WAMU 88.5 Contributors

Ashley Dejean

News Assistant

Dejean does a little bit of everything—from filing stories to keeping tabs on the latest local news. The youngest member of our news team got her radio chops interning for Houston Public Radio, where she won first place in the Texas AP Broadcasters Contest Best Feature-Light category. Dejean also interned at Washington City Paper and a local daily in Pune, India before coming to WAMU.


Articles Written by Ashley Dejean

WAMU 88.5
The American Civil Liberties Union is suing two MPD officers and the District of Columbia for stealing a smartphone memory card. The lawsuit alleges Earl Staley Jr.'s camera phone was confiscated by a police officer because he was taking pictures of another officer assaulting bystanders. Staley picked up his cell phone at a station house later that day, but got a sur...
WAMU 88.5
Benjamin Franklin's three-piece silk suit worn on a diplomatic mission to France in 1778 is joining the permanent collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.  Franklin wore the suit during a trip to France that resulted in the signi...
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Five bike lanes in Arlington County are getting an upgrade. Arlington county workers are painting segments of the bike lanes with a green friction coating. "Basically, the idea is to improve the visibility of the bike lanes so that when cars cross from one side of them to the other side... car drivers remember to look for bicyclists," says Dan Malouff, a transportation planner...
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Artist Aniekan Udofia and his apprentices spent the weekend painting a mural on a wall at Ben's Chili Bowl. It depicts some of restaurant's most famous patrons: Bill Cosby, Barack Obama, Donnie Simpson, and Chuck Brown. "Because Bill Cosby is the only finished portrait right now, people have been commenting on that," he says. "They are like 'wow, it looks like he's about to st...
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The small community of Altavista in Virginia is coming together to honor a fallen marine, and give his family a hand. Staff Sgt. Gregory Copes died last week in Afghanistan. The 36-year-old marine leaves behind his wife and four young kids; the oldest is only six years old. "There's going to be a lot of expenses down the road, and I'm sure they're going to need some a...
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Staff Sgt. Gregory Copes died last week in Afghanistan. The 36-year-old marine leaves behind his wife and four young kids... the oldest is only six. Rob Finch is arranging the funeral, but wanted to do something more to help the family. "There's going to be a lot of expenses down the road, and I'm sure they're going to need assistance," he says. "Ever how little...
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The University of Maryland is partnering with the University of Delaware to teach eighth through 12th grade students about climate change. The National Science Foundation is awarding the two universities $5.8 million to work together on the project. "We have a partnership to work with our scientists, with our educators throughout our states, to bring the best scientific unders...
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Public housing residents in Prince George's County will soon be banned from smoking in communal spaces at their residences under a bill passed this summer. Prince George's County Council member Obie Patterson introduced the bill after visiting public housing facilities in his district. "I noticed that there were some there that had severe respiratory problems," he says. "And a...
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A second West Nile Virus case has been reported in Maryland, just outside of the Washington, D.C. area, according to Kimberly Mitchell, Chief of Rabies and Vector Born Diseases at the state's health department. "It is a 70-year-old patient who was diagnosed with West Nile Encephalitis," she says. "The encephalitis is a more severe form of the disease. Usually about one in ...
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Virginians contributed approximately 40 times more to conservative Super PACs than to liberal ones in the first six months of 2012, numbers released by the Virginia Public Access Project show. Residents of the commonwealth gave a little more than $4 million to Super PACs, according to the VPAP data rele...
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Local environmentalists want two coal power plants in Maryland to shut down. "The Crane and Wagner plants are severally outdated and incredibly inefficient pollution machines in Maryland," says Christine Hill, with the Maryland Sierra Club. "They really do need to be retired and replaced with 21st century clean energy solutions that create home-grown jobs." The Herbert A. Wagn...
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Fairfax County police say they are getting reports that more children, some as young as 2, may have been molested at their own home day care center. Elwood "Louie" Thomas is currently free on a $5,000 bond after arraignment on two counts of aggravated sexual battery, according to the Associated Press. Thomas is accused of fondling a young girl when she was 11 and 12. T...
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Maryland and Virginia are among the nation's top 20 power plant polluters, according to new rankings from the Natural Resources Defense Council.  Virginia ranks 12th on the environmental group's ...
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A two-story duplex fire in Capitol Heights Wednesday killed a 5-year-old girl and her 15-year-old uncle, leaving only the 24-year-old father alive and in critical condition. The fire was a result of an overloaded electrical unit and has been ruled as an accident. It began in the first-floor living room just inside the house's front door, according to the Prince George's Count...
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A 25-year-old man who allegedly sexually assaulted a six-year-old girl earlier this week has been arrested, thanks in large part to an alert Prince George's County police officer. Police say Charles Amofa lured the young girl out of a thrift store in Hyattsville, Md., saying he wanted to show her a toy. Amofa then took the girl to a playground nearby and sexually assaulted her...
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A small but dedicated group of people is working to save a decades-old mural in Adams Morgan. Through the lines and patches of cement, you can barely make out the image of the vibrant Latino community of 1977 depicted in a billboard-sized mural painted on the side of the Kogibow Bakery. The splotches covering the artwork called "A People Without Murals is a Demuralized...