<a…
<a…. The KRAK 11 News hour: The World Desk, Criminal Intent, Happy Animals, Sports. Real stories from named sources, read by Chip Marlowe and Deb Sarkissian.
Aired 2026-08-17 10:13 UTC · 5 segments · 14 min · complete transcript below
Rundown
KRAK 11 NEWS
Good evening, Wexler County. I'm Chip Marlowe.
And I'm Deb Sarkissian. This is KRAK 11 News at the top of the hour.
Tonight on The World Desk: aid shortages and fears of mass starvation as Indonesia reels from Saturday's deadly earthquake. Fourteen communities remain cut off. On Criminal Intent: a guilty plea in New York ends months of speculation in the Thompson case.
On Sports: a Tuvalu boxer who has never won a fight just won her country's first Commonwealth medal. And Happy Animals.
Happy Animals.
All of that this hour on KRAK 11 News, Fairmont's most-watched newscast in Wexler County.
Still ahead on The World Desk: the death toll may be incomplete, and relief efforts are being hampered by collapsed roads. That's next.
I've got it.
Got what.
The sign-off. Listen. 'That's the news, and that's the truth, and that's Chip Marlowe.'
No.
Why not.
Because you sound like a man selling tires.
ok, How about Thanks, thats news assholes!!
you are so dramatic.
If you could just help, that would be nice.
Sixty seconds.
Well.. thats news assholes!! We will go with that.
THE WORLD DESK
Welcome back to KRAK 11 News. I'm Chip Marlowe.
And I'm Deb Sarkissian. You're sitting forward again.
International coverage requires gravitas. Network anchors lean into the material.
Network anchors have back support.
New competition is coming to Europe's busiest rail corridor. A rival operator has received final approval to challenge Eurostar's monopoly on the London to Paris route, potentially bringing lower fares to millions of travelers.
The new operator, Evolyn, plans to begin service in late twenty twenty-six with base fares starting at thirty-nine euros. Current Eurostar tickets for the same route start at seventy-eight euros.
Eurostar absorbed its only competitor back in twenty fifteen, leaving travelers with no alternatives for cross-channel high-speed rail. The new service promises express times under two hours between the two capitals.
Two hours and sixteen minutes. Eurostar currently averages two hours and twenty-eight minutes.
Which rounds to two hours.
In central Africa tonight, the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has become the deadliest in that nation's history. The World Health Organization confirms four hundred and seven people have now died, surpassing the previous record of three hundred and fifteen deaths set in twenty eighteen.
This outbreak is also the fastest-growing on record. It's concentrated in the western provinces, where medical infrastructure has been severely strained.
Eastern provinces. The outbreak is in the eastern provinces, the same region affected in the twenty eighteen crisis.
I was referring to the infrastructure challenges across the country as a whole.
You said western provinces.
The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, which has a mortality rate of approximately fifty percent even with treatment. Medical teams report critical shortages of vaccines and protective equipment in rural areas where the virus has spread most rapidly.
The W-H-O says containment efforts are further complicated by limited road access to affected communities, particularly during the current rainy season.
To Britain now, where the chancellor of Cambridge University has publicly condemned what he called a racist feeding frenzy surrounding former professor Jason Arday, who was found dead last week amid plagiarism allegations.
Doctor Arday was one of Cambridge's youngest Black professors and taught sociology there until the allegations emerged earlier this year. The chancellor says media coverage of the controversy was disproportionate and racially motivated.
The university has not released details about the circumstances of Arday's death. British authorities have opened an investigation. Several academic organizations are now calling for independent review of how plagiarism allegations are handled at British universities.
And in eastern Europe, Ukrainian drone strikes killed six people in Russia's Belgorod region overnight, according to local officials. A fourteen-year-old was among four others injured in the attacks on residential areas near the Ukrainian border.
The acting governor of Belgorod says the strikes targeted civilian infrastructure. Russia has reported increased Ukrainian drone activity along its western border in recent weeks as Ukraine continues its counteroffensive operations.
Ukrainian military officials have not commented on the specific strikes, but have previously stated that attacks on Russian territory are aimed at disrupting supply lines and military installations supporting the invasion.
That's the World Desk. Still ahead on KRAK 11 News: Criminal Intent. A Wexler County man is facing charges after investigators say he impersonated a health inspector to get free meals at seventeen different restaurants.
He made it through seventeen before someone checked credentials.
The eighteenth restaurant called the county.
That's next.
Do you believe in prayer.
What.
Prayer. Manifestation. The power of positive thinking.
What did you do.
I sent an email.
To who.
The station owner.
What did it say.
It was meant for you.
Oh god.
Ya, it was late, I was drunk, what can I say.
CRIMINAL INTENT
Good evening. I'm Chip Marlowe.
And I'm Deb Sarkissian.
Gordo, the plaque is still behind the fire extinguisher and I would like it visible before we go to commercial.
We have crime news, Chip.
I'm aware. The plaque recognizes a decade of crime coverage and should be in frame during crime coverage.
A Wexler County man is facing seventeen counts of defrauding an innkeeper after what prosecutors are calling an ambitious and extremely specific crime spree.
Thirty-four-year-old Michael Denning of Wexler allegedly posed as a county health inspector at eighteen restaurants over a six-week period, accepting free meals at seventeen of them before being recognized at the eighteenth.
The eighteenth restaurant was owned by his former employer.
Police say Denning carried a clipboard, wore a polo shirt with a county logo he had printed himself, and critiqued kitchen practices while eating a complimentary meal. In every case, prosecutors allege, he ordered the most expensive item on the menu.
That detail is in the complaint.
The pattern, prosecutors say, suggests premeditation, which elevates the charge from misdemeanor theft of services to felony fraud in the second degree. This was not opportunistic. This was, allegedly, a business model.
Denning has pleaded not guilty. His attorney says he was conducting independent food safety research.
In New York, a twenty-six-year-old man has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the December shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel.
Luigi Mangione entered the plea this afternoon. Sentencing is scheduled for June.
Back here in Wexler County, a woman is facing charges after allegedly stealing fourteen packages from her own apartment building over a three-month period and then filing police reports claiming her own packages had been stolen.
Prosecutors allege she collected insurance payouts on packages she had already opened.
Building surveillance captured her removing packages from the lobby, entering her own unit, and then returning to the lobby fifteen minutes later to report the theft to the building manager. She did this on camera.
The complaint does not indicate whether she was aware the camera was there.
What it does indicate is a pattern of behavior that, if proven, would constitute wire fraud, insurance fraud, and filing fourteen false police reports. She has pleaded not guilty. Her attorney declined to comment.
And in Florida, a man who police say attempted to steal a marked sheriff's vehicle while the deputy was still inside it has been charged with carjacking, battery on a law enforcement officer, and what the state attorney is calling profound poor judgment.
That last charge does not exist.
No, it does not.
Still ahead, we have something genuinely uplifting coming your way. A dog in Spokane who knows the sound of her owner's engine from three blocks out, a sea turtle back in the Gulf after eight months of care, and a butterfly habitat right here in Fairmont that is already working.
Happy Animals is next.
I'm just saying, you have a wonderful smile.
Marguerite, I'm reporting a carjacking.
And you do it so well, but you look so serious.
Three people were held at gunpoint.
But they're fine now, aren't they.
Deb. Help me.
She's right. You do have a wonderful smile.
I'm hanging up.
Don't hang up, we were just getting started.
HAPPY ANIMALS
And now the Good News Desk.
I have been sitting forward for twenty-two minutes.
You have.
It conveys engagement with the material, and I will be maintaining it through this segment as well.
A barred owl named Howard has been released back into the wild after four months of rehabilitation at the Wexler County Wildlife Center.
Howard was found in January with a fractured wing after colliding with a truck on Route Forty-Two. He weighed one point one pounds when rescued and now weighs two point three pounds.
Two point three pounds.
That is a healthy owl, Deb. That is exactly the weight an owl should be when it goes home.
It is.
A Fairmont woman has been reunited with her dog after a three-week search that involved seventeen volunteers and a thermal camera.
Bruno, a seven-year-old beagle mix, disappeared from his yard on April sixth. He was found yesterday morning two miles from home, hiding under a collapsed shed.
Seventeen volunteers.
That is a community that shows up for a dog.
And a woman in Ohio has opened a sanctuary for elderly farm animals that have been retired from working farms across three counties.
Golden Years Farm currently houses fourteen animals including two horses, six goats, four sheep and two alpacas. The oldest resident is a horse named Chester who is thirty-one years old.
Thirty-one.
Chester has earned that retirement.
He has.
Still ahead, we have sports coverage you will not want to miss. That's next.
Take that off.
It's called distinguished.
It's called a sweater vest.
George Will wears a sweater vest.
George Will is eighty-three years old.
Exactly. Timeless.
You look like you teach at a community college.
I could teach at a community college.
Chip, you look like you're about to explain why I got a C-minus.
Well maybe if you'd turned in your assignments on time, Deb.
SPORTS
And we are back with the Krak 11 Scoreboard, brought to you by Fairmont Sporting Goods, where champions shop.
That is not our sponsor.
It could be our sponsor. I have been workshopping sponsorship language that conveys aspiration without alienating the casual viewer.
We do not have a sponsor for this segment.
Butler opens their season tomorrow night at Hinkle Fieldhouse against a Purdue team they have not beaten in regulation since two thousand twenty. Butler Bulldogs tip off at seven-thirty. Butler went nineteen and twelve last season, Purdue twenty-two and ten.
Friday night basketball in August.
The game was originally scheduled for November, then moved to January after the flooding concerns, and is now tomorrow due to facility availability.
Hinkle Fieldhouse had no water damage from last week's flooding.
Which is a credit to the drainage system installed in nineteen twenty-eight. That fieldhouse has survived nine decades of Indiana weather because someone built it properly the first time.
The drainage system was replaced in two thousand fourteen.
Based on the original design.
Fairmont's Emily Vasquez competes tomorrow afternoon in the four hundred meter hurdles at the Patriot Games in Lafayette. Vasquez is seeded third in a field of eight with a qualifying time of fifty-six point two seconds. Her personal best is fifty-five point eight.
If she runs her best time, she wins. That is what best means, Deb.
The field includes two runners with times under fifty-five seconds this season.
Then she will need to run faster than her best.
At the European Athletics Championships in Rome, Britain's Amy Hunt won four gold medals in seven days. Hunt took gold in the one hundred meters, the two hundred meters, the four by one hundred relay, and the four by four hundred relay.
Hunt ran anchor in the four by one hundred relay. Her team won in forty-one point seven seconds, a new championship record. Four events, four golds, undefeated across all distances.
She placed second in the two hundred meter semifinals.
And then won the final.
At the Commonwealth Games, Tuvalu boxer Tarona Taafaki has guaranteed her country's first medal in any sport after advancing to the semifinals. Taafaki's quarterfinal opponent withdrew due to injury.
Commonwealth boxing awards two bronze medals to semifinal losers. There is no bronze medal match, so advancing to the semifinals guarantees at minimum a bronze. That is Tuvalu's first medal in Commonwealth Games history.
Taafaki has not won a fight.
She has won a semifinal berth, which under Commonwealth rules guarantees a medal. The rulebook does not require victory, it requires advancement.
By walkover.
Which is in the rulebook, Deb, and medals do not have asterisks.
They do not.
Still ahead, the next KRAK 11 News at the top of the hour. We will have an update on the Wexler County budget vote, which was postponed twice this week and is now scheduled for Monday morning at eight a.m. in the county administration building.
That is a time when exactly four people will be in the building.
The county says the time was chosen to accommodate the comptroller's schedule.
The comptroller lives in Fairmont.
That's next.
Son of a bitch.
What is it now.
He's mad about all the bad reviews about the station.
Why would anyone leave a bad review.
It's because of the posts I made on TikTok.
What's Tac Tac.
It's an app for kids. But some adults get on there and make fools of themselves.
I see. So Gordo is a social media influencer now.
Reporting behind this episode
- Aid shortages and fears of starvation as Indonesia reels from deadly earthquake
- 'I shot Mr Thompson' - Inside the court as Mangione pleaded guilty
- Boxer lands country's first Commonwealth Games medal without winning a fight
- Aid shortages and fears of starvation as Indonesia reels from deadly earthquake
- Ukrainian strikes kill six in Russia, acting governor says
- In pictures: Hayden Panettiere's life and career, from child actor to Scream star
- Cambridge chancellor criticises 'racist feeding frenzy' around Jason Arday
- Ebola outbreak in DR Congo becomes deadliest in its history
- <a href='https://news.sky.com/story/money-live-consumer-personal-finance-tips-sky-news-latest-13040934?postid=12238484#liveblog-body'>Eurostar rival finally gets go ahead - could it mean cheaper ticke
- 'I shot Mr Thompson' - Inside the court as Mangione pleaded guilty
- UK facing most 'most changeable week' of weather since June
- Boxer lands country's first Commonwealth Games medal without winning a fight
- 'Are you not entertained?' Sprint sensation Amy Hunt on winning four gold medals in seven days
- 'Are you not entertained?' - Hunt enters stardom with iconic quadruple
- Cialis is an erectile dysfunction drug. Could it also help you live longer?
- Multiple people dead as flooding continues in Indiana
- Two dead and hundreds evacuated after twin fires break out on Greek island