Deaf News Today

‘Silent restaurant’ opens in Beijing
Deaf News Today The Forgive Barbecue in Beijing, is, according to one of the employees, "A bridge to connect hearing-impaired people with other people." The entire staff is deaf. Read more in the Inquisitor here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Sat, Dec 08 2018

Getting to Know.. Dr House
Deaf News Today It was on this date (Dec. 7, 2012) that Dr. William F. House died in Oregon at the age of 89. Dr. House is credited with installing the first cochlear implant in 1961. He was told by experts the electric current he was using would destroy the ear, but that didn't stop him. He believed in what implants could do to change someone's life. Here's a little about him. Know...
Fri, Dec 07 2018

Looking Back... Kitty O'Neil
Deaf News Today It was on this day (Dec. 6) in 1976 that professional stuntwoman Kitty O'Neil set a record for land speed by a female driver. It was in Oregon's Alvord Desert that Kitty hit 512 miles per hour.Childhood diseases left her deaf and nearly killed her. She became a champion diver at a young age. Her work later as a Hollywood stuntwoman was featured in TV shows like Quinc...
Thu, Dec 06 2018

Brewery wants to make great beer — and serve the deaf...
Deaf News Today Three Gallaudet University graduates opened a brewery this fall in a DC suburb just 4 miles from the school. Streetcar 82 in Hyattsville, Maryland gives "the deaf and hard of hearing a place to work and unwind." The Washington Post offers a profile here. Below is a video telling how they came up with the name. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Thu, Dec 06 2018

Nursing Home Must Pay for Hanging up on Deaf Woman
Deaf News Today New Jersey state officials are fining a nursing home $2500 after a worker repeatedly hung up on a deaf social worker. Nicole Perkins needed to discuss a client with Atrium Post Acute Care in Wayne, New Jersey. Attorney General Gurbir Grewal released a statement saying: photo from Atrium Post Acute Care  This case should serve as a message to healthcare faciliti...
Thu, Dec 06 2018

Deaf HS Football Player in LA
Deaf News Today A Los Angeles high school football player says being deaf hasn't held him back from contributing to his team. Desis Gonzales Jr. plays for San Gorgonio High School and NBC-4 has more on his story in this video report. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Mon, Dec 03 2018

Wearable Tech to Listen to Live Music
Deaf News Today A company called Not Impossible Labs says it has come up with a new wearable technology that "allows deaf and hearing users alike to experience musical vibrations through their skin for a true 'surround body' experience." The tech is called Music: Not Impossible and it works directly with a sound system. Read more details here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Sun, Dec 02 2018

Deaf students struggle with getting last minute interpreters
Deaf News Today Students at one Texas school are having problems getting interpreters when they need them. The student paper at the University of Texas at Austin quotes a communication sciences and disorders major as saying, “A few weeks ago, my professor made last-minute office hours. On the same day, he said the review session would be moved back an hour. I can’t do anything ab...
Sat, Dec 01 2018

Happy Birthday, Linda the Librarian!
Deaf News Today Linda Bove was born on this day (Nov 30) in 1945. She’s remembered as the deaf lady on Sesame Street. Bove was a regular on the show from 1971 to 2003 as Linda the Librarian, introducing thousands of children to sign language and deaf community issues. In 1991, she and her husband founded DeafWest, a resident sign-language theater in Los Angeles which has produced s...
Fri, Nov 30 2018

The Hoops Coach and his Viral ASL Video
Deaf News Today A viral video of the basketball team for the Mississippi School for the Deaf has become an educational moment for those who don't know ASL. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Fri, Nov 30 2018

10 years ago today
Deaf News Today On November 25, 2008, the man who wrote a famous play about Helen Keller called The Miracle Worker died. William Gibson's story of Helen Keller’s relationship with her teacher, Anne Sullivan, won the 1960 Tony Award for best play and is still regularly performed around the country in community theaters. Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke, played the stage roles of Sulliva...
Sun, Nov 25 2018

Happy Birthday Mojo!
Deaf News Today This is Mojo Mathers birthday (born Nov 23, 1966). She became the first member of New Zealand's parliament when she ran as a Green candidate in 2011. She was born profoundly deaf and is a lipreader. She began to use sign language in the late 2000s New Zealand became the first country to adopt sign language as an official language in 2006. Some 25,000 people use sign...
Fri, Nov 23 2018

The Downsides and Challenges of Cochlear Implants
Deaf News Today An opinion piece in the New York Times takes on the issue of cochlear implants. Writing professor Sara Novic cautions: Expecting an implant to cure deafness or magically generate speech is to await the moment the hammer will fly out of one’s hand and build a house on its own. The value of the tool lies only in the skill of its user, and for the cochlear implant us...
Wed, Nov 21 2018

A Signed Bedtime Story Goes Viral
Deaf News Today CBeebies Bedtime Story is a BBC show where a celebrity reads a children's bedtime story. A recent episode got extra attention because the celebrity, Catastrophe's Rob Delaney, signed in Makaton his story a week ago Friday. Delaney read aloud and signed Ten in a Bed by Penny Dale, becoming the first reader to do so. It caught the attention of six-year-old Tom McCartney...
Wed, Nov 21 2018

Pizza by the Deaf
Deaf News Today San Francisco's Mozzeria restaurant is entirely owned and operated by people who are deaf. CBS News spoke with the owners, Melody and Russell Stein. They opened it in 2011. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Sun, Nov 18 2018

Ocasio-Cortez is Captioning Her Instagram Posts for You
Deaf News Today Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez  The youngest woman ever to be elected to the US Congress says she is captioning her Instagram stories for the Deaf community. “Advocates for the deaf community hit me up to connect me with tools (i.e. Clipomatic) to better serve all of us. I now caption all my IG stories so our deaf brothers and sisters can follow along too,” representa...
Sat, Nov 17 2018

Helen Keller reinstated into Texas school curriculum
Deaf News Today We recently told you about possible changes to the Texas school curriculum—including dropping historical figures like Helen Keller. After an outcry, that plan has been dropped. The Texas State Board of Education "backed restoring disability rights advocate Helen Keller to the state's third-grade social studies curriculum standards." Read more about what happened in ...
Wed, Nov 14 2018

On this day in History… in 1966
Deaf News Today It was on this date in 1966 (Nov 14) Congressman Hugh Carey announced that Rochester, New York would be the site of a new college. The National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) admitted its first students in 1968. It is one of nine colleges located at the Rochester Institute of Technology. There are now more than 1500 students and about 600 faculty and staff. M...
Wed, Nov 14 2018

Deaf Football Team tries something new
Deaf News Today The Alabama School for the Deaf football team is trying something new—they are playing with the Alabama School for the Blind. WIAT-TV has a video report on the Silent Warriors. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Fri, Nov 09 2018

Deaf State House candidate Loses Race
Deaf News Today Chris Haulmark A Ωlegislative candidate in Kansas lost his race. Republican John Toplikar beat out Chris Haulmark—who would have become the first deaf legislator in the U.S. But Haulmark lost party support when he was accused by multiple women of being emotionally abusive. Read more about the allegations here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Thu, Nov 08 2018

Researchers: Sign offers insights not provided by spoken...
Deaf News Today Researchers say, "Sign languages can help reveal hidden aspects of the logical structure of spoken language, but they also highlight its limitations because speech lacks the rich iconic resources that sign language uses on top of its sophisticated grammar." The study comes out of New York University and France's National Center for Scientific Research. It's published...
Wed, Nov 07 2018

Kitty O'Neil Dies
Deaf News Today Professional stuntwoman Kitty O'Neil has died at the age of 72. Among other things, the deaf daredevil set a record for land speed by a female driver in 1976. It was in Oregon's Alvord Desert that Kitty hit 512 miles per hour.Childhood diseases left her deaf and nearly killed her. She became a champion diver at a young age. Her work later as a Hollywood stuntwoman wa...
Mon, Nov 05 2018

NYT advocates for Implants in Health article
Deaf News Today A controversial New York pediatric audiology consultant and speech-language pathologist is quoted in the New York Times as saying, “Children identified with hearing loss at birth and fitted with technology in the first weeks of life blend in so well with everyone else that people don’t realize there are so many deaf children." Jane R. Madell claims, “Eighty-five...
Mon, Nov 05 2018

World-renowned Deaf Actor Dies
Deaf News Today He paved the way for deaf theater performers and became a founder of the National Theater of the Deaf in Connecticut. Bernard Bragg died Los Angeles this past Monday at the age of 90. Bragg was also a visiting professor Gallaudet University where he attended school. Read more at The New York Times here. A Los Angeles Times obituary called Bragg "the first professiona...
Sat, Nov 03 2018

ASL gets a Table at Yale
Deaf News Today Students at Yale University are finally getting an opportunity to learn American Sign Language. A pilot ASL course was first offered last semester to go along with a club and a dining hall language table. Read more about it in Yale's student newspaper here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Sat, Nov 03 2018

soccer at Gally
Deaf News Today There are three Markels on the Gallaudet University men's soccer team this season: Elan Markel, Alton Markel and AJ Markel. Elan and Alton are brothers while AJ is their cousin. Elan and Alton's mom is on staff at Gally as an interpreter and their dad teaches ASL at another college. Read more about the Markel's in a Baltimore Sun article here. Read More at DeafNewsTod...
Wed, Oct 31 2018

Suit: No Terp for 5 Days in Jail
Deaf News Today A deaf woman in California says she sat in jail for five days with no sign language interpreter. Jennifer Mello is now suing Kern County for not following ADA law when she was arrested in November of last year. Her complaint says deputies spoke to her, refused to provide an interpreter or even communicate to her in writing. After spending five days in jail without cle...
Tue, Oct 30 2018

Artist creates Mural: Doesn't Bother to get the Signs Right
Deaf News Today A new mural in downtown Idaho Falls shows an incorrect use of ASL. The ACLU of Idaho commissioned artist Kelly Sheridan to create the work in partnership with the Idaho Falls Downtown Development Corporation. Read more about it from the Idaho State Journal here and KPVI-TV has a video report below. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Sun, Oct 28 2018

Deaf man sues construction companies
Deaf News Today A Deaf man is suing several construction companies in South Carolina after he was fired from a Mercedes Benz expansion project. WCSC-TV has a video report about Steven Kuhn's lawsuit here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Thu, Oct 25 2018

He was One of America's first Deaf Lawyers
Deaf News Today Roger Demosthenes O'Kelly He was born on this date, October 25, in 1880. Blinded by Scarlet fever at the age of nine, Roger Demosthenes O'Kelly began losing his hearing a few years later. The North Carolina African-American slowly regained his vision in one eye. While he wanted to attend Gallaudet University, his application was denied in 1898 based on the color of h...
Thu, Oct 25 2018

The Signing Starbucks Opened Today!
Deaf News Today Starbucks opened its first "Signing Store" today. It's in Washington D.C. less than a mile from Gallaudet University. Everyone working there is fluent in ASL and wears aprons that display the fingerspelling of "Starbucks." Here's a video report from Radio.com. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Tue, Oct 23 2018

Deaf in Prison
Deaf News Today "While I was in prison they had no American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters. None of the staff knew sign language, not the doctors or the nurses, the mental health department, the administration, the chaplain, the mail room. Nobody." Read about the lonely experiences of a deaf man in prison in a Marshall Project article called The Isolation of Being Deaf in Prison. R...
Sun, Oct 21 2018

Are new laws designed to protect travelers...
Deaf News Today New legislation allows for the development of an “Airline Passengers with Disabilities Bill of Rights.” While some advocacy groups applaud the deal, signed by the President last week, others look at it differently. MIC quotes the CEO of Hearing Access & Innovations as saying "feel-good bills are a waste of time. I want bills that really work.” Read more here. Re...
Sun, Oct 14 2018

The Weather Channel Neglects Captioning During Hurricane
Deaf News Today Oscar-winning deaf actress Marlee Matlin alerted the Weather Channel through a tweet that a video about Hurricane Michael was posted without captioning or a sign language interpreter. The storm was approaching the Gulf Coast of Florida at the time, making it critical to get emergency information to everyone—but the Weather Channel failed to respond. Read More at De...
Sat, Oct 13 2018

A study on brain tumors and cochlear implants
Deaf News Today Researchers in Sweden say they have found no evidence to support the idea that brain tumors are more likely in cochlear implant patients. That was a concern raised by a previous case but the scientists say in their study "The number of brain tumors observed was well within the numbers expected from national incidence figures." You can access the study here. Read Mor...
Fri, Oct 05 2018

Gally Student Speaks at TEDxYouth Event
Deaf News Today Here is a TEDx talk featuring Gallaudet University student Cheyenna Clearbrook. Born Deaf, she "addresses the divide between the hearing and Deaf worlds and discusses how sign language acquisition can impact both communities in a meaningful way." Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Wed, Oct 03 2018

Cops pepper spray deaf man
Deaf News Today Prosecutors in Passaic County, New Jersey are looking into a video showing police officers using pepper-spray against a Raaeseon Adams who is deaf. Read more and see the video at NewJersey.com here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Tue, Oct 02 2018

Funding for Deaf Businesses
Deaf News Today Communication Service for the Deaf (CSD) launched "the first-ever social impact fund and incubator for Deaf-owned and operated businesses" last year. The second round opens to applicants the coming Thursday (Oct. 4). Whoever gets selected for the Social Venture Fund will "have access to significant resources, including capital investment, mentoring and leadership trai...
Fri, Sep 28 2018

18 years ago today: Murder at Gallaudet
Deaf News Today It was on this day (Sept 27)  in 2000 that Joseph Mesa, Jr. beat Eric Plunkett to death in his Gallaudet dorm room. The killing put the school in a state of panic, with some students withdrawing from the school rather than living in a situation where they knew a murderer was living among them. The terror came to an end in February of the next year when Mesa turned ...
Thu, Sep 27 2018

Police: Sex Tape at Deaf School?
Deaf News Today Illinois State Police are looking into whether a sex video was shot at the Illinois School for the Deaf in Jacksonville. It's reported to have happened in April. The video in questions was, until recently available on an adult website. Read more on the story from the State Journal-Register here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Wed, Sep 26 2018

On this date... 27 years ago
Deaf News Today It was on Sept 26, 1991 that first major American TV show to feature a deaf or hard of hearing actor in a lead role debuted. The NBC police drama Reasonable Doubts ran from 1991–1993 and starred Academy-Award winner Marlee Matlin as Tess Kaufman, a prosecutor who protected the rights of the accused. In 1994, she joined the cast of Picket Fences for a couple of seas...
Wed, Sep 26 2018

DiMarco: ‘Pretending to Be Deaf Is Not Ok’
Deaf News Today A Netflix original is getting heat from Dancing with the Stars champion Nyle DiMarco. The deaf model say a joke in the film about being deaf isn't appropriate. Read more here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Sun, Sep 23 2018

Horror Film Casting Blasted
Deaf News Today Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin and model Nyle DiMarco are among those in the Deaf community criticizing a new horror film called The Silence. A hearing actress was cast in a deaf role. Director John Leonetti told The Hollywood Reporter that the hearing actress has “flawless” signing and an almost “innate sense of what it’s like being a deaf person.” The film co...
Wed, Sep 19 2018

Study: Older Adults Show Poor brain function with Implants
Deaf News Today A study out of Antwerp University in Belgium finds cochlear implant recipients over the age of 55 have "significantly poorer cognitive function than their normal-hearing counterparts." Researchers say this finding shows "cochlear implants cannot fully compensate for this deterioration in brain function" due to dementia or natural cognitive decline. Details of the stud...
Wed, Sep 19 2018

Copies of Silent Garden given out in Fresno
Deaf News Today Deaf educators in Fresno passed out the latest version of a book called Silent Garden: a parent's guide to raising a deaf child. The book was written by Fresno State professor Dr. Paul Odgen and he was on hand as well. ABC-30 has a video report below. There's a text version of the story here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Tue, Sep 18 2018

The First Deaf Player in the NFL
Deaf News Today The first deaf player in the NFL ran onto the field for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1973. The first game that season was played on this date (Sept. 16) against the Philidelphia Eagles. Bonnie Sloan played in four games at defensive tackle and only lasted one season, because of knee injuries--but he had made his mark. Sloan was born on June 1, 1948 in Lebanon , TN and ...
Sun, Sep 16 2018

ICE wants deaf & disabled man deported after decades in...
Deaf News Today photo credit: Diane Newman ICE said it was planning to deport Francis Anwana by today but has decided to delay his deportation after an outcry from immigration advocates. Anwana came to the US at the age of 13 on a student visa. Anwana "was deaf, couldn't talk, and had cognitive disabilities, enrolling at the Michigan School for the Deaf in Flint." He is now 48 years...
Tue, Sep 11 2018

Bison Decide What to Do During the National Anthem
Deaf News Today The Gallaudet University football team has been wrestling with what to do when the national anthem is played before Bison games. Matthew Davis writes: The team’s head coach, Chuck Goldstein, wanted his players to think about their protest. "These situations help us come together," he relayed in simultaneous communication, signing and speaking at the same time. 'Y...
Mon, Sep 10 2018

Marlee Matlin talks about on her new show
Deaf News Today Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin appeared on KTLA-TV this morning to talk about her special Deaf Out Loud. There are no captions and KTLA misspelled her last name in the "lower third" but she did talk about the premieres of the show, which is September 12 on A&E Network. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Sat, Sep 08 2018

“Bummy” Burstein dies at 91
Deaf News Today Gerald “Bummy” Burstein has died. He worked tirelessly in the deaf community for 57 years—even after he retired. He died at the age of 91 in Riverside, California, where the student center at the local deaf school carries his name. Burnstein was the certified Professional Parliamentarian for the National Association of the Deaf and the author of two books. His ...
Thu, Sep 06 2018