Belgian car salesman becomes prince after royal parentage confirmed
Belgian car salesman becomes prince after royal parentage confirmed. The KRAK 11 News hour: The World Desk, Criminal Intent, Animals, A Quick Look At Sports. Real stories from named sources, read by Chip Marlowe and Deb Sarkissian.
Aired 2026-08-20 12:49 UTC · 5 segments · 8 min · complete transcript below
Rundown
KRAK 11 NEWS
Good evening. I'm Chip Marlowe.
And I'm Deb Sarkissian. This is KRAK 11 News at the top of the hour.
Coming up this hour on KRAK 11 — The World Desk, where a former Liberian vice-president has been arrested at the airport on drug-trafficking charges.
Criminal Intent, where a nurse who was impaled on a hiking pole walked ten miles for help. Animals, where a bobcat in Colorado is now stopping traffic one car at a time.
And A Quick Look at Sports, where a Scottish minister is defending forty-five thousand pounds in business-class flights to the World Cup.
That is quite a lot of World Cup for forty-five thousand pounds.
Still ahead in a few minutes — The World Desk, where we will tell you who was arrested, what the charges are, and why it happened at the airport.
That is next on KRAK 11 News.
THE WORLD DESK
The World Desk.
Good evening from the World Desk. We have four stories for you tonight, starting with a very unusual royal announcement in Belgium.
Used car salesman to prince. That is not a sentence you hear every day.
It is not. And yet that is precisely what happened.
We begin tonight in Belgium, where a used car salesman from a town outside Brussels has been formally recognized as the son of a member of the royal family.
Clément Vandenkerckhove is thirty-two years old. He was quietly brought into Prince Laurent's family at a town hall ceremony earlier this month, making him a prince of Belgium.
This is in Brussels?
Outside Brussels. In Flanders.
The Belgian capital.
Brussels is the capital. Flanders is the region.
That is what I said.
The recognition was done privately. No palace announcement, no photographers. Just the paperwork and a ceremony at the town hall.
And he goes from selling Peugeots to being addressed as Your Highness.
That is exactly what happened. He still works at the dealership as far as anyone knows.
Good for him.
In the United Kingdom, the prime minister has said that security arrangements for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are a private matter and he will not be commenting further.
The statement comes after reports that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are planning to return to the UK on a more permanent basis. The Prime Minister wished them well but declined to discuss what level of protection they would receive.
They are coming back from where?
California. They have been living in Montecito since twenty-twenty.
Near Los Angeles.
Near Santa Barbara. About ninety miles north.
Southern California.
Yes.
In the United Kingdom, work has begun to remove carriages from a train that derailed near Lewes in East Sussex earlier this week. Investigators are examining the track and trying to determine what caused the derailment.
No serious injuries were reported. Service on that line is expected to remain suspended through the weekend while the track is inspected and repaired.
Lewes is south of London.
It is. On the southern coast.
Near the White Cliffs.
Those are at Dover. About forty miles east.
Same general area.
And in the Middle East, the United Kingdom's foreign secretary has condemned Israel's announcement that it is opening tenders for a construction project in a West Bank settlement east of Jerusalem.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy called the move an unacceptable and destructive act. The project has been a source of international controversy for more than two decades.
No timeline yet on when construction might begin.
No. The tender process is just opening now.
You have been doing this longer than I have.
Nine months longer.
Do you ever get a country wrong?
No.
I think you look them up ahead of time.
I do not need to.
Still ahead on KRAK 11 News, Criminal Intent. A case that went cold in nineteen eighty-seven, and the detective who never stopped working it.
That is in a few minutes.
CRIMINAL INTENT
Time now for Criminal Intent.
We begin tonight with our Florida Man Tribute, and I am pleased to report this is number sixteen in sixteen weeks. The whiteboard has been updated.
Still in green marker.
Still in green marker. Back in June of last year, a Florida man paid three hundred dollars to an employee at a Pinellas County club for what he believed would be services of a personal nature.
The employee did not provide the services. Security asked him to leave. And the suspect then called nine-one-one to report that the club had, quote, taken his money.
Deputies charged him with solicitation after he explained the situation to them in detail.
In detail.
Back in April of this year, a person of interest was recorded on surveillance video walking through a Rhode Island town at two in the morning dressed in a white robe and pointed hood resembling a Ku Klux Klan member.
Police said they identified the individual but have not released charges. The investigation is ongoing.
Back in May of this year, a fifty-six-year-old woman was killed at a South Carolina lakeside restaurant when a microburst dislodged a patio umbrella. She was dining with family at Lake Marion.
Authorities said the umbrella became airborne during what they described as a sudden, violent wind event. No charges were filed.
And back in July of this year, a wound care clinic nurse in Florida was impaled by a metal pole during a hike. She then walked ten miles to the trailhead for help.
She was treated at a hospital and survived. She described it as, quote, a freak thing.
A freak thing that she walked off.
For ten miles.
With a pole.
Coming up in a few minutes on KRAK Eleven News, a story from the animal countdown that involves traffic control, a mountain road, and a creature Chip now calls a professional.
Better than most flaggers.
We will be right back.
ANIMALS
Time now for the Good News Desk.
You have been in a good mood all afternoon.
The turtle made it home, Deb. Five thousand miles.
We should probably tell people what turtle.
Researchers in Scotland have recorded what they believe is the first sighting of a Scottish wildcat swimming in open water.
A wildlife camera team working on a conservation project in the Scottish Highlands captured the animal crossing approximately fifteen meters of open water.
Scottish wildcats are among the rarest mammals in Britain. Fewer than three hundred remain in the wild.
An endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle has completed a five-thousand-mile journey from Wales back to the Texas coast, where it was originally tagged and released.
The turtle was found cold-stunned on a Welsh beach in February, treated at a marine rescue center, and released in May. It swam the Atlantic and reached Galveston last week.
That is five thousand miles.
In open ocean.
A video asking what could have frightened Steve Irwin has been shared more than two million times in the last forty-eight hours. The answer is a cassowary, a flightless bird native to northern Australia and New Guinea.
Irwin said on camera that the cassowary was the one animal that genuinely unnerved him. It stands six feet tall, weighs up to a hundred and thirty pounds, and has claws that can kill.
A man who wrestled crocodiles for a living was afraid of a bird.
A very large bird.
Still ahead on KRAK 11 News, a pitcher throws a no-hitter in his final game before retirement, and a very unusual reason a college basketball team forfeited a playoff game. A Quick Look at Sports is next.
A QUICK LOOK AT SPORTS
A quick look at sports.
You have been waiting for this segment all hour.
The news does not sleep, Deb. But it does occasionally check a scoreboard.
Ohio State beats Michigan thirty-one to twenty-four in a game that came down to the final two minutes. The Buckeyes are four and oh.
The Cubs beat the White Sox two to one on a walk-off single by Pete Crow-Armstrong in the ninth. First Crosstown Classic sweep in eleven years.
That is a walk-off with history attached to it.
Aryna Sabalenka wins the US Open, beating Jessica Pegula seven-five, seven-five. Her third Grand Slam title.
Still ahead - the next KRAK 11 News at the top of the hour. We will see you then.
Reporting behind this episode
- Train derailment carriages moved amid track probe
- Belgian car salesman becomes prince after royal parentage confirmed
- Tenders open for highly-sensitive West Bank settlement project, Israel announces
- Harry and Meghan's security arrangements a private matter, PM says
- Nurse impaled by pole during hike forced to trek 10 miles for help: 'A freak thing'
- Person dressed like KKK member recorded walking through Rhode Island town at 2 a.m.
- Woman killed by flying restaurant umbrella in freak accident at South Carolina lakeside restaurant
- Man tries to pay for sex at Florida club, calls 911 to complain about not receiving 'services:' PCSO