Savannah Guthrie pleads for answers in mom’s abduction: ‘We need someone to tell the truth’
In this May 4, 2015, file photo, Australian-born presenter, Savannah Guthrie poses alongside her mother Nancy Guthrie during a production break while hosting NBC’s “Today Show” live from Australia at Sydney Opera House in Sydney. (Don Arnold/WireImage via Getty Images, FILE)
(NEW YORK) — “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie is begging for answers in the abduction of her mother, Nancy Guthrie, saying that “someone knows something.”
“How can someone vanish without a trace?” Savannah Guthrie said in the final part of her emotional interview with her friend and former co-host Hoda Kotb.
Nancy Guthrie, 84, was abducted from her Tucson, Arizona, house in the early hours of Feb. 1, authorities said. Investigators have released surveillance images from outside Nancy Guthrie’s house, but the person who took her remains unidentified.
“Our anguish is real. We need help,” Savannah Guthrie said. “We need someone to tell the truth. I have no anger in my heart — I have hope in my heart. I have love. But this family needs peace — I don’t think we deserve anything more or less than any other person.”
“It is never too late, and when you do, the warmth of love and forgiveness that will come will be greater than can be imagined,” she said.
As she waits for answers, Savannah Guthrie said she’s leaning on her faith, and is inspired by the deep faith her mother’s had through hard times, like after Savannah Guthrie’s father died when the “Today” host was a teenager.
“I saw her grieve, I saw her world shatter,” Savannah Guthrie said.
“And I saw her get up and I saw her believe and I saw her love. And I saw her hope and I saw her smile and I saw her laugh. I saw her joy. … I saw her faith,” she said.
“She taught me, she taught all of us,” Savannah Guthrie continued.
“I may not do it as well as her, but I will do it. I will do it for my kids. I will. I will not fall apart,” she said through tears. “I will not let whoever did this take my children’s mother from them. I will not let them take my joy.”
“Faith is how I will stay connected to my mom. … And I won’t let sadness win for her,” she said through tears.
Kotb has been filling in for Savannah Guthrie on “Today” since Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance. Savannah Guthrie plans to return to “Today” on April 6.
“I’m not gonna be the same,” she said.
But she added, “I want to smile, and when I do, it will be real. And my joy will be my protest.”
Anyone with information is urged to call 911, the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI, or the Pima County Sheriff’s Department at 520-351-4900.
The vast empty plains stretch to the horizon in Springfield, Colorado, the county seat of Baca County, on May 10, 2026. Baca County has received only .78 inches of rain since Jan. 1, 2026. (Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Farms all over the country are bracing for the impact of drought after months of little precipitation, experts told ABC News.
More than 60% of the continental United States has been under moderate drought or worse conditions since April 7, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
The nation as a whole has experienced a dry, warm period that began in the early autumn of 2025 and has pushed into recent weeks, Brad Rippey, a U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist, told ABC News.
Long-term drought trends have put Midwest crops at risk
Farms in the Midwest that produce winter wheat have been especially impacted, Rippey said. The largest region that produces winter wheat — the Great Plains stretching from Montana to Texas — has been hit the hardest by drought as well as some spring freezes, Rippey added.
Up to 44% of this year’s winter wheat is rated as very poor to poor, according to the latest data from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), released on Tuesday. Nebraska is at the top of the list, with 82% of its winter wheat crop rated very poor to poor, but states like Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas are experiencing high rates of poor crop as well, according to the NASS.
While there was good moisture when the winter wheat was planted in the fall, extremely dry conditions from the beginning of March through the first half of May prevented optimal growing conditions, Brad Fuller, president of the Western Horizons Corporation and a consulting agronomist to many farms in Kansas, told ABC News.
Agriculture experts are expecting a 32% abandonment of winter wheat in the U.S. this year, according to the USDA’s Wheat Outlook. Such a high abandonment rate has only happened once since the Dust Bowl era in 1933 — in 2022 when drought conditions were at record highs, Riddey said.
The issues have also extended to the cattle industry due to poor rangeland and pasture conditions as a result of the dry conditions, Riddey said.
“A lot of the rangeland and pastures out in the middle section of the country are also in pretty rough shape heading into the key hay production season,” Riddey said.
Farmers in the Midwest are holding out hope for the spring-planted crops. But conditions were so dry in recent weeks that some growers skipped planting crops like corn or sorghum, Fuller said.
“We’ve had places in southwest Kansas that have gone well over 200 days without more than a half an inch of rain,” he said.
Farms in the West could be at risk as well
The West is facing dry, hot conditions in the near future, coming off “devastatingly” warm months in March and April, Riddey said. To exacerbate the situation, some reservoirs — especially Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the largest in the country — are experiencing low water levels due to the lack of snowpack during the winter.
These reservoirs are crucial for farms in the West that supply the rest of the country, Steven Fassnacht, a professor of snow hydrology at Colorado State University, told ABC News. About 75% of the nation’s lettuce and leafy greens are grown in California, according to the state’s Department of Food and Agriculture.
When there’s less surface water, farmers in California will turn to groundwater, Amanda Fencl, director of climate science for the Union of Concerned Scientists, told ABC News. But overuse of groundwater can decrease the water quality and lower the groundwater table, causing the land above it to sink. Overuse of groundwater can also alter the soil moisture, making it drier and lower, Fassnacht said.
Lake Mead could reach a record-low level of 1,036 feet of elevation in 2026, according to the 24-month study released by the Bureau of Reclamation last week. Lake Powell is also projected to drop to a new record-low level in the coming months, surpassing the previous record of around 3,520 feet set in 2023, Cody Moser, senior hydrologist at the Colorado River Basin Forecast Center, said during a webinar on May 7. The Colorado River basin as a whole is currently sitting at 49% of storage of its historic average, Riddey said.
“There are a lot of pieces of pie for that limited Western water,” Riddey said.
Small, family-run farms would be most impacted by water shortages, Fencl said. They may be faced with having to take certain crops out of production or changing which crops they decide to harvest.
Drought conditions typically lead to lower yields and loss in profits, Fencl added.
What will climate conditions be like in the near future?
While it has been raining in the Midwest in recent days, it’s not nearly enough to make up for the dry conditions over the last eight months, Riddey said.
“It’s not going to recover from just a couple of rain events,” he said. “It will take some time.”
But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Monsoon season is expected to start in early July and last through August and September. After that, the development of El Niño conditions in October will bring more drought relief into the fall, winter and spring of 2027, Riddey said.
“All indications are we should see a pretty active monsoon that could provide some relief, but we have to get between now and monsoon onset,” he said.
Pro-Palestinian activists rally for Mohsen Mahdawi and protest against deportations outside of ICE Headquarters on April 15, 2025, in New York City. Mohsen Mahdawi, an organizer of pro-Palestinian demonstrations last year at Columbia University, was detained by the Department of Homeland Security during his naturalization interview in Vermont on Monday. (Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images)
The Board of Immigration Appeals has reinstated deportation proceedings against pro-Palestinian student Mohsen Mahdawi, according to a court filing from his attorneys.
In February, Judge Nina Froes dropped the deportation case against the Columbia University student, ruling in part that the Department of Homeland Security failed to authenticate a memo allegedly signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio claiming Mahdawi posed a threat to United States foreign policy.
The Trump administration appealed that decision and the BIA, which skews conservative, overturned Froes’ decision.
he move reinstates deportation proceedings against Mahdawi, but it will be overseen by a different judge after Froes was terminated from her position. Her firing comes as critics of the Trump administration say it has sought to reshape immigration courts by replacing immigration judges in an attempt to ramp up deportations.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Mahdawi’s arrest is still being challenged in federal court, so the government can’t deport him for the moment, the ACLU said. He was detained in April 2025 when he arrived at his citizenship interview.
“The government continues to weaponize the immigration system to silence dissent,” Mahdawi said in a statement. “But it cannot erase the Constitution or the First Amendment, which protects free speech for all. The government is trying to punish and deport me, a stateless Palestinian refugee from the occupied West Bank, because it opposes my peaceful advocacy for human dignity and equal rights for Palestinians. But I remain unafraid and faithful that justice will prevail in America and in Palestine.”
Arguing for his detainment last spring, lawyers for the Trump administration pointed to a 2015 FBI investigation, in which a gun shop owner alleged that Mahdawi had claimed to have built machine guns in the West Bank to kill Jews.
However, the FBI closed that investigation and Mahdawi was never charged with any crime, a point a federal judge highlighted when he ordered Mahdawi’s release in May 2025.
Director and actor Timothy Busfield looks on before a hearing in the Second District Judicial Court at the Bernalillo County Courthouse on January 20, 2026 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sam Wasson/Getty Images
(ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.) — A grand jury has indicted actor Timothy Busfield on child sex abuse contact charges after his arrest last month, according to officials.
Busfield is facing multiple counts of criminal sexual contact of a child, according to Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman.
“District Attorney Sam Bregman emphasized that protecting children remains a top priority for his office. The Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office remains committed to doing everything possible to protect children and ensure justice for victims,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement Friday.
