Savannah Guthrie plans return to NBC as search for missing mother continues

Savannah Guthrie, a host of NBC's Today programme, has visited the network's office in New York as she makes plans to return to the airwaves while the search for her missing mother continues.

Guthrie's 84 year-old mother Nancy has been missing from her home in Arizona since 1 February, when authorities believe she was abducted. Few clues have emerged in the nearly five weeks since.

Guthrie, meanwhile, has remained off air, although she has posted emotional pleas on social media for her mother's return.

Her co-host Jenna Bush Hager told viewers that Guthrie had visited and "she said that she has the intention to return to the show", but "I don't know when she's actually returning".

"Even though it feels like the hardest thing to do, it's also her home and where she feels so loved," said Bush Hager. "And she is beyond loved here."

No date has been set for Guthrie's return. She last appeared on the show on 30 January, two days before her mother's disappearance.

Guthrie also withdrew from NBC's Winter Olympic Games coverage as the search for her mother intensified.

Last week, the family offered a $1m (£750,000) reward for Nancy Guthrie's return.

The Pima County Sheriff's Office has said it believes her mother was "taken from the home against her will, possibly in the middle of the night and that includes possible kidnapping or abduction".

Investigators have released images of the prime suspect - a man captured on Nancy Guthrie's Nest doorbell camera.

Purported ransom notes demanding about $6m in cryptocurrency have been sent to media outlets, including one whose deadline expired on 9 February.

Detectives have received close to 40,000 tips from the public.

DNA evidence was recovered from a glove - similar to one worn by the suspect recorded on doorbell camera footage - that was found not far from her home, but it yielded no matches in a FBI database, authorities said.