and pull apart like bumper cars. The other rocky planets in the solar system have a single, rigid shell of crust — a geological arrangement that scientists call “stagnant lid” or “single lid” tectonics.
In plate tectonics, pancake-like chunks of brittle crust and upper mantle ride on the hotter, more mobile mantle below. New crust forms at midocean ridges, where gaps between separating plates create space for magma from the mantle to rise. In a geologic balancing act, dense oceanic crust is destroyed at subduction zones, where one plate slides under another. The oldest known bit of oceanic crust, located in the Mediterranean, dates to just 340 million years ago, making it far too young to be useful for pinpointing when plate tectonics arose.
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Plate tectonics may have played a larger role in the evolution of life on Earth than we previously thought. Andrzej Wojcicki/Science Photo Libary/Getty Images
Women have endured critiques over their appearance since their entry into public spaces. But since Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss in the United States presidential election, criticism of women and their bodies has become even more explicit and misogynistic. The goal is to tell women to “get back in the kitchen” at home and stay out of the public domain. Combatting this bias against women is more important than ever, as disapproval of women’s appearance and bodies still happens to women at work every day in subtle and overt ways.
When one professional worked at a public relations agency, the male chief executive officer told her to “help the receptionist lose some weight.” He considered the female receptionist’s “sloppy appearance” a bad first impression to people coming into the office. Another professional worked in an organization where there were plenty of women in director roles, but almost all were “thin, blonde, white, [and] usually tall as well.”
Yet being attractive may not be an advantage either. Colleagues told a scientist that she was “too cute to be taken seriously” and that she “must struggle to convey [her] intellect.” In another case, the female
supervisors of a social worker were concerned that she was too distracting to male clients. The social worker felt she was to blame. So, she dressed very conservatively and gained weight to “make [herself] less attractive.”
Lookism, also known as pretty privilege, explains that physically attractive people have advantages in the workplace. While research on this beauty advantage exists, it does not sufficiently address differences between women and men. Like so many workplace generalizations, what is true for men is not necessarily true for women. Not only do women perceived as unattractive encounter workplace disadvantages, but attractive women do as well. In fact, women are criticized for their appearance no matter how they look. The femaleness of their body stands out, considered abnormal in a traditionally male space.
Through our research of 913 women leaders, social media posts, articles, and our own experiences, we found myriad ways that women’s appearance at work is “never quite right.”
‘The impossible tightrope of looking good but not too good at work’
Women walk a fine line when it comes to clothing at work. A health services researcher noted that some women were criticized for dressing “too sexy” while others were deemed “too sloppy.” She called it “the impossible tightrope of looking good but not too good at work!” One woman working a $30,000 per year job was told she needed to purchase a new wardrobe because her clothing was not “professional enough.” She said, “With what money am I to purchase professional attire?”
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Rescue workers searched Thursday for Elizabeth Pollard at a sinkhole in Marguerite, Pennsylvania. (Photo credit: Matt Freed/AP via CNN Newsource)
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James' World 2 