TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Investigators found signs of forced entry at the Arizona home of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie's mother, a person familiar with the investigation said Tuesday, as the host asked for prayers to help bring back the 84-year-old, whom authorities believe was taken against her will.
The host described her mother as “a woman of deep conviction, a good and faithful servant” in a social media post late Monday. She asked supporters to "raise your prayers with us and believe with us that she will be lifted by them in this very moment. Bring her home.”
Nancy Guthrie must be found soon because she could die without her medication, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said, urging whoever has her to free her.
“If she’s alive right now, her meds are vital. I can’t stress that enough. It’s been better than 24 hours, and the family tells us if she doesn’t have those meds, it can become fatal,” Nanos said.
Investigators also found specific evidence in the home showing there was a nighttime kidnapping, the person told The Associated Press. Several of Guthrie’s personal items, including her cellphone, wallet and her car, were still there after she disappeared.
Investigators are reviewing surveillance video from nearby homes and working to analyze data from cellphone towers, Police are also reviewing information from license plate cameras in the area, according to the person, who was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the case and spoke to AP on condition of an anonymity.
The motive remains a mystery. Investigators do not believe at this point that the abduction was part of a robbery, home invasion or kidnapping-for-ransom plot, the person said.
For a second day Tuesday, “Today” opened with Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, but Savannah Guthrie was not at the anchor’s desk. Nanos said Monday that she is in Arizona. The host grew up in Tucson, graduated from the University of Arizona and previously worked as a reporter and anchor at Tucson television station KVOA.
Nancy Guthrie was last seen Saturday night at her home in the Tucson area, where she lived alone and was reported missing Sunday. Someone at church called a family member to say Guthrie wasn’t there, leading family to search her home and then call 911, Nanos said.
Nancy Guthrie has limited mobility, and officials do not believe she left on her own. Nanos said she is of sound mind.
Nanos said investigators took samples they hope will provide at least part of a DNA profile, KVOA reported.
Searchers used drones and search dogs and were supported by volunteers and Border Patrol. The homicide team was also involved, Nanos said Sunday. The FBI has offered to help, sheriff's department spokesperson Angelica Carrillo said.
On Monday morning, Nanos said search crews had been pulled back.
“We don’t see this as a search mission so much as it is a crime scene,” the sheriff said.
Even so, a sheriff’s helicopter flew over the desert Monday afternoon near Nancy Guthrie’s home in the affluent Catalina Foothills area on the northern edge of Tucson. Her brick home has a gravel driveway and a yard covered in prickly pear and saguaro cactus.
Savannah Guthrie, who has two siblings, was 16 when their father died. Nancy Guthrie raised them on her own. The host often brought her mother on “Today” as a guest.
“She has met unthinkable challenges in her life with grit, without self-pity, with determination and always, always with unshakeable faith,” Savannah said on the show in 2022 on Nancy Guthrie’s 80th birthday.
“She loves us, her family, fiercely, and her selflessness and sacrifice for us, her steadfastness and her unmovable confidence is the reason any of us grew up to do anything.”
Billeaud reported from Phoenix. Balsamo reported from Washington.
Law enforcement officers are present outside the home of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of "Today" host Savannah Guthrie, near Tucson, Ariz., Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Sejal Govindarao)
This image provided by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, shows a missing person alert for Nancy Guthrie. (Pima County Sheriff’s Department via AP)
FILE - Savannah Guthrie attends the third annual World Mental Health Day Gala, hosted by Project Healthy Minds, at Spring Studios on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, file)
LONDON (AP) — British politician Peter Mandelson is quitting the House of Lords as he faces new questions, and a potential police investigation, over his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Speaker of the Lords, Michael Forsyth, said Mandelson has informed officials he will retire from Parliament’s upper chamber effective Wednesday.
The announcement came as the British government prepared legislation to eject Mandelson from the Lords and remove the noble title, Lord Mandelson, that came with his seat in the chamber. Mandelson will retain the title after he retires unless lawmakers pass legislation to strip it from him — something that has not been done for more than a century.
The government also said it had sent a file of material to police who are looking into allegations that Mandelson passed sensitive government information to the disgraced financier.
A trove of more than 3 million pages of Epstein-related documents released by the U.S. Justice Department has brought excruciating revelations about 72-year-old Mandelson, who served in senior government roles under previous Labour governments and was U.K. ambassador to Washington until Prime Minister Keir Starmer fired him in September over his ties to Epstein.
The newly released files contain emails from Mandelson to Epstein passing on nuggets of political information, some of which critics say may have broken the law. Police say they are reviewing reports of misconduct “to determine if they meet the criminal threshold for investigation.”
Starmer told his Cabinet on Tuesday that he was “appalled” by the revelations in newly released Epstein files, and was concerned there are more details still to emerge. He has ordered the civil service to conduct an “urgent” review of all of Mandelson’s contacts with Epstein while he was in government.
Starmer spokesman Tom Wells said that the government had sent police its assessment that the Mandelson-Epstein documents contained “likely market-sensitive information" about the 2008 global financial crisis and its aftermath that shouldn't have been shared outside of government.
Among the revelations in the files:
— In 2003-2004, bank documents suggest Epstein sent three payments totaling $75,000 to accounts linked to Mandelson or his partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva. Mandelson has said that he doesn't remember receiving the money and will investigate whether the documents are authentic. But he resigned from the governing Labour Party on Sunday, saying he didn’t want to cause the party “further embarrassment.”
In 2008, Epstein avoided federal prosecution by pleading guilty to state charges in Florida of soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail.
Emails and text messages show that Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein continued after the financier’s sentence.
— In 2009, Epstein sent da Silva 10,000 pounds (about $13,650 at today’s rates) to pay for an osteopathy course. Mandelson told The Times of London that “in retrospect, it was clearly a lapse in our collective judgment for Reinaldo to accept this offer.”
— Also in 2009, Mandelson, then business secretary in the U.K. government, appears to have told Epstein he would lobby other members of the government to reduce a tax on bankers’ bonuses.
— The same year, Mandelson sent Epstein an internal government report discussing ways the U.K. could raise money after the 2008 global financial crisis, including by selling off government assets. Mandelson wrote: “Interesting note that’s gone to the PM.”
— In May 2010, Mandelson messaged Epstein that “sources tell me 500 b euro bailout” is almost complete. The message was dated hours before day European governments announced a 500 billion euro deal to shore up the single currency.
Epstein died by suicide in a jail cell in 2019, while awaiting trial on U.S. federal charges accusing him of sexually abusing dozens of girls.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said that Mandelson's friendship with Epstein was “a betrayal on so many levels.”
“It is a betrayal of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein that he continued that association and that friendship for so long after his conviction,” Streeting told the BBC. “It is a betrayal of not just one but two prime ministers” — Gordon Brown, the U.K. leader between 2007 and 2010, and Starmer.
An email requesting comment on the documents was sent to Mandelson through the House of Lords.
British Ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson speaks during the rededication ceremony of the George Washington Statue in the National Gallery in London, Wednesday, June 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
