Nancy Guthrie abduction: FBI analyzing DNA recovered from her home, sources say
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)
(TUCSON, Ariz.) — The FBI recently received and is now analyzing potentially critical DNA recovered from the Tucson, Arizona, home of Nancy Guthrie, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News.
Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, was abducted from her home early on Feb. 1.
A private Florida lab that works with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department sent the sample to the FBI in recent weeks, the sources said. The FBI is now using new technology to conduct advanced analysis on the DNA sample to see if it can lead to Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapper, according to the sources.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department has previously described the DNA recovered from Nancy Guthrie’s home as a sample that came from more than one person.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos recently told a Neighborhood Watch group that it could take six more months to untangle the sample, separate the strands and isolate what investigators need.
The sheriff also said as many as five other labs around the country are working on the Guthrie case. It was not immediately clear which ones, what their roles are or whether there are additional DNA samples that are potentially relevant.
About two dozen Pima County and FBI investigators are still actively working the Guthrie case. After investigators released key evidence, like images from Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell camera, early on, seemingly little progress has been made on her whereabouts or the person or people who abducted her.
Last month, Savannah Guthrie spoke out in her first interview, telling her friend and former co-host Hoda Kotb that it’s “too much to bear to think that I brought this to her bedside, that it’s because of me.”
“I’m so sorry, Mommy, I’m so sorry,” Savannah Guthrie said.
And to her family, she apologized through tears, “If it is me, I’m so sorry.”
But she added, “We still don’t know … Honestly, we don’t know anything.”
Savannah Guthrie said her family “cannot be at peace” without answers.
“Someone can do the right thing,” she said.
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.
Editor’s Note: The story has updated the time frame of when the DNA sample was received
Protesters hold signs reading “justice for Casey Goodson Jr.” during the protest. Various Black Lives Matters groups collaborated with the family of Casey Goodson Jr. to put together a protest commemorating Casey Goodson Jr. on his 24th Birthday, January 30th. Casey Goodson Jr. was shot and killed by Columbus Deputy Jason Meade in early December 2020,. (Photo by Stephen Zenner/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — Opening arguments in the re-trial of Jason Meade are set to begin in a Columbus, Ohio, courtroom on Thursday morning as the former Franklin County Sheriff’s deputy faces charges of murder and reckless homicide in the fatal 2020 shooting of 23-year-old Casey Goodson Jr.
A jury, made up of nine women and three men, was seated on Wednesday afternoon, according to ABC Columbus station WSYX.
Meade’s second trial comes more than two years after his first trial ended in a mistrial in February 2024, as jurors failed to reach an agreement on the verdict. He has pleaded not guilty.
Meade, who testified during his first trial, claimed that he shot Goodson on Dec. 4, 2020, because he said the man waved a gun at him. Goodson’s family said that he was shot while returning from a dentist appointment and was walking into his grandmother’s home with a Subway sandwich in his hand.
A gun was found in Goodson’s possession with the safety on, according to police. Goodson was a legal gun owner and had a concealed carry permit, which was found in his wallet, police said.
No body camera video of the incident exists because at the time Franklin County Sheriff’s deputies were not issued body-worn camera equipment.
Meade was working with the U.S. Marshals in search for a potential violent fugitive when he fatally shot Goodson.
Goodson was not the target of the search.
The Franklin County Coroner’s Office found that Goodson had been shot six times from behind, including five times in his back.
A judge ruled ahead of the trial that Meade will be allowed to argue self-defense during his second trial, according to WSYX.
Prosecutors had argued that Meade should not be able to claim self-defense because he caused the situation that led to Goodson’s death, WSYX reported, but the judge ruled that Meade does have the option to argue self-defense because no evidence has been presented yet in this new trial.
Seth Walton, an attorney representing Goodson’s family, told ABC News on Wednesday that the family has endured “years of coordinated lies and distortions” as they cope with Goodson’s death.
“The only evidence that Casey Goodson, Jr. did anything to contribute to his own death comes from Jason Meade, and Jason Meade alone,” Walton said. “No independent witness. No footage. Just the word of the man who shot him in the back. And yet, despite everything Meade has claimed, the facts and evidence were strong enough to indict him and nearly convict him at the end of the last trial.”
Brian Steel, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 9 — the union that represents Meade — has supported him and claimed that shooting was justified.
“We just want the facts of this case to get out there, and where the jury lands, the jury lands,” Steel told WSYX.
“The reality is, he was not just an innocent person with a subway sandwich; he was an individual with a gun, pointed a gun at a cop, and the cop reacted,” Steel added.
ABC News reached out to Meade’s attorneys for comment.
Meade was charged with two counts of murder and one court of reckless homicide in Dec. 2, 2021 and was indicted by a grand jury.
Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney Gary Tyack appointed two special prosecutors in June 2021 to investigate the case, citing a potential conflict of interest with his office, which has represented the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office in legal proceedings.
The charges against Meade were brought by special prosecutors Tim Merkle and Gary Shroyer following an investigation by the Columbus Division of Police and the local branch of the FBI.
Meade was placed on administrative leave amid the investigation before retiring on disability on July 2, 2021.
This case led to widespread outrage and fueled pressure for the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office to equip deputies with body-worn cameras — a new policy that was rolled out in 2022, WSYX reported.
President Donald Trump greets Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney during a world leaders’ summit on ending the Gaza war on October 13, 2025 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. (Evan Vucci – Pool / Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump threatened a 100% tariff on Canada if the country goes through and solidifies a trade deal with China.
“If Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100% Tariff against all Canadian goods and products coming into the U.S.A. Thank you for your attention to this matter!,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform.
Canadian officials did not immediately respond Saturday.
In his post, Trump does not make clear the deal he is referring to between China and Canada, but the two countries reached an agreement last Friday which would see Canada slash its 100% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for lower tariffs on Canadian agricultural products in China.
This is Trump’s latest attack against Canada and it comes after yesterday’s social media post where he claimed Canada was against his so-called “Golden Dome” missile defense project and blasted the country’s trade deal with China.
In remarks Thursday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney pushed back on Trump’s criticism.
“Canada and the United States have built a remarkable partnership in the economy, in security, and in rich cultural exchange,” Carney said. “But Canada doesn’t live because of the United States. Canada thrives because we are Canadian.”
Last Friday, Trump was asked whether he was worried about the growing closeness between China and Canada as Carney was visiting the country. Trump indicated he had no problem with Carney signing a trade deal with China.
“That’s what he should be doing. It’s a good thing for him to sign a trade deal. If you can get a deal with China, you should do that,” Trump said at the time.
In his post Saturday, Trump referred to the Canadian leader as “governor” rather than prime minister, which he had taken to doing with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in reference to Trump’s suggestion that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state.
The latest threat against Canada also comes after Trump walked back tariffs he threatened to impose on European allies who didn’t agree to his efforts to acquire Greenland. Trump said he and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte have “formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland.”
The Environmental Protection Agency flag flies outside the EPA headquarters in Washington on Thursday, August 7, 2025. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — More than two dozen Senate Democrats are launching an independent investigation into the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over a rule change on how the agency calculates the health benefits from curbing air pollution.
The EPA wrote in its regulatory impact analysis last month that it would no longer apply a dollar value to the health benefits that result from its regulations for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone because the agency says there’s too much uncertainty in the estimates. In the past, the EPA calculated a dollar value based on the health benefits of reducing air pollution, which included the number of premature deaths and illnesses avoided, such as asthma attacks.
The senators described the new policy as “irrational” and said it will lead to the EPA rejecting actions that would impose “relatively minor costs” on polluting industries that could result in “massive benefits” to public health, according to a letter sent to the EPA on Thursday and obtained by ABC News.
“The only beneficiaries will be polluting industries, many of which are among President Trump’s largest donors,” the senators wrote.
Led by Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works Ranking Member Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., the senators are requesting documents and information about how EPA made this determination by Feb. 26.
The decision to not quantify the health benefits of environmental regulations is “completely unsupported” and “a very stark departure” from the way the EPA has worked under both Republican and Democratic administrations over the last several decades, said Richard L. Revesz, dean emeritus at the New York University School of Law who specializes in environmental and regulatory law and policy.
The regulatory impact analysis does not cite any science or economics and did not allow for public comments, Revesz told ABC News. The approach was also not submitted to the EPA’s Science Advisory Board, “which is standard,” nor was it submitted for peer review, he added.
“Each of those things are necessary elements for changing scientific policies like this, and EPA violated every single one of them,” Revesz said.
Senate democrats are seeking the basis on which the EPA made the decision; what the EPA willl take into account when undertaking Clean Air Act rulemaking; whether the EPA has discussed ceasing to quantify health effects of other pollutants; and whether the EPA consulted with any third parties, including the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Surgeon General, public health experts and interested civil society groups.
It was industry executives who pushed for benefit-cost analysis during Ronald Reagan’s administration in the 1980s, said Janet McCabe, visiting professor at Indiana University’s McKinney School of Law and former deputy administrator of the EPA between 2021 and 2024. In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 12866, which instructs each agency to perform rigorous cost benefit analysis for any rule or regulation to be implemented.
“There’s a whole field of environmental economics where models and analytical methods and data collection have evolved on both the cost and the benefit side to help decision-makers and the public understand,” McCabe told ABC News.
While the EPA points to uncertainties in the estimates, assigning a number to monetize health benefits is “very defensible” because of the vast number of studies that allow economists to estimate ranges of health impacts in terms of monetary value, McCabe said.
In the past, when the EPA felt like it could not rigorously assign a number to either cost or health benefit, “it would say so,” McCabe said.
The EPA has received the letter and will respond through the proper channels, an EPA spokesperson told ABC News.
PM2.5 and ozone — soot and smog — are two of the most dangerous and widespread pollutants in the U.S., according to health and environmental policy experts. They are produced by a number of sources, including emissions from vehicles, power plants, the agriculture industry and oil refineries.
The agency is still considering the impacts that fine particulate matter and ozone emissions have on human health, like it “always has,” but that it will not be monetizing the impacts “at this time,” an EPA spokesperson told ABC News last month.
“EPA is fully committed to its core mission of protecting human health and the environment by relying on gold standard science, not the approval of so-called environmental groups that are funded by far-left activists,” the EPA spokesperson said.
The new EPA rule could prove dangerous to human health in the future because it will make it easier for the Trump administration to weaken air pollution controls, the experts who spoke with ABC News said. The EPA will only have the cost to industry to consider when making policy decisions without factoring in the benefits to health, the experts said.
“There will be nothing on the health side to balance them,” McCabe said. “That will make rules much easier to justify from a cost benefit perspective, because all you will see is the costs.”
In its regulatory impact analysis published in January 2024, the EPA calculated the benefit avoided morbidities and premature death in the year 2032 as worth between $22 billion and $46 billion. In February 2024, when the EPA tightened the amount of PM2.5 that could be emitted by industrial facilities, it estimated that the rule would prevent up to 4,500 premature deaths by 2032.
This data will no longer be considered under the new rule.
“It’s not even estimating how many deaths that is, even though the models for doing both things have been very well established for a long, long time,” Revesz said.
