The Today show has strengthened security at its New York City headquarters after concerns surrounding Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapping left staff members feeling exposed.

NBC moved to tighten its security procedures after a July breach in which an intruder, later identified as Andrew Truelove, allegedly entered the building while searching for longtime network weather anchor Al Roker.

Truelove, 41, instead came across Craig Melvin and lunged at the host while spitting racial slurs on July 16. The incident saw one security guard fired after one had stepped away and the other ‘missed the intruder,’ Page Six reported. 

Protections at the 30 Rockefeller Center studio have since been expanded in an effort to prevent further unauthorized access and safeguard employees working inside.

“It’s a relief,” an insider told Page Six. “It was much-needed and took longer than people would have liked, but it does feel a lot better now.”

A second source told the outlet that employees have accepted the heightened measures, even when the additional procedures create occasional inconvenience.

“Staffers are more than willing to oblige with the new protocols,” the source said. “It hasn’t been seen as a [burden].”

Soon after the episode, the Daily Mail was told that NBC had already begun addressing security issues, with one insider comparing the studio’s defenses to “Fort Knox.”

‘Nothing is being left to chance,’ they said. 

‘Guests are being told to arrive at least an hour early because security screenings are taking longer. They’re also being asked to keep entourages to an absolute minimum. They’re tightening every possible loophole.

‘If your name is not on the security list you are not getting in. Even Christopher Nolan and Brad Paisley needed to be on the security list.’

The breach came after host Savannah Guthrie’s 84-year-old mother Nancy was cruelly snatched from her home in Tucson, Arizona, on January 31. 

Savannah, 54, found the studio breach ‘incredibly triggering’ after her mother’s disappearance. 

‘The timing couldn’t have been more heartbreaking,’ an insider told the Daily Mail at the time. ‘How much more can one person take?

‘After everything Savannah has endured with her family, this happened just moments after she walked off the set. It hit everyone hard, but it hit differently for her.

‘She’s been carrying an enormous emotional burden, and this was another shock. The feeling inside the show is that everyone wants her to put herself first.’ 

Sources told the Daily Mail that Savannah’s own personal security was increased, a testament to ‘how seriously everyone is taking the incident.’

Insiders said that the emotional fallout is expected to last far longer than any of the new security protocols. 

‘This has been a huge wake-up call,’ one Today show source claimed. ‘Nobody inside the building feels like this was just another routine security incident. It has everyone looking at safety in a completely different way.

‘This wasn’t just a security failure – it was a reminder that nowhere feels completely safe anymore,’ a well placed insider added. ‘Everyone is asking the same question: if this could happen here, what happens next?’

Another said staff were ‘freaking out’ and left questioning, ‘what if he had a gun?’

For colleagues who have watched Savannah endure an extraordinarily difficult year, the July scare only heightened concern for the beloved anchor.

‘The whole newsroom is protective of Savannah right now,’ one source told Daily Mail. ‘People are worried less about the show and more about her. They just want her to be okay.’

The Guthrie family is offering a reward of up to $1 million for information leading to her recovery.

Savannah’s mom was last seen alive on January 31 at her home following a dinner with her daughter, Annie and son-in-law Tommaso Cioni, who dropped Guthrie back off at her home at around 9.50pm.

Hours later, at 1.47am, a masked individual wearing black latex gloves, a backpack and what seemed to be a holstered gun was captured outside Nancy’s home disabling the doorbell camera.

Guthrie’s pacemaker monitoring app disconnected from her home less than an hour later. Investigators now believe that could be the moment she was forcibly removed from the house.

There are still no suspects, according to local police and the FBI.

‘The FBI and its task force partners have received several ransom notes over the course of this investigation,’ the Phoenix FBI office posted to social media.

‘Some have been deemed to be extortion attempts without legitimacy. Other ransom demands may potentially be legitimate, and are still being investigated as such.’

The agency added that it is continuing to investigate Guthrie’s disappearance ‘as a kidnapping for ransom case.’

The Daily Mail reached out to NBC News Studios for comment.  

A Canberra motorist says he was shocked to receive two traffic infringement notices allegedly linked to speeding incidents from 19 years ago.

Robert Scott, 42, was allegedly caught speeding on Hindmarsh Drive on April 22 and May 25, 2007. However, he says he only recently became aware of the alleged offences.

Mr Scott plans to challenge the notices, each of which carries a $167 fine.

‘I’ve been sent two tickets from approximately 19 years ago. The same intersection, almost a month apart,’ he said.

‘Not sure I even owned a car with that rego, it was that long ago.’

He said he could not explain why the fines had apparently not reached him when they were first issued.

‘I’ve got no idea how it happened because if I haven’t paid a fine for the last 20 years, I would have a suspended licence,’ he said.

‘I don’t understand how there haven’t been updates since, and I don’t understand how I’m now receiving a reminder nearly 20 years later.’

Mr Scott said Access Canberra had told him the original infringement notices would have been sent in 2007, though he has no recollection of receiving them at the time.

‘I was in my 20s and was in between living at my girlfriend’s place and my parents’ place, so I’ve got no recollection of the fines from 20 years ago,’ he said.

‘Since 2007, I have registered several cars many times and at no point was I flagged for demerit points or told that there were any outstanding fines.

‘The only time I’ve even been pulled up by police in that time was earlier this year. 

‘I didn’t do anything wrong; it was just being pulled over for a check, but they didn’t flag anything then either.’

Fourtree Lawyers director Hayder Shkara said he would advise people in Mr Scott’s position to challenge the fines because it was unreasonable to expect motorists to recall events from almost 20 years ago. 

‘I wouldn’t just pay it without first obtaining the history of the fines,’ Mr Shkara told Yahoo News.

‘Think about what someone is being asked to do here. They are effectively being asked in 2026 to reconstruct what happened on a particular day in 2007.

‘Where were they? Who was driving? Did they own the car? Was it sold? Were there other people who had access to it? Did they receive the original notice? What records existed at the time?’

Given the decades-long delay, Mr Shkara said it was important to question what happened to the fines at the time.

‘If a valid infringement notice was issued back in 2007, became payable and has simply remained outstanding, the ACT Government may be entitled to continue enforcing that existing liability,’ he said.

‘That is different from commencing a fresh prosecution for an alleged speeding offence nearly 20 years later.

‘The first question I would ask is: what exactly happened to these fines in 2007? Were they properly issued and served, did they become enforceable, and what enforcement steps occurred after that?’

He also said that the reason for the delay would play a huge part in the appeal process as well. 

‘A 19-year delay does not necessarily mean that a fine automatically disappears,’ he said.

‘But where the matter resurfaced was because duplicate customer profiles were only now merged, that raises an obvious question: why should the citizen bear the consequences of an administrative problem within the government’s own system?’ 

The comments were in response to Access Canberra’s explanation that old infringement notices can be reissued when duplicate customer accounts are merged. 

‘When a customer updates their address, or renews their driver’s licence with Access Canberra, the vehicle registration system can automatically re-issue any pending notices or correspondence for that individual,’ an ACT government spokesman said.

‘When two customer accounts are merged, the system can again be prompted to re-issue any pending notices or correspondence.’ 

When Access Canberra merges duplicate records belonging to the same customer, staff review and discuss any outstanding notices or unresolved issues. 

However, the agency admitted that updating details on a historic account can occasionally cause old notices to resurface.

‘Even when these discussions occur, the merging of a historic account with a current profile updates contact information, which, in certain circumstances, prompts the system to reissue correspondence,’ it said.

‘Generally, there are processes in place to catch this type of reissuing of correspondence before it occurs.’ 

The Daily Mail has contacted Access Canberra for comment.

A US Air Force colonel left stranded behind enemy lines in central Iran for two days has described his ordeal, including the terrifying instant he discovered his parachute had failed and the high-risk mission that brought him home.

The weapons system officer, identified only by the callsign ‘Dude 44 Bravo,’ was seated in the rear of an F-15E Strike Eagle on April 2 when the aircraft was shot down in a remote part of Iran.

He has since called his survival a ‘modern-day miracle.’ The colonel suffered a broken back, arm and shoulder, as well as a sprained ankle.

That night’s operation involved striking industrial sites connected to Iran’s drone and missile program, Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of US Central Command, told 60 Minutes on Sunday night.

As Bravo and the pilot, known only as ‘Alpha,’ flew south of Isfahan, their $30 million fighter was hit by a shoulder-fired missile. Bravo said the impact felt like being ‘hit by a freight train.’

The two airmen initially tried to keep the stricken F-15E in the air, but soon concluded the jet could not be saved. They were forced to eject.

Alpha reached the ground safely. But after Bravo ejected, he realized the attack had damaged his parachute.

‘At one point, when I looked up and saw no parachute, that was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen,’ the airman said, becoming emotional as he recalled the moment.

‘So I paused right then and I prayed, “Lord your will be done. But I’m getting through this.”‘

Bravo then free-fell to the ground, crashing down at an estimated 70 to 100 mph.

‘I believe it’s a testament to God’s provision in my life to bring me through that moment in a way that didn’t prevent injuries, but prevented any catastrophic injuries that would have affected my ability to survive,’ he said.

‘I had injuries, but we all train to adapt and overcome the things that we’re faced with,’ he explained. ‘I moved as quickly as I could, despite the injuries, away from the place that I landed.’

When the sun then rose that morning, Bravo was able to make out some of his surroundings – and found himself in a valley with cliffs to either side.

He then realized the safest place for him to go would be up, where he could see Iranian forces coming from the valley below.

So, despite his broken bones, Bravo hiked and climbed up a 7,000-foot ridgeline as he told himself to ‘never let a lack of motivation put you on Iranian TV.’

Meanwhile, back in the United States, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had to be woken up in the middle of the night as his aides told him about the crash.

His immediate reaction, he said, was to ask whether the crew was OK and whether Iran knew what had happened. 

But ‘whether they’re alive or not, we’re going to get them,’ Hegseth vowed. 

Soon, though, evidence of the wreckage was shared on Iranian media and videos emerged online of armed groups hunting down the F-15E’s crew.

Some came within just a few hundred meters of where Bravo was hiding, US military sources told 60 Minutes.

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‘There was clear intent out of the Iranian ground force to come find those two guys,’ said General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

During the ‘race against time,’ US military closely tracked the Iranians in the area, and after six hours, US forces were able to rescue Alpha in a risky daytime raid as American helicopters took fire.

‘It was a gun fight all the way in and all the way out,’ Hegseth recounted. ‘But they got Alpha back in.’

Still, the crews were unable to find Bravo and withdrew from the region. 

But as night fell on that first day in Iran, Bravo was able to send a message back home.

‘When I got to the moment where I could review and think about all that I’d gone through, I sent “God is good” as recognition of all that He had brought me through,’ said the airman.

He also alerted the US military that he was injured but was moving.  

A rescue force was almost sent in immediately after US forces received the message, but it ‘just didn’t line up,’ Hegseth said. 

‘That was a really tough decision,’ he said. ‘I’ll never forget, you know, being in the situation room and saying “OK I guess we’re gonna roll 24,” which means, “Hey Bravo’s going to be out there for basically 24 hours more.”‘ 

Fortunately, the airman was able to survive with almost no food or water, in the wind and the cold on the high mountain desert.

At the same time, the CIA launched a multi-pronged deception campaign meant to confuse Iranian forces looking for Bravo as they used top-secret technology to pinpoint the airman’s location.

When US forces were then ready to conduct another daring rescue, American bombers and drones struck Iran’s Revolutionary Guard forces near where he was hiding.

Once the path was then cleared, the US sent more than 90 soldiers on the ground – marking the first US boots on the ground in Iran in 46 years.

Several hundred other soldiers took to the air while several thousand more served as support, as General Caine said the US would have sent even more to rescue Bravo.

The rescue teams then came in on two large planes and landed on a makeshift desert airstrip, while ‘Little Bird’ helicopters reached Bravo on the ridgeline several miles away.

When Bravo then saw his rescuers approach, he said it was ‘one of the greatest moments of my life.’

Still, Bravo was not in the clear – as the rescue planes’ landing gear got stuck in the desert sand and could not take off, leaving more than 90 of what Adm Cooper described as the military’s ‘most elite service members’ stuck until a clandestine Air Force unit came to the rescue.

It then destroyed the two stuck aircraft, worth about $100 million each, as well as the Little Bird helicopters so that the technology wouldn’t fall into Iranian hands.

Finally, about 50 hours after being shot down, Bravo was safe.

When he then left the country, the airman made sure to call his wife back home.

‘I was really proud of her and grateful for the strength that she showed,’ he recounted.

Bravo said he now wants the American public to realize the rescue mission was about more than what he had endured.

‘It’s a story of the teamwork, the training, of the faith, of the decisions and the leadership to do something that will live in history as an example of what America’s willing to do, in order to uphold our promise and leave no man behind.’ 

Rex Heuermann, recently sentenced to life in prison for the killings of seven women on Long Island, has been disciplined after authorities said he smuggled drugs into prison.

Heuermann, 62, was found with contraband concealed beneath his bed during a July 14 search at Clinton Correctional Facility, a source familiar with the investigation told Newsday.

He is serving life without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty on April 8 to three counts of first-degree murder and four counts of second-degree murder. He was formally sentenced on June 17.

Heuermann admitted to strangling Sandra Costilla, 28, Valerie Mack, 24, Jessica Taylor, 20, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, Melissa Barthelemy, 24, Megan Waterman, 22, and Amber Costello, 27.

In a further revelation, he also confessed to the 1996 killing of Karen Vergata, 34, an eighth victim in whose death he has not been charged.

About three weeks after arriving at the facility, correctional officers found a small piece of soaked paper wrapped in plastic. The paper tested positive for ‘synthetic marijuana,’ according to the outlet.

The source said Heuermann was placed in an isolated cellblock and temporarily barred from receiving mail following the discovery.

After a two-day disciplinary hearing in the drug case concluded on August 18, officials determined that any additional infractions would result in Heuermann losing commissary privileges for 75 days, the outlet reported.

Heuermann was arrested in 2023 after masquerading as a family man for years, living in Massapequa Park with his wife of 27 years Asa Ellerup and their children Victoria Heuermann and Christopher Sheridan. 

He worked as an architect in Midtown Manhattan. He lured young women who were working as sex workers to his home when his family went out of town on vacation. His victims were strangled and their bodies dumped in remote areas of Long Island. 

With the exception of his first victim, Costilla, Heuermann killed the women inside the basement of his home – the same suburban ranch-style house where he spent his own childhood and then raised his family. He also dismembered Vergata, Mack and Taylor inside the home. 

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney told the Daily Mail that a ‘meticulous’ level of planning had gone into each of the murders, meeting the women in advance, selecting his chosen victim and then buying a designated ‘kill phone’ to use solely to contact her.

Heuermann’s killing spree was only discovered and appeared to come to an end when his dumping ground was found along a remote stretch of Ocean Parkway, near Gilgo Beach, in 2010. 

But another 13 years would go by before the notorious serial killer was finally unmasked with Heuermann’s arrest.

The harrowing discovery came during a search for 24-year-old Shannan Gilbert, who had made a chilling 911 call and then disappeared following a visit to a client’s house in nearby Oak Beach that May.

That December, Barthelemy’s remains were the first to be found. Within days, Brainard-Barnes, Waterman and Costello were all found within a quarter mile of each other.

The four women, together known as the Gilgo Four, were all bound and wrapped in burlap.

By the spring of 2011, ten victims had been found in the area. The final victim found was Gilbert, who, to this day, investigators maintain died by accident and is not linked to the serial killer case.

The serial killer used a trove of different burner phones to contact some of the victims, with location data placing the user near both Heuermann’s family home in Massapequa Park and his office in Manhattan.

With a suspect in sight, investigators then obtained crucial DNA evidence from a discarded pizza crust, which proved Heuermann to be the source of a hair found on Waterman’s body.

It later emerged that hairs belonging to his wife, daughter and another individual close to him had been found on six of the seven victims for which he was charged.

A disturbing ‘planning document,’ found on a hard drive during a search of his home, then revealed what prosecutors described as his blueprint for selecting, killing and disposing of victims.

The document included sections titled ‘body prep’ detailing how to clean and dismember bodies and remove tattoos.

Other chilling evidence also emerged, including his sick porn searches for ‘autopsy photos of female,’ ‘tied up fat girl porn,’ ‘skinny white teen crying porn’ and ‘stories of rape audio’ – as well as his online obsession with the Gilgo Beach serial killer case.

In the almost three years since his arrest, Heuermann’s ex-wife Ellerup visited him in prison regularly and attended almost every one of his court hearings. 

While he will now spend the rest of his life in prison, he could still face further prosecution if tied to other murders across New York state – and even further afield.

The remains of three other victims were also found along Ocean Parkway close to the remains of Heuermann’s other victims and were long suspected of being linked to the Gilgo Beach case. 

A separate suspect has now been charged with the murders of two of those victims – mother Tanya Jackson and her toddler daughter Tatiana Dykes.

The case of the third victim – who is yet to be identified and is known only as Asian Doe – remains unsolved.

Heuermann remains in custody in ‘Little Siberia’ alongside fellow Long Island serial killer Joel Rifkin and the notorious New York Zodiac killer Heriberto Seda.

The Daily Mail reached out to Heuermann’s lawyer and the Clinton Correctional Facility for comment.