Viviana, 72

There was always a sense that we were psychically, as well as physically, merged

Sebastian and I have been together for seven years, but we haven’t had sex – or even seen each other – for the past two. Sebastian is married and our relationship is a secret. We met through work, but when Sebastian retired, he moved 300 miles away.

These days, he is with his wife 24/7 doing retirement activities. But before he moved away, we were able to spend at least one day a month together. He’d arrive on my doorstep, and the first thing I’d do is press my mouth to his, not to kiss, but to breathe in one another’s breath. The sex that followed felt like an extension of that strange, intimate breath: there was always a sense that we were psychically, as well as physically merged.

We may not have seen each other for two years, but I still feel fused with him. We usually exchange 40-60 messages a day. Some are erotic, but many are mundane. The constant communication keeps our relationship fuelled and intense. I’ve felt more emotionally distant from partners who I was actually living with.

Of course, there are times when our situation feels desperate. We were almost able to meet this past summer and had put months of planning into it. He booked tickets to a gig he knew his wife would never want to see, and so was able to travel alone. But then I got Covid, and we had to cancel. We were both shattered with disappointment. We are now back to trying again, but the reality is that even in the best of all possible worlds, we won’t get to see each other more than twice a year.

I don’t feel jealous of Sebastian’s wife because there is no way that anything in his marriage could be akin to the intensity of what we share. I genuinely don’t think I’m taking anything away from her. They are dedicated to one another, but there isn’t the kind of intensity between them that would be diminished by him paying attention to me. I have never felt any guilt, because I view this relationship as a gift. I was 65 when this began, and I’m 72 now. The way I see it, if something this special is put in front of you, you can’t walk away from it.

Sebastian,65

My relationship with Viviana is not a replacement for something that may or may not be missing elsewhere

The first time I kissed Viviana was at her home, pressed up against the wall in her hallway. I was meant to be visiting for a casual lunch, and the attraction came out of nowhere for both of us. I remember leaning in to greet her at the door, smelling her scent, and feeling overwhelmed. As we kissed, she said to me: “How married are you?” I replied: “Very married.” That was seven years ago – and I don’t think we’ve ever explicitly discussed my marriage since.

I don’t feel guilty about our relationship, because I have conceptualised my relationship with Viviana as existing in a completely different universe to my marriage. Viviana and I have a keen interest in theoretical physics and the concept of the multiverse helps us – we never discuss my marriage because it simply does not exist in our world. My marriage is perfectly wonderful and fulfilling. My relationship with Viviana is not a replacement for something that may or may not be missing elsewhere.

I miss Viviana very much, but we are creative, and are able to adapt our relationship to our situation. Over time, we have developed codes, so we can communicate our sexual activities almost as a secret language.

Any reference to “ice-cream”, for example, implies a recent orgasm. I write her love letters and send her handmade jewellery, and we are constantly sharing images and videos as a way of staying connected. We have built up a collection of more than 10,000 images that we refer to as our “archive”. If she mentions the colour red, in passing, for example, I might send her an image of her red-painted nails from several years ago. Updating and returning to our archive is more than just a way of keeping a record, it is our way of giving our relationship reality and history. I don’t see my messaging with Viviana as impinging on my relationship with my wife – I feel like that communication is going on in a parallel universe to my existence at home.

Whereas other partnerships calm down over time, ours has maintained an intensity comparable with a new, budding relationship. Of course we miss each other, but the flirting, planning and anticipation keeps the passion level high. It was desperately disappointing when we missed seeing each other last summer, but while the distance is a challenge, it has also become a part of our ongoing dance.

Several people have been injured after an explosion destroyed a three-storey apartment block in The Hague.

The cause of the explosion in the Mariahoeve neighbourhood of the Dutch city was unclear. Emergency authorities said four people had been rescued and taken to hospital, but could not say how many people may still be under the rubble.

Ambulances could be seen lining up in anticipation of more victims. The spokesperson for the local hospital said they were on standby to deal with injuries.

Residents of the north-eastern neighbourhood said they heard a huge bang and screams before dawn. One woman told local media she thought there had been an earthquake.

The Hague’s fire service said: “At this moment, the emergency services are busy rescuing and searching for people and fighting the fire.”

An Agence France-Presse reporter on the scene said there were dozens of fire engines as firefighters battled the blaze from the ground and from higher positions. Debris was strewn across the street and several windows in the vicinity had been blown out, the reporter said.

Huge plumes of smoke were billowing from a large hole where the building stood, with an acrid smell in the air.

City officials said: “The fire is releasing a lot of smoke in the immediate vicinity. Residents are advised to close windows and doors and turn off ventilation.”

The Hague’s mayor, Jan van Zanen, was on site to coordinate rescue efforts, according to the Regio15 news website.

Homes on several floors appeared to have been destroyed by the explosion, said Regio15. Early images from the public broadcaster NOS showed several dozen firefighters tackling a large blaze and breaking down doors to gain access to the block.

A picture from the local news agency ANP showed one person being taken away on a stretcher into an ambulance.

Dutch authorities deployed a specialised urban search and rescue team to the scene, including four dogs trained to find victims. The team was previously used during the devastating earthquake in Turkey in 2023.

Moammar Ali has been searching for his older brother for 39 years.

In 1986, Syrian soldiers arrested the university student Ali Hassan al-Ali, then 18, at a checkpoint in north Lebanon. Moammar has not heard from him since.

He spent the next three decades visiting different security branches in Syria, where he would receive conflicting information on the whereabouts of his brother.

“There was no place in Syria we didn’t visit. We went around the whole country asking what happened to him. One day they would admit they had him in prison, the next day they would deny it,” Ali, a resident of Akkar, north Lebanon, said.

The last information Ali received about his brother was that he was being held in a military security branch in Damascus on charges of political agitation. Then, Syria’s revolution and subsequent civil war began and Ali no longer received any updates on his brother’s status.

Until Thursday night, when Ali’s phone started to buzz. Friends, relatives and family members began sending him the same picture: a bedraggled man in his late 50s, standing dazed in front of the Hama central prison in north Syria.

“They said he resembled me. I told them: ‘this is my brother!’ The feeling … it’s indescribable. Imagine that I haven’t seen him for 39 years and then all of a sudden his picture is sent to you, how would you feel?” Ali said.

His brother, who entered prison as an 18-year-old, was now 57. “He has come out of prison as an old man.”

Ali’s brother was one of the thousands of prisoners released from Syrian government prisons in Aleppo and Hama after Islamist rebels led by Hayat al-Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) captured the city. In the last week, HTS-led forces have routed those of the Syrian army in north Syria in a stunning offensive – the most serious challenge to Bashar al-Assad’s control of Syria since the revolution in 2011.

One of the first actions rebels took in newly captured cities was to release detainees from government detention centres. Videos showed stunned-looking people emerging from prisons, where joyous crowds awaited them.

Syrians prisons, where an estimated 136,000 people were detained up until this week, are to many emblematic of the government repression that earned Syria the title of the “Kingdom of Silence”. Thousands of protesters were arrested during the revolution for speaking out against the government.

Leaked documents showed the Syrian security apparatus viewed prisons as a key way to crush dissent and stop the momentum of peaceful protests. The vast network of security branches, detention centres and prisons grew notorious for their brutal torture methods, which rights groups said were applied on an industrial scale.

“A lot of those who had been forcibly disappeared previously, we discovered that they had been killed. A considerable amount had been killed under torture,” said Fadel Abdulghany, the founder of the Syrian Network for Human Rights who is originally from Hama.

Abdulghany said that while the release of political prisoners should be celebrated and encouraged, indiscriminate, mass release of prisoners could carry significant risk – particularly if violent offenders were also let out.

The sudden release of thousands of prisoners created renewed hope for families who had heard nothing about the fate of their loved ones for years. Grainy screenshots of released detainees circulated on WhatsApp groups around Syria and neighbouring countries, as family members tried to see if their relatives were among those released.

“You can’t imagine how it was yesterday; a lot of friends contacted me to ask about my father,” said Jinan, a resident of a border village in south Lebanon who spoke under a pseudonym for fear of security repercussions for her family.

Jinan’s father was arrested in 2006 after crossing into Syria during the Hezbollah-Israel war to find refuge for his family. “As soon as he arrived at our relatives’ house, there was a knock at the door and he was arrested,” Jinan said. She had not heard from her father since.

Jinan and her family made several visits to Syria to inquire about her father’s release. After paying about $5,500 (£4,300) to various intermediaries, she was told her father was either being held in Branch 235 or Sednaya prison – two detention centres in Damascus infamous for torture.

“We still have hope, I feel like he’s still alive and I think he will come back and live with us. I don’t support any armed groups that are killing people, but if my father comes back … We need him,” Jinan said.

Confusion has reigned as the fast-changing political dynamics in northern Syria make it difficult for authorities to identity who has been released – and return them to their families.

Ali has still not been able to make direct contact with his brother and has spent the past 24 hours trying to track down who took the photo of him after his release from prison.

“When he comes home, we will have a big celebration. But until I smell him, until I can say, ‘Here he is, my brother,’ nothing counts,” Ali said.

The South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, has apologised for his short-lived attempt to impose martial law this week, promising to face any legal or political consequences hours before parliament is due to vote on his impeachment.

In a two-minute televised address to the nation, his first public appearance since he rescinded the martial law order on Wednesday, Yoon said he was “very sorry” for the decision, which he said was born of desperation, and promised not to attempt to impose martial law a second time.

“I am very sorry and would like to sincerely apologise to the people who were shocked,” Yoon said and bowed. “I leave it up to my party to take steps to stabilise the political situation in the future, including the issue of my term in office.”

Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the main opposition Democratic party, dismissed Yoon’s apology as “very disappointing” and said it had only increased public anger and betrayal.

“The president’s very existence is the biggest risk to South Korea right now,” Lee said, maintaining that there was “no other solution” than his immediate resignation or removal through impeachment.

The leader of Yoon’s own People Power party (PPP), Han Dong-hun, also said that the president’s early resignation was unavoidable and that he was no longer in a position to fulfil his duty, according to the national news wire Yonhap.

On Friday, Han had said Yoon was a danger to the country and needed to be removed from power, increasing the pressure on Yoon to quit even though PPP members later reaffirmed a formal opposition to his impeachment.

It was not clear whether the motion submitted by opposition lawmakers would get the two-thirds majority required for Yoon to be impeached. But it appeared more likely after Han on Friday called for suspending his constitutional powers, describing him as unfit to hold the office and capable of taking more extreme action, including renewed attempts to impose martial law.

Impeaching Yoon would require support from 200 of the National Assembly’s 300 members. The opposition parties that jointly brought the impeachment motion have 192 seats combined.

That means they would need at least eight votes from Yoon’s PPP. On Wednesday, 18 of its members joined a vote that unanimously cancelled martial law 190-0, less than three hours after Yoon declared the measure on television, calling the opposition-controlled parliament a “den of criminals” bogging down state affairs. The vote took place as hundreds of heavily armed troops encircled the National Assembly in an attempt to disrupt the vote and possibly to detain key politicians.

The turmoil resulting from Yoon’s bizarre and poorly-thought-out stunt has paralysed South Korean politics and sparked alarm among key diplomatic partners, including neighbouring Japan and Seoul’s top ally, the United States, as one of the strongest democracies in Asia faces a political crisis that could unseat its leader.

Opposition lawmakers claim that Yoon’s martial law declaration amounted to a self-coup and drafted the impeachment motion around rebellion charges.

The Democratic party lawmaker Soyoung Lee sought to reassure the international community on Friday night, saying that her country was open for business.

“If President Yoon is impeached today or tomorrow, there is no need to be alarmed; the international community can continue to invest with confidence in Korea’s strong democracy and resilience,” she said.

The PPP decided to oppose impeachment at a lawmakers’ meeting, despite pleas by Han, who isn’t a lawmaker and has no vote.

But they face a difficult choice ahead of the vote. A recent poll showed 73.6% of South Koreans support impeachment, with majority support even in traditional conservative strongholds.

The Daegu mayor, Hong Joon-pyo, also a PPP member, warned that if Yoon becomes the second president to be impeached following that of former president Park Geun-hye in 2017, “the party will have no reason to exist and will disappear”.

The crisis has also exposed tensions in South Korea’s traditionally rigid political landscape, where voters typically remain loyal to their ideological camp regardless of individual candidates.

Han on Friday said he had received intelligence that during the brief period of martial law, Yoon ordered the country’s defence counterintelligence commander to arrest and detain unspecified key politicians based on accusations of “anti-state activities”.

Hong Jang-won, the first deputy director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, later told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that Yoon called after imposing martial law and ordered him to help the defence counterintelligence unit to detain key politicians.

The targeted politicians included Han, Lee Jae-myung and the National Assembly speaker Woo Won Shik, according to Kim Byung-kee, one of the lawmakers who attended the meeting.

While Yoon’s presidency has been plagued by policy missteps, economic woes and controversial personnel appointments, it has also been overwhelmed by scandals involving his wife Kim Keon Hee, who has proved to be his greatest political liability.

These include allegations of stock price manipulation, unlawful involvement in party candidate nominations, and accepting a 3m won (£1,675) Dior bag as a gift from a pastor.

Yoon has vetoed three separate bills seeking to establish a special counsel to investigate his wife, leading opposition lawmakers to include the alleged attempts to shield his family from investigation among their reasons for impeachment.

Parliament is expected to vote on a fourth attempt to establish a special counsel to investigate Kim right before the impeachment motion. The strategy appears designed to ensure ruling party lawmakers attend both votes, rather than boycotting the crucial impeachment decision through absence.

Large-scale protests took place across the country on Friday night, with more demonstrations planned for Saturday.

Labour unions and civic groups announced a major candlelight march near the national assembly, while Korean communities worldwide are staging their own protests, with demonstrations taking place in London, Paris and Berlin calling for Yoon to step down.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report

Police in Akron, Ohio, have released body-camera footage of the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old boy, in an incident the city’s mayor called “deeply troubling”.

Video of the Thanksgiving night killing of Jazmir Tucker does not clearly show what led up to the shooting, but suggests that an officer quickly fired at the teenager upon encountering him, and that a group of officers waited seven minutes to approach the boy after he had been shot. The family’s attorneys have said officers did not start rendering aid for 10 minutes.

“In hindsight, the amount of time that expired between the shooting and the initiation of physical aid to Jazmir is deeply troubling to me,” Akron’s mayor, Shammas Malik, said in a statement on Thursday, alongside the release of the footage. “I want to be clear that any unreasonable delay in the rendering of aid by police officers is unacceptable and has no place in Akron.”

Police have said that two patrol officers heard nearby gunshots just after 11pm on 28 November and got out of their parked car to investigate. The officers then encountered Jazmir and ran after him, officials said. One officer fired his assault rifle at the teen, fatally striking him. The boy was later pronounced dead at a hospital and no officers were injured.

The boy was found with a gun in a zipped-up pocket, raising concerns about why lethal force had been used, Malik said: “Why did the officer decide to use his weapon?”

The roughly eight-minute video released by police is difficult to decipher. The sound is off for the first 30 seconds, which is standard when a body camera first turns on. The shooting happens within that timeframe. The footage suggests the officer was chasing Jazmir, raised his rifle and fired at him for about three seconds, potentially shooting about seven times.

The shooting officer’s arms and long gun, however, block the camera’s view, and Jazmir is not visible in the moments before and during the shooting.

Once the sound on the footage begins, that officer and others are heard yelling at Jazmir, who is on the ground, repeatedly telling the unresponsive teen to raise his hands. Between eight and 10 officers ultimately converge on Jazmir about seven minutes after he is shot. At that point, officers handcuff him and search his pockets. Police have not released details about what any of the officers did to try to save his life.

The mayor said the footage left him with “serious questions”, including why officers did not activate their cameras upon arrival. He said their cameras eventually started automatically recording due to the presence of a nearby cruiser with activated lights.

“I also believe that many will ask why the officers used rifles instead of handguns in responding to this incident,” Malik said. “This will be something that we discuss more going forward, including in the internal investigation, and as part of our comprehensive review of use of force, including when and how different weapons are used.”

The family’s attorneys said in a statement that the fact that Jazmir had a weapon was “irrelevant because officers didn’t know he had it until they unzipped his pocket after he was shot”.

“The police department did a number of things tactically wrong in this case, starting with the aggressiveness that they initiated this pursuit … These officers came out with the intent to do one thing: shoot and kill,” the attorney Robert Gresham said in a statement. “What I perceive to be the biggest issue here is there’s a culture of violence in this particular police department.”

Stanley Jackson, another family attorney, added: “The mayor and the police department weaponized the police by allowing them to carry assault rifles, right? And then, the police department weaponizes Jaz’s skin and his youth. That’s the problem.”

At a news conference, Jazmir’s relatives said they are devastated by his death. Ashley Greene said her son was a “great kid”, adding she was “extremely hurt that I couldn’t help my baby”.

“It hurt me to see that no one helped my baby,” Greene said, according to Fox 8 News. “The police never addressed us. I had to find out that was my son through social media.”

Jazmir’s great-aunt, Connie Sutton, described him as a child who was always laughing: “Everybody loved Jaz, and Jaz loved everybody else.”

The officer who fired the shots has been on the force for nearly five years. He and his partner were placed on paid administrative leave, per department policy, and their names have not been released.

Brian Harding, Akron’s police chief, said in a statement: “Our community, our department, and most importantly, Jazmir’s family deserve and need answers to those questions.”

The Ohio bureau of criminal investigation is leading the inquiry, and Akron police are conducting a separate internal investigation.

In October, the city of Akron paid the family of Jayland Walker a $4.8m settlement, after eight police officers fired 94 bullets at the 25-year-old in a 2022 incident that sparked widespread protests. A grand jury declined to indict the officers last year over the killing, which began with a traffic stop over a broken taillight.

On Friday, the Ohio supreme court ruled that the city could continue to conceal the names of the officers who shot Walker.

Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers are afraid he will die during his incarceration at Rikers Island, where he has been since a 2020 rape conviction in New York was overturned on appeal, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

According to Weinstein’s legal team, the disgraced movie producer has faced egregious conditions while jailed, including being left to fester in blood-spattered clothes, wearing the same underwear for weeks and exposure to freezing temperatures. They also allege that he was denied basic medicine for cancer treatment.

Lawyers for Weinstein say that his mistreatment has been so horrific that they suspect it is deliberate by the prison and that their client’s death is the “inevitable outcome”.

Last week, Weinstein’s lawyers filed a legal claim against New York City seeking $5m in damages. They allege that Weinstein is a victim of negligent medical care and is being forced to live in “gulag”-like conditions.

In October, it was reported that Weinstein was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia. He was eventually taken to the prison ward at lower Manhattan’s Bellevue hospital after a blood test showed dangerously low levels of white cells, raising his risk of serious infection.

During the lengthy legal proceedings, Weinstein’s legal team had been pushing for him to be allowed to stay full-time in a unit at Bellevue hospital. During his many court appearances, he would often be brought in by wheelchair.

Weinstein’s attorney, Imran H Ansari, told the Hollywood Reporter that his visits to Rikers made him “question whether I was in a prison facility that is supposed to be managed in accordance with our constitution, or a gulag where the prisoners are treated like animals”.

“I don’t want to be speculative, but he is certainly not just another inmate number,” said Ansari. “I’m sure everyone knows this is Harvey Weinstein. This was the guy who was living in the lap of luxury and was at the top of his game in Hollywood, and here he is now.”

Weinstein’s retrial in the rape case at the center of his overturned conviction is scheduled for 2025. Rikers Island is supposed to be closed in 2027, but New York City has postponed closure deadlines.

After spending 24 years in prison on an overturned murder conviction, Shaurn Thomas received a $4.1m payout from the city of Philadelphia – and became a standard-bearer for the Pennsylvania Innocence Project.

Now, seven years after his release, Thomas has admitted to killing a different man in early 2023 over a comparatively paltry $1,200 drug debt. And as a result, Thomas will probably go back to a cell for the rest of his life.

In another bizarre twist, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, Thomas, 50, met his victim through an association of former inmates who had their convictions overturned. A girlfriend whose brother was also wrongly imprisoned for murder introduced Thomas to a childhood friend, who took cocaine worth $1,200 from him to sell but failed to pay him the money.

Thomas shot and killed the man, 38-year-old Akeem Edwards, in January 2023. And on Thursday in Philadelphia, he pleaded guilty to charges including third-degree murder and weapons offenses. He will be sentenced in February.

According to the Inquirer, the common pleas court judge, Roxanne Covington, expressed incredulity that Thomas, a multimillionaire, would have committed murder for a relatively minor sum of money.

“Are these facts true?” she asked Thomas after prosecutors explained how he had tracked down Edwards in a Philadelphia neighborhood and shot him in cold blood before later allegedly saying to his girlfriend, Ketra Veasy, that he had previously been involved in at least three homicides.

“Yes, your honor,” Thomas replied, according to the newspaper. The Inquirer recounted how Thomas was originally found guilty of the 1990 robbery and murder of a north Philadelphia businessman and had his conviction overturned on appeal in 2017.

The Philadelphia district attorney’s office declined to retry that case after Thomas’s conviction was thrown out. But prosecutors also expressed doubt that Thomas was entirely innocent.

Members of Edwards’s family spoke out against Thomas after Thursday’s plea hearing. “There’s not enough time for them to possibly give him,” his sister, Tyeisha Marshall, said of Thomas, the Inquirer reported. She told the newspaper her brother was genuine and a loving father.

Sharondah King, the mother of Edwards’s child, criticized Veasy for her role in the crime, which included driving in the car with Thomas on the day her partner was murdered.

“If it wasn’t for her [introducing them], this would’ve never happened,” she said.

The CEO of UnitedHealth Group, Andrew Witty, told employees he would increase security, including “perimeter protection,” at the company’s sites following the killing of one of their colleagues, CEO of the company’s health insurance branch Brian Thompson.

In comments shared with the Guardian, Witty said the company would make “permanent” changes that would make campuses less “welcoming”, but they were necessary in the country’s current “climate”.

“We guard against the pressures that exist for unsafe or unnecessary care to be delivered, in a way that makes the whole system too complex and ultimately unsustainable,” Witty said, according to comments shared with the Guardian.

“I have never been more proud of what this company and our colleagues do on behalf of the people in this country. I urge you to tune out the negative messaging you hear on social media,” Witty said.

Witty made the comments in the face of online vitriol in response to the killing of Thompson, a 50-year-old CEO of United HealthCare, who is survived by two sons and his wife, Paulette.

Thompson was killed early Wednesday morning in midtown Manhattan, just outside the site of the company’s annual investor meeting, by an unknown assailant who shot the executive at least twice and then fled on an e-bike.

Police are still searching for the suspect, and released photos and information about items found at the scene, including shell casings scrawled with the words, “deny,” “depose” and “defend”. The motive for the killing is unknown.

The killing has been strongly condemned by lawmakers such as Amy Klobuchar, Democratic US Senator of Minnesota, who on social media described Thompson’s death as, “horrifying and shocking act of violence”.

In response to questions about the webcast and comments, a spokesperson for UnitedHealth Group referred the Guardian to a published statement: “While our hearts are broken, we have been touched by the huge outpouring of kindness and support in the hours since this horrific crime took place.

So many patients, consumers, healthcare professionals, associations, government officials and other caring people have taken time out of their day to reach out. We are thankful, even as we grieve.

Our priorities are, first and foremost, supporting Brian’s family; ensuring the safety of our employees; and working with law enforcement to bring the perpetrator to justice.

We, at UnitedHealth Group, will continue to be there for those who depend upon us for their health care.

We ask that everyone respect the family’s privacy as they mourn the loss of their husband, father, brother and friend.”

In a webcast to employees shared with the Guardian, Witty said that the company would, “provide as much support as we could possibly do to Brian’s family” and “for as long as the family need us”.

Witty then turned to security of the company’s sites: “We’ve also been working hard to make sure that people who feel concerned about security, individually, but more importantly perhaps for our sites, continues to be reviewed and strengthened and to make sure we have put in place all of the appropriate mechanisms to keep our organization and our people safe.”

The CEO also said the company would strengthen the “perimeter protection” of UHC campuses as time goes on.

“We will see permanent changes that will make our sites less welcoming, especially for guests and visitors, but it’s a necessary change to make in the changing climate in this country,” Witty said.

The comments come as corporate CEOs are on edge following Thompson’s death, and as political violence researchers warn that the online reaction to the killing is evidence of the growing acceptability of violence as a means to resolve conflict in the US.

In another part of what appears to be the same webcast, Witty also lambasted the media coverage of Thompson’s death.

“I’d like to give you a little bit of advice around the media,” said Witty in video obtained by reporter Ken Klippenstein and republished by the Daily Beast. “My strong advice and request to everybody is just don’t engage with the media. If you’re approached, I would recommend not responding and, if necessary, simply refer them to our own media organization.”

Authorities in Pennsylvania believe they have located the body of Elizabeth Pollard, a woman who fell into a sinkhole while searching for her cat earlier this week.

Sean Hribal, a deputy coroner in Westmoreland county near Pittsburgh, confirmed to the Associated Press that searchers believe they have found the remains of the 64-year-old grandmother on the fourth day of searching.

Pollard was last seen four days earlier near a sinkhole above a shuttered coal mine. The sinkhole was reported to have opened directly above the abandoned mine.

The search for Pollard began on Monday after her family reported she went missing while searching for Pepper, her lost cat. Searchers quickly focused on the sinkhole that may have only recently opened up in the village of Marguerite. The sinkhole is reported to have a manhole-sized surface gap.

“The sinkhole, it appears that it was most likely created during the time while, unfortunately, Miss Pollard was walking around,” the Pennsylvania state trooper Steve Limani told ABC affiliate WTAE-TV. “There is no evidence of any time where that hole would have been here prior to her deciding to walk around looking for her cat.”

A challenging excavation has been ongoing at the site of the 70-year-old abandoned coal mine. The body has yet to be recovered.

“We’re going to dig, and we should be able to get, reach into the area where we believe she has fallen, and there is a complexity of dirt there, and slowly take it out,” Limani said.

Shortly after Pollard went missing, authorities were able to locate her five-year-old granddaughter in her parked car near the sinkhole. Despite being in freezing temperatures for about 12 hours, the girl was unharmed.