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
Mayor Vince Gray isn't only undecided on the fate of a bill that would force Walmart and other large retailers to pay a living wage of $12.50 an hour, but he's also noncommittal on whether or not the city's minimum wage should be increased at all. "Whatever wages are going to be you're always going to have complaints, and where I see it you're going to have to balance those ...
WAMU 88.5
Students at C.W. Harris Elementary School in Ward 7 recently posted some impressive gains in standardized tests, showing improvements in math proficiency of 11.9 percent and reading proficiency of 13.1 percent. The school isn't an outlier, though: Malcolm X Elementary School in Ward 8 reached 13.1 percent in math and 20.2 percent in reading, and Nalle Elementary School in Wa...
WAMU 88.5
An infant at L'Enfant! Metro Transit Police tweeted out this morning that a baby was safely delivered on the platform of the L'Enfant Metro station. Metro officials say that mother and child—it's a boy!—are healthy and have been transported to a local hospital. According to a Metro spokesman, 23-year-old mother Shavonnte Taylor went into labor on a Greenbelt-bound ...
WAMU 88.5
Council member Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) is leading the D.C. mayoral money race, laying claim to $465,272.30 in campaign contributions from May through the end of July. According to campaign finance reports, Bowser's campaign has been frugal, spending only $40,317.05 in that time, leaving her with $424,955.25 for the march towards the ...
WAMU 88.5
It only took 5,382 days—just shy of 15 years—but medical marijuana is finally on sale in the District. On Monday afternoon the first legal sale of medical marijuana in the city took place since D.C. voters approved an initiative in 1998 legalizing the drug's use for medicinal purposes. D.C. joins eighteen states in allowing patients suffering from certain conditions to u...
WAMU 88.5
The District already has 50 red light cameras and more than 100 speeding cameras, all of which mean big money for the city’s treasury. But in a letter to D.C. legislators on Monday, the D.C. Bicycle Advisory Council and the Pedestrian Advisory Council said that the cameras have made ...
WAMU 88.5
There were cheers of support when D.C. Mayor Vince Gray announced a deal for a $300 million D.C. United stadium this week. But some legislators are warning that it's not a done deal. The devil is in the details, they say. And when it comes to the deal that Gray has negotiated with D.C. United, there are plenty of devils hiding in the 17-page agreement that he signed with team ...
WAMU 88.5
A former campaign aide to D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray has been sentenced for his role in the troubled 2010 mayoral campaign. Thomas Gore pleaded guilty last year to illicitly funneling money to a minor mayoral candidate and then destroying evidence of the payments. The money went to Sulaimon Brown, who regularly attacked then-Mayor Adrian Fenty on the campaign trail....
WAMU 88.5
It's that time of year again: the National Zoo's panda may—or may not be—pregnant. The zoo announced today that Mei Xiang's urinary progesterone has spiked since mid-July, indicating that she may just give birth to another panda cub within the next 40 to 55 days. Or not. Panda procreation is a surprisingly complex science, and many pandas experience pseudopregn...
WAMU 88.5
No one denies that Washington’s skyline is iconic: from most places in town, you can see the Washington Monument or U.S. Capitol. That’s thanks to a 100-year-old law that limits building heights, keeping them to between 90 and 160 feet, depending on the part of town. But Washington's population is also growing, and local officials say the congressionally imposed height r...
WAMU 88.5
D.C. Mayor Vince Gray today announced an agreement with professional soccer team D.C. United to help build a 20,000-seat, $300 million stadium at Buzzard Point in Southwest D.C. As part of the plan, D.C. would put $150 million worth of land and infrastructure improvements towards the project, with the team's ownership picking up the tab for the building the new stadium, whic...
WAMU 88.5
A federal panel is kicking off a second round of public hearings Wednesday on whether to allow buildings in the District to grow taller. Under a law dating back to the early 1900s, buildings in D.C. can't grow beyond 160 feet — roughly 15 stories. But now the National Capital Planning Commission and D.C.'s Office of Planning are exploring just how the city would change if th...
WAMU 88.5
Virginia's gubernatorial contenders have spent plenty of time sniping at each other on the campaign trail, but this weekend they'll get a first shot to snipe at each in person. Republican contender Ken Cuccinelli and Democratic hopeful Terry McAuliffe will take part in a 90-minute debate on Saturday hosted by the Virginia Bar Association and the PBS Newshour. The debate will b...
WAMU 88.5
Six large retailers, including Target, Home Depot and Macy's have written a letter to Mayor Vince Gray urging him to veto a bill that would force certain big box retailers to pay employees a living wage. The letter says with the passage of the bill, which the D.C. Council approved on an 8-5 vote, any future plans for retail expansion would be revisited. After the ...
WAMU 88.5
Temperatures in the region are expected to jump to the mid-90s in the next three days, and with humidity factored in, it'll feel like an oppressive 100 degrees. During heat waves like these, the appliance that helps many keep their cool is the air conditioner. The cooling technology has certainly made life in the region more bearable. In the 1930s and 40s, after all, D.C. d...
WAMU 88.5
The Libertarian activist arrested after loading a shotgun in a D.C. plaza during an Independence Day protest has been granted a $5,000 bond. Adam Kokesh, who was arrested at his Herndon home last week and kept incarcerated after he refused to answer questions posed by a judge, was granted provisional release this morning. As part of his release, Kokesh will not be able to po...
WAMU 88.5
D.C. officials are abandoning a plan to scrap parking minimums in new developments located near Metro stops. As part of an ongoing rewrite of the city's 55-year-old zoning code, Harriet Tregoning, the director of the Office of Planning, initially proposed doin...
WAMU 88.5
The D.C. Council's living wage bill was the story of the week, but there are still a couple of hurdles before it can become a law. On Wednesday the Council voted to approve a bill that would require that certain big box retailers pay employees a living wage of $12.50 an hour. After the vote, Walmart, a target of the bill, axed three of its six planned stores for D.C. ...
WAMU 88.5
A report published Friday by the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs says that arrests in the nation's capital have disproportionately targeted African Americans. The report found that that between 2009 and 2011 African Americ...
WAMU 88.5
What's D.C. statehood worth? That question was at the heart of a D.C. Council hearing today on a bill that would put $1.1 million annually towards the fight to make D.C. the union's 51st state. Currently, the city's three-person shadow delegation—one representative and two senators charged with fighting for the 51st star—toil in relative anonymity, working with no staff ...