This week on the channel +2.5M views this week

A Siberian lab plague, explained twice by American University's David Malet

The international security expert, who remembers the Capitol anthrax scare, sat down with FOX 5 DC for two separate interviews on the Russian case.

Channel:

FOX 5 Washington DCStory of October 6, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The channel's weekly summary: what went up this week, what is drawing views now, and where the channel stands among similar channels.

International security expert explains patterns that led to Russia plague incident

FOX 5 DC posted 15 uploads over the week, and the Washington station's Monday was its busiest stretch. Of the day's videos, the ones gathering views fastest were not local at all. They were two conversations with David Malet, an international security expert and professor at American University, about the deadly plague exposure at a laboratory in Siberia.

The two cuts take different angles. One asks why countries grow plagues in the first place and walks through the patterns Malet sees behind incidents like this one. The other, titled with his line that Russia made it more dangerous, starts from his own memory of the anthrax scare at the Capitol. For a viewer in the Washington area, that is a familiar reference point: in 2001, letters carrying anthrax spores reached Senate offices on Capitol Hill.

The week's most watched new upload was closer to home and much harder to watch. A 17-year-old girl from Hyattsville was killed in a double shooting in the District, and the station's report drew the most viewers of anything it posted. Monday also brought a search for the driver in a fatal hit-and-run in Fairfax County, the start of jury selection in a Northern Virginia murder trial and a live feed of the president's trip to Nebraska.

Views ran well below the channel's usual pace, at roughly a quarter of a normal day. Among the local stations close to it in size, FOX 5 DC sat near the bottom of the group in views this week. WUSA9, its neighbor in the Washington market, was also quieter than usual, while FOX 26 Houston had a big week, close to three times its usual daily views.

Published on Trari