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 people have spoken, and the Washington National Cathedral is walking away with a $100,000 historic preservation grant from American Express. Partners in Preservation, a joint project launched in 1996 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the credit card company, announced today that the cathedral attracted more votes...
WAMU 88.5
The D.C. public school bureacracy can be intimidating for any parent to face down, but now the D.C. Council is moving to create an advocate for parents and students within the system itself. As part of the broader education budget for the coming fiscal year, today a D.C. Council committee voted to fund the Office of the Ombudsman for Public Education, a position created by the...
WAMU 88.5
It sounds almost impossible, but news from Texas this week proves otherwise—making a functional gun using little more than a 3D printer is a reality. And though the technology is still expensive and not widely available, one legislator wants to make sure that D.C. r...
WAMU 88.5
The D.C. Council today gave initial approval to a bill that would crack down on endemic truancy in D.C. public schools.  Under the provisions of the bill, which was introduced by Council member David Catania (I-At Large), a parent of a student with 10 unexcused absences would receive a letter from the Metropolitan Police Department informing them of potential penalties fo...
WAMU 88.5
Carrying a gun—whether openly or concealed—is currently illegal in D.C. But that fact alone isn't stopping one gun rights activist from organizing a protest in the city in which participants will be encouraged to openly display their guns. Talk radio host and Iraq war veteran Adam Kokesh is using social media...
WAMU 88.5
Twenty-four historic sites in D.C., Maryland and Virginia are vying for $1 million in preservation grants—and the winner will be decided by popular opinion. American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation have come together for Partners in Preservation, a contest that will dole out $1 million in grants to the sites...
WAMU 88.5
Ron Linton, the chairman of the D.C. Taxicab Commission, said today on WAMU 88.5 FM's The Politics Hour that riders of the city's taxicabs will be able to pay their fares with credit cards by September. "On June 1 the installation of these, what we call the modern taxi mete...
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In the 1980s, there was your brain, and there was your brain on drugs. Now, it's zombies that are being used to scare kids off of drugs. Yesterday the D.C. Department of Health launched a new ad campaign aimed at encouraging D.C. teens to avoid synthetic marijuana, a pop...
WAMU 88.5
Union Station's Columbus Plaza has never been particularly friendly for pedestrians, but an 18-month project completed yesterday offers additional safety measures for walkers and improves traffic flow around the circle in front of Washington's iconic train station.  The $10.8 million project, which was funded in part by the federal government, features a redesigned traffi...
WAMU 88.5
On Thursday Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley signed a bill passed earlier this year by the General Assembly that does away with capital punishment in the state. With his signature, Maryland becomes the sixth state in as many years to repeal the death penalty, and once the legislation takes effect in October, 18 states across the nation will have opted out of its use. "With th...
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The National Park Service announced today that it had donated 600 pounds of venison to the D.C. Central Kitchen. This isn't just any venison, though—it comes from 20 deer that were killed by the service in late March as part of a three-year plan to cut down on the number o...
WAMU 88.5
Hawaii may be 5,000 miles away from D.C., but it supports the city's ongoing struggle to gain voting representation in Congress. On Friday, the Hawaii State Senate passed a resolution expressing its support for a constitutional amendment that would grant full voting rights to D.C. residents. This isn't the first time that the Aloha State has sided with D.C. on the issue — Go...
WAMU 88.5
After months of waiting and a slate of proposals that drew from across the color spectrum, the D.C. Taxicab Commission has unveiled renderings of what it wants the city's taxicabs of the future to look like: red with a grey stripe. As part of a taxicab modernization bill passed by the D.C. Council last year, all of the city's roughly 6,500 cabs will eventually have to adopt a ...
WAMU 88.5
The last time a streetcar ran in D.C. was 1962, but today city officials welcomed them back. Mayor Vincent Gray and officials from the D.C. Department of Transportation gathered this morning at a facility in Anacostia, where three of D.C.'s new streetcars are being delivered this week for testing ahead of a formal rollout on H Street NE later this year. Over the next two month...
WAMU 88.5
A group of D.C. legislators introduced a bill today that would push back the date of the city's 2014 primary, moving it from April 1 to mid-June. Citing concerns over the eight-month lag between the primary and November general election and the schedule candidates have to abide by in order to qualify for the April ballot, D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson and Council member Ke...