WAMU 88.5 Contributors

Martin Austermuhle

Web Producer

Austermuhle joined WAMU as a web producer and reporter in April 2013. Prior to that, he served as editor-in-chief for DCist.com. Born in Switzerland, Martin lived throughout Latin America before coming to the U.S. to attend Penn State University and later Georgetown University, where he received a Master’s degree in Latin American Studies. He lives in Columbia Heights with his wife Carolina, a school teacher, and 105-pound yellow lab, Santi.


Articles Written by Martin Austermuhle

WAMU 88.5
The Metropolitan Police Department says that it was forced to use an undercover officer to infiltrate a labor rights group after a uniformed officer was assaulted at an anti-sweatshop protest outside a Gap clothing store. The claim was made in a court filing responding to a ...
WAMU 88.5
City Average Years Between Accidents Relative Accident Likelihood (to National Average) 2013 Best Driver Rank (out of 195) Washington, D.C. 4.8 109.3% 195 Baltimore, Md. 5.4 86.1% 194...
WAMU 88.5
Do you think D.C. should be considered for the 2024 Olympic Games? Washington, D.C. has played host to many a large sporting events, but this could be t...
WAMU 88.5
Last Wednesday Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) had a somewhat unconventional breakfast: beer. But the sudsy start to his morning had a larger point, as Warner used a tour of Richmond's Harwood Park Craft Brewery to announce that he was throwing his weight behind a bill that would grant tax breaks to small breweries across the country. Introduced in the Senate by Sen. Benjamin Cardi...
WAMU 88.5
A break-in was reported at the new Dunbar High School in Northwest D.C. over the weekend. According to police, an unknown number of suspects gained entry to a first-floor classroom by smashing a window around 11:04 p.m. on Saturday. Three Dell laptops were stolen. Police are currently reviewing footage from surveillance cameras, according to department spokesman Araz Alali....
WAMU 88.5
It's the pitter patter of panda cub paws! Mei Xiang, the National Zoo's giant panda, gave birth to a cub at 5:32 p.m. on Friday. According to the National Zoo, Mei Xiang's water broke and she went into labor on Friday afternoon, a process that was expected to take up to 10 hours. But less than two hours later, a cub was born. Mei Xiang promptly cradled the cub, which began "...
WAMU 88.5
Some people love it and some people hate it, and now D.C. is starting the long process of renovating the historic Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library. D.C. officials today put out a request for architects to submit plans for a renovation of the city's central library, which sits inside a four-decade-old Mies van der Rohe-designed building in Gallery Place. According to ...
WAMU 88.5
The latest Quinnnipiac University poll shows Democratic contender Terry McAuliffe with a six percentage point lead over Republican Ken Cuccinelli in the race for governor in Virginia. The former DNC chairman leads the state's attorney general 48-42 percent th...
WAMU 88.5
D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and alumni from historic Paul Laurence Dunbar High School gathered on Monday to celebrate the new Dunbar High—a $122-million-dollar building that draws upon the school's history to inspire students. "Breathtaking. Refreshing." Those are the words Brandi Joyner uses to describe the new Dunbar High School. She should know—she graduated in 2002 from t...
WAMU 88.5
Closed School Student Re-Enrollment Marshall ES 31% Spingarn HS 31% Ferebee Hope ES 33% Ron Brown MS 39% Average...
WAMU 88.5
Over 4,000 of D.C.'s 6,500 taxicabs have applied for a 30-day extension on the requirement that they accept credit cards by Sept. 1, again delaying the rollout of the long-awaited and much-demanded payment option. The deadline to apply for an extension to the city mandate was Thursday at midnight. To qualify for the extension, approved payment service providers (PSPs)—the ...
WAMU 88.5
More and more school districts across the country are opening public schools earlier after the summer break, but Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot says that the state should consider going in the opposite direction. In a ...
WAMU 88.5
Excessive drinking has both personal and societal costs, and nowhere are those costs higher than in D.C. A new study finds that the excessive consumption of alcohol in D.C. in 2006 incurred individual and governmental costs of $966 million, or $2.35 per drink and $1,662 per resident. That put D.C. far ab...
WAMU 88.5
Only weeks after a woman gave birth to a healthy boy on the platform of the L'Enfant Metro Station, this morning a woman gave birth to a baby on I-270 south of Germantown. The baby girl was born on the side of the busy interstate just south of Exit 15 during the busy morning commute. Both mother and child were reported to be doing well and were transported to a local hospita...
WAMU 88.5
There's little better in life than a glass of fine wine, and for oenophiles, D.C. and Virginia are great places to be. Maryland, less so. A report from the American Wine Consumer Coalition puts both D.C. and Virginia at the top of its list in terms of how easily wine-lovers can p...
WAMU 88.5
Two D.C. ambulances caught fire Tuesday in a bad day for the city's emergency responders. The International Association of Firefighters Local 36, the union that represents D.C. firefighters, tweeted out images of the Ambulance 27 partially engulfed in flames as it responded to a call on Benning Road SE on Tuesd...
WAMU 88.5
The National Park Service is proposing a plan to reduce the white-tailed deer population in three national battlefield parks around Washington—by potentially shooting them. In a draft plan, the service says that it hopes to include the use of sharpshooters as part of an initiative to control the deer population at the Maryland battlefields of Antietam and Monocacy and the ...
WAMU 88.5
Only presidents and their families can live at the White House, but what if the iconic home were put on the market? The White House features 16 bedrooms, 35 bathrooms and 55,000 square feet of space, not to mention beautifully manicured lawns, a bowling alley and even a bunker. All those amenities would cost you, though. According to real estate website Zillow.com...
WAMU 88.5
An anti-sweatshop group has filed a lawsuit against the Metropolitan Police Department, accusing it of sending an undercover officer to infiltrate and monitor peaceful protests. According to the lawsuit, the undercover D.C. police officer, who went by the name Missy, took part in multiple peaceful protests organized by United Students Against Sweatshops from March to June. M...
WAMU 88.5
Last week on The Politics Hour Mayor Vince Gray again said that he hadn't yet decided if he was going to run for re-election, but if he did, he'd have an advantage he didn't have in 2010: he's now the incumbent. According to a new poll on the 2014 D.C. mayoral contest, that incumbency certain...