Search for Nancy Guthrie continues into 9th day after family says, ‘we will pay’
: Savannah Guthrie and mother Nancy Guthrie on Thursday, June 15, 2023 — (Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Faced with a demand for a bitcoin ransom and a Monday deadline by someone claiming to be her mother’s kidnapper, “Today” host Savannah Guthrie and her siblings over the weekend solemnly pledged to pay for the return of their mother, Nancy.
“We received your message and we understand,” Savannah Guthrie said in a message posted to Instagram. “We beg you now to return our mother to us so we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”
Nancy Guthrie, 84, was last seen Jan. 31, and authorities have said they believe she was abducted from her home near Tucson, Arizona.
“We are aware of the video posted by the Guthrie family. But don’t have any additional information to share,” a spokesperson for Pima Sheriff said in a statement to ABC News on Saturday following the release of the latest video from the family.
The message Savannah Guthrie references in her new Instagram post is the same message the FBI and Pima Sheriff said they were studying Friday, according to a source familiar with the investigation.
Investigators have not confirmed the authenticity of the latest message, which was received by a Tucson television station, nor any of the other ransom notes mentioning Nancy Guthrie, according to the source.
Investigators have returned repeatedly to the home of Annie Guthrie, Nancy’s other daughter, were Nancy enjoyed dinner and a Saturday game night before returning to her home a few minutes away.
Investigators have also returned to Nancy’s home, where they’ve examined rooftop cameras, towed away a car and made inquiries of neighbors.
The sheriff’s department said, “This remains an active and ongoing investigation,” but added that, after more than a week, “Investigators have not identified any suspects, persons of interest, or vehicles connected to this case.”
ABC News’ Nadine El-Bawab contributed to this report.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt displays steps for U.S. citizens in the Middle East to take following U.S. strikes on Iran as she speaks during a news briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on March 04, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The State Department announced on Wednesday that a charter flight for American citizens stuck in the Middle East was en route to the United States — days after the war with Iran left thousands of American travelers stranded as combat operations led to the closure of airspace around the region.
The department said the flight is “part of our ongoing efforts to assist Americans return home” and said additional flights will be departing from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
The move comes as hundreds of thousands of Americans stranded across the Middle East are trying to leave the region, faced with canceled flights and other travel disruptions.
Chris Elliott, a pastor from Lexington, North Carolina, told ABC News that he and his family were stranded while visiting sites in Jerusalem. He said they ended up in a bomb shelter as sirens sounded and incoming missiles were intercepted.
“We want Americans to be on American soil right now,” Elliott said.
Eliott’s daughter, Riley, said it’s been frustrating and frightening to be forced to shelter in place since the joint U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran began on Saturday.
“The scariest for me was trying to go to bed at night and then being woken up by the sounds of sirens,” Riley Elliott told ABC News.
The U.S. State Department issued an advisory on Monday, three days into the military operation, urging Americans to immediately leave 14 countries in the region via commercial flights, but stranded U.S. citizens have said that’s become extremely difficult, given the significant disruptions to air travel.
The Trump administration is facing some criticism for apparently not having a plan in place to get American citizens out of harm’s way ahead of the joint operation.
Responding to a question on Tuesday from ABC News about why so many Americans became stuck in the Middle East absent any advance warning of the attack on Iran, President Donald Trump said, “Well, because it happened all very quickly.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Wednesday press briefing that the U.S. did communicate the danger of traveling to the region.
“There was many signs, put out by the State Department,” Leavitt said. “The secretary of state issued level four travel advisories dating back to January for many of these countries in the region,” adding that they were “advising extreme caution and do not travel alerts to Americans in the region.”
However, a review of travel advisories issued by the State Department indicates that prior to the start of the conflict, of the the 14 countries American travelers were later urged to depart, eight of them were only listed at a Level 1 or Level 2 — meaning to exercise normal precautions or increased caution.
Leavitt also claimed that since the start of the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, over 17,500 Americans “have safely returned home from the Middle East, with over 8,500 American citizens returning home to the United States just yesterday alone.”
Multiple U.S. embassies in the region, including some that have been attacked, have said they are unable to help citizens trying to leave.
“Our embassies and our diplomatic facilities are under direct attack from a terroristic regime,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Tuesday in Washington.
Asked if there were plans in place to evacuate Americans before the attack took place, Rubio said, “That’s the plan we’re trying to carry out.”
“The problem is, or the challenge we are facing, is airspace closures,” Rubio said, adding that some airports were closed after being hit in strikes. “So, that’s a challenge, but rest assured, we are confident that we are going to be able to assist every American.”
Odies Turner, a private chef from South Carolina, told ABC News that he’s been stuck in his hotel in Doha, Qatar, since the military operation began. He said the unexpected experience of being in a war has left him “frustrated, anxious” and feeling helpless.
“How do you expect us to leave a country where the airspace is closed? People are really stranded here,” Turner said in a self-video recorded on Tuesday. “I really don’t know what to do. I’ve reached out to the embassy, consulate and airlines. There’s no information on when I will get back home. It’s a mess.”
American Lisa Butler said the military conflict left her and her family, who were part of a large travel group, stranded in Abu Dhabi before they were evacuated to Dubai.
“We were standing … outside of this beautiful mosque, looking up in the sky and seeing these missiles that have been intercepted,” Butler told ABC News about how she and her family learned while in Abu Dhabi that they were vulnerable to a major military conflict breaking out in the region.
Oliver Sims, an American from Texas, told ABC News that he has been stuck in Qatar.
“I was just a few minutes ago, listening to some explosions that are going off above my head,” Sims said. “And, you know, I know that officials have said use commercial means, but there are really no commercial means here for us to use. So it’s really difficult to try and figure out a way out.”
Asked to describe conditions in Qatar, Sims said that he has been awakened at night by “extremely loud explosions” that shook the windows of his hotel room.
“I looked out my window and I saw a bunch of debris that was raining down outside of my hotel window,” Sims said. “And it’s very jarring, too, because it’s not just how loud it is, just how it actually physically shakes you. The rumbling is really, really just as violent.”
Freeze alerts from Iowa to Connecticut on Monday morning, April 20, 2026. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Don’t put away those winter coats just yet.
Summer-like temperatures will give way to chilly weather across the Northeast beginning on Monday as residents in the Midwest and Plains clean up after a spell of severe weather that spawned multiple tornadoes.
Morning temperatures are forecast to be near 40 degrees along the I-95 corridor from Washington, D.C., to New York Monday and into Tuesday, just days after 90-degree weather enveloped much of the East.
It may be even colder from Chicago to Boston, where morning temperatures are expected to dip into the mid-30s on Tuesday, with some morning frost possible.
In parts of the Midwest from Minneapolis to Detroit, temperatures could fall to below freezing.
Just days after temperatures soared into the 90s, setting daily high temperature records in Washington, D.C., New York and Philadelphia, the weather is expected to turn significantly cooler to start the workweek.
Some places in the Northeast could also approach record low temperatures. Come Tuesday morning, places like Trenton, N.J., Scranton, Pa., Syracuse, N.Y., and Manchester, N.H., will likely see temperatures fall to below freezing and could break or tie their respective record low temperatures for the day.
The cold snap will be short-lived, as temperatures return to a more spring-like feel by Wednesday across the East, with summer-like weather returning by Thursday and Friday.
Meanwhile, the Midwest and Plains were cleaning up from days of severe weather that saw numerous tornadoes develop, some causing damage across Minnesota and Michigan.
The National Weather Service has preliminarily confirmed 50 tornadoes between April 12 and April 17 across 12 states, most of them in Illinois and Wisconsin. However, tornadoes were also confirmed during that time frame as far west as California and as far east as Vermont, according to the NWS.
At least 15 tornadoes were confirmed by the NWS in Illinois, 10 in Wisconsin, seven in Oklahoma and five in both Missouri and Iowa. Michigan and Kansas both had two tornadoes confirmed by the NWS.
The cold front that caused the severe weather late last week is continuing to move east into the Northeast on Sunday, bringing rain and even high-elevation snow showers to parts of the region before pushing off the coast later in the day.
