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Day Labor Dispute in Herndon

There are over a dozen sites in the Washington area where day laborers gather and wait for work. The sites are informal, unregulated and sometimes chaotic. Groups of men, mostly recent immigrants - some of them undocumented - crowd outside corner stores and other pick-up spots, and wait for prospective bosses to drive up and offer one-time stints doing landscape or other manual work. When a driver pulls in with a job offer, the men will often surround the car, competing for attention. Sometimes, they spill out into areas beyond the pick-up spots, huddling in groups on the curb in front of local businesses - and spurring complaints from business owners and residents.

In Herndon, Virginia, a community group wants to bring some order to the transaction between day laborers and the residents and businesses that use them. And there’s a proposal to move the immigrant workers to an official site, with some supervision. But the idea is generating a lot of controversy. WAMU’s Sarah Hughes reports.

Undocumented College Kids

Today, it's part FOUR in our WAMU “Youth Voices” series, where we hand the mike over to DC high school students and play back the results.

A report by the Pew Hispanic Center released in March estimates there are now more than ten million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. Every year, about 65-thousand of them graduate from high school. Youth Voices reporter Yimy Sanchez knows several of those students personally, and is fascinated by how enthusiastically some of them pursue a college education in America… even when there’s no guarantee it will change their legal status. The students’ names in this story have all been changed.

Our Youth Voices pieces are produced by WAMU's Sidsel Overgaard.

Lights, Camera... Ticket

WAMU Senior Commentator Fred Fiske weighs in on red light cameras... and the many surveillance cameras that have found their ways into our everyday lives.

The American University Museum at the New Katzen Arts Center

This month marks the official opening of American University’s massive new Katzen Arts Center. The building houses classrooms, performance spaces, and a three-story museum and sculpture garden. For such an attention-grabbing structure, the first art exhibit at the museum has an understated name - “Soft Openings.” I spoke with Jack Rasmussen, Director and Curator of the American University Museum at the Katzen. He said the challenge for this first exhibit was for the artists to come up with ways to make the best use of the gallery’s unique curving spaces.

Remembering One of DC's Most Influential Architects

Pierre L'Enfant is credited with planning the physical layout of Washington... but German architecht Adolf Cluss is responsible for more of what you see when you're walking around. Cluss designed more than 70 buildings in the nation's capitol between 1863 and his death on July 23rd, 1905 - - including Eastern Market, the Arts and Industry Building, and a significant revision to the Smithsonian Castle on the Mall. Now, 100 years after his death, a series of events are planned to commemorate his life and work, starting this Saturday, July 23rd, at Eastern Market. (Events begin at 10am.) WAMU’s Jack Zahora spoke with historian Joseph Brown at the market.

The Stereofernic Orchidstra

Plants may be known for their visual beauty, but they’re not typically known for the SOUNDS they make… or their musical compositions. Back in 1974 a physics student from American University made some recordings under the name the Stereofernic Orchidstra at the U.S. Botanic Garden… the idea was for a choir of plants to trigger sounds on a synthesizer. Writer Jeff Bagato joins us to help explain the 'plant choir.'

Praise for the 'Nats

It’s this time of year where we usually expect another one of those whiny “oh, there’s nothing to do in Washington in July and August” pieces from Commentator (and sports enthusiast) Jim Helein. But not this year. This year Jim has something to do almost every day of the week during the dog days of summer. That’s follow his beloved hometown ball club: The Washington Nationals.