Deaf News Today

A deaf congregation grows in New Jersey
Deaf News Today "What started with one interpreter has grown into a church for the deaf and hearing" in Newark, New Jersey. Read about what's happening at Chosen Generation Ministries in NJ.com here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Mon, Oct 14 2019 · 18 hours ago

Deaf Woman Dies in Arson Fire
Deaf News Today A deaf woman and her two-year-old daughter died in a fire—it was intentionally set by a man who said he was trying to get back at his girlfriend. Star Milligan tried to save her daughter by wrapping her in a blanket and using her body to protect her from the flames. The Fox TV station in Detriot has a video report below or read the story here. Read More at DeafNews...
Sun, Oct 13 2019

DeafBlind Art
Deaf News Today DeafBlind writer John Lee Clark talks about art he can touch in a Poetry Magazine post. He poses the question: We have DeafBlind artists, but do we have DeafBlind art? Read his entire piece here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Thu, Oct 10 2019

An Emergency System for Deaf Beach-goers
Deaf News Today An emergency system for deaf beach-goers called Beach Emergency Evacuation Lights System (BEELS) will get its first workout in Torrance Beach. There will be a ribbon-cutting and day at the beach for the deaf community next month. Within two years BEELS is expected to be in place along LA's coastline. Read more about it in the LA Times here. Read More at DeafNewsToday....
Thu, Oct 10 2019

Young Deaf Fan Joins Carrie Underwood on Stage
Deaf News Today Carrie Underwood invited 9-year-old Savannah Dahan to perform The Champion with her during a concert stop in Washington, DC over the weekend. Access Hollywood has a video report. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Wed, Oct 09 2019

The history behind RI School for the Deaf
Deaf News Today The Rhode Island School for the Deaf was started by Mary Ann Lippitt who was born on this date, Oct. 7,  in the year 1823. Her daughter became deaf after contracting Scarlet Fever in 1856. "Lippitt created her own program and founded the Providence Day School for the Deaf in 1876. Her husband Henry Lippitt, who had become governor in 1875, used his own influence to i...
Mon, Oct 07 2019

Suit in Utah over Terps Dismissed
Deaf News Today A lawsuit filed by deaf students against the Utah Shakespeare Festival was immediately dismissed. The festival refused to provide sign language interpreters for their performance of Hamlet. At issue is whether offering captioning was adequate accommodations. Read the full story in the Salt Lake Tribune here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Sat, Oct 05 2019

Jury awards Deaf man $125,000
Deaf News Today A jury is awarding David Updike $125,000 in damages after deciding that Oregon's Multnomah County failed to provide him a sign language interpreter while he was in jail. Oregon live reports that a linguistics expert testified during the three-day trial that "Updike, who was born deaf to hearing parents, can’t read lips proficiently and doesn’t read English well." ...
Sun, Sep 29 2019

Deaf Actor on Netflix show
Deaf News Today image from natashaofili.com One of the actors on a new Netflix show called The Politician is deaf. Natasha Ofili plays a no-nonsense principal in four episodes. Ofili started out with an eye toward fashion but switched careers about five years ago. So far, she's appeared in several short films, theater productions, and commercials. And soon she'll be seen on Amazon ...
Sat, Sep 28 2019

Docu shows deafness as a gift, not as a disability
Deaf News Today A new documentary about hearing loss takes a look at Beethoven, filmmaker’s son, and her deaf parents. Irene Taylor Brodsky first introduced her parents in her 2007 film Hear and Now. A Washington Post reviewer calls Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements a "moving and thought-provoking film." Read the review here. Below is a video interview of Brodsky. Read...
Fri, Sep 27 2019

19 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 ...
Fri, Sep 27 2019

On this date... 28 years ago
Deaf News Today On Sept 26, 1991, a major TV show debuted that—for the first time—featured a deaf or hard of hearing actor in a lead role. The NBC police drama Reasonable Doubts ran from 1991–1993 and starred Academy-Award winner Marlee Matlin as Tess Kaufman, a prosecutor who fought for the rights of the accused. She portrayed a lawyer who happened to be deaf—instead of jus...
Thu, Sep 26 2019

Deaf Awareness Week Celebration
Deaf News Today It's Deaf Awareness Week and KIII-TV has a video report on a celebration of Deaf Culture and ASL in Corpus Christi. You can read the story here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Tue, Sep 24 2019

Lawsuits over Hospitals not providing Terps
Deaf News Today A healthcare provider is facing two lawsuits for not providing ASL interpreters for deaf patients. Intermountain Healthcare, which operates Primary Children’s Hospital and McKay Dee Hospital, released a statement saying, despite the legal action, it takes ADA and all other applicable laws "very seriously." KUTV has a video report (or read the story here). Read More...
Tue, Sep 24 2019

Judge: videophones must go in Colorado state prisons
Deaf News Today A judge says the Colorado Department of Corrections must make videophones available to every deaf inmate. That's the outcome of a lawsuit prompted by the decades-old technology in state prisons. Read the full story at the Denver Post here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Mon, Sep 23 2019

Review of Deaf West's New Show
Deaf News Today image from DeafWestTheatre.org LA's Deaf West Theatre is performing The Solid Life of Sugar Water through October 13 and the LA Times says the stage arrangement is quite unusual: "The actors playing Phil and Alice stand on the footboard of a vertical prop bed, but scenic designer Sean Fanning’s trompe l’oeil, bird’s-eye-view perspective makes it look like they�...
Mon, Sep 23 2019

History's Deaf Astronomer
Deaf News Today On this date (Sept 17) in 1764, John Goodricke was born in the Netherlands, though he lived most of his life in England. Goodricke only survived to the age of 21, but the deaf astronomer made a major impact on his field. Working with Edward Pigott, Goodricke learned to measure the variation of light coming from stars. This would eventually lead astronomers to figure o...
Tue, Sep 17 2019

On this day in History.. Miss America
Deaf News Today On this date (Sept. 17) in 1994, Heather Whitestone of Alabama became the first deaf Miss America. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Tue, Sep 17 2019

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 ...
Mon, Sep 16 2019

University Sued over Failure to Provide Interpreters
Deaf News Today Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana is being sued by four students who say the school violated ADA law by not providing a sign language interpreter in their classes. They say the school failed to pay the interpreters for previous work. The four deaf students are from Saudi Arabia. Read more at The Advocate here. You'll find the suit here. Read More a...
Mon, Sep 16 2019

This Day in History: The 1st deaf player in the NFL
Deaf News Today Bonnie Sloan in the NFL On this day (Sept. 16) in 1973, the first deaf player ran onto the field for the St. Louis Cardinals against the Philadelphia 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 at the age of 25. The 6-foot-5, 260-pounder was a 10th-round draft pick out of...
Mon, Sep 16 2019

The Rise of the Deaf Architecture
Deaf News Today It was on the campus of Gallaudet University nearly two decades ago that a workshop took place that would "change the way the world’s only university for the deaf and hard-of-hearing engaged with architecture and design." The Washington Post has a look at how the deaf architecture got started here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Sun, Sep 15 2019

Deaf Woman Refused Service at Drive Thru
Deaf News Today A San Jose Jack in the Box refused service to a deaf woman last month—and there's a video showing the worker mocking her by pretending to sign. KRON-TV has a video report (or read the story here). Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Sat, Sep 14 2019

A Legal Battle over Text Captions for Audiobooks
Deaf News Today Book publishers are suing Amazon to stop the internet company from offering text captions for audiobooks through Audible. Publishers say it's a copyright violation. Audible says that since users can't scroll through the text there's no problem. The feature is called "Captions" and will be available starting Tuesday for Amazon-owned and public domain titles. The works ...
Sun, Sep 08 2019

Company Sued over Treatment of Deaf Job Applicant
Deaf News Today A Denver company is being sued for refusing to hire a qualified deaf person, according to an EEOC lawsuit. Carefree of Colorado told Anna Biryukova the wouldn't hire her because her deafness could be a “challenge” and present “safety issues.” Carefree declined to comment. Read the full story from the EEOC here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Sat, Sep 07 2019

Service Animal Rules
Deaf News Today What are the rules for service animals? Seattle's KING-5 has a video report (or read the story here). Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Tue, Sep 03 2019

Man tried to sexually assault a deaf woman
Deaf News Today Police in Forestville, Maryland are looking for the man accused of attempting to sexually assault a woman who had asked for directions earlier this month. The police have released a sketch of the man and a map of where the incident happened, which you can see at WTOP's news site here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Sun, Sep 01 2019

Principal at Deaf & Blind School Reassigned
Deaf News Today The beloved principal of the Hawaii School for the Deaf and the Blind has been transferred to another school and alumni and parents don't understand why. They gathered to protest yesterday, telling HawaiiNewsNow, “He has a deaf education background. He knows how to manage and make deaf people learn...Teachers were so thrilled. They worked so well with him.” Read t...
Sat, Aug 31 2019

“Bummy” Burstein dies one year ago today
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 on August 31, 2018. 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...
Sat, Aug 31 2019

A problem with New Orleans Movie Theaters
Deaf News Today Deaf movie-goers in New Orleans say the local theaters don't accommodate them as prescribed by ADA law. The closed-captioning devices are often broken. WWL-TV has a video report below or read the story here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Thu, Aug 29 2019

A first for a deaf person in the UK
Deaf News Today Matthew Johnston is believed to be the first profoundly deaf person to sit on a jury in a crown court in England and Wales. He's a 54-year-old technology consultant from London. The Guardian quotes Johnston as saying, “It’s all about inclusivity, isn’t it. It’s a big thing for me. We don’t want to turn our backs to society, we want to be part of society. We ...
Wed, Aug 28 2019

Woman says she was refused service at fast food restaurant...
Deaf News Today Rachel Hollis claims workers at a Burger King drive-thru in Oklahoma City refused to serve her because she is deaf. She explained what happened to KFOR-TV in a video report (or read the story here). Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Fri, Aug 23 2019

Deaf Coaches Teach Gymnastics
Deaf News Today The head coaches at a gym in Utah are both deaf. KSL-TV has a video report about Champion Sports Center below or read the story here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Thu, Aug 22 2019

Burning Man sued over terps
Deaf News Today Two deaf men are suing the California desert celebration known as Burning Man after the organizers refused to provide sign language interpreters. Read more from Bloomberg news here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Thu, Aug 22 2019

Cochlear implants for one-sided hearing loss
Deaf News Today A research team looked at whether cochlear implants could help people with hearing loss in one ear. WRAL-TV has a video report. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Wed, Aug 21 2019

First Deaf Tennis Pro on Tour wins Match
Deaf News Today The ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) has its first deaf player on the tour. South Korea's Duckhee Lee, who has been deaf since birth, won his first match yesterday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He's only 21 years old and beat Switzerland's Henri Laaksonen 7-6 (4), 6-1 in the first round of the Winston-Salem Open. Next up: Hubert Hurkacz of Poland who is ...
Tue, Aug 20 2019

Texas Senior Making his Mark on the Football field
Deaf News Today Billy Haynes is not only a hard-of-hearing senior at a Texas high school, he's an important part of the school's football team. Haynes plays for Robert E. Lee High School in Baytown, Texas and has been hard of hearing since he was born. KTRK-TV has a video report (or read the story here). Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Thu, Aug 15 2019

Alabama man charged with kidnapping deaf child
Deaf News Today An Alabama man is behind bars and facing kidnapping charges according to the Gadsden Times. Darrell Wade Watkins is accused of taking a deaf 4-year-old girl out of his family's year. Read about it here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Mon, Aug 12 2019

The deaf YouTuber campaigning over poor Captions
Deaf News Today Rikki Poynter's #NoMoreCRAPtions campaign to get YouTubers to ditch the site's automatic captions "highlights how impressive advances in assistive technologies such as automatic captioning can obscure these technologies’ imperfections. The campaign is Poynter’s way of pushing back against any misguided notion that deaf people live in a technological future that ha...
Sun, Aug 11 2019

Deaf customer discriminated against while trying to order...
Deaf News Today In a recent episode of ABC's What Would You Do? a deaf actor was discriminated against while trying to order food in a restaurant. Nyle Dimarco, winner of Dancing With the Stars and America’s Next Top Model winner watched what happened behind-the-scenes. He said it resembled his own real-life experiences living as a deaf man and was overwhelmed by the passionate re...
Sun, Aug 11 2019

Myths about making your website accessible
Deaf News Today More than 2,250 federal lawsuits were filed against websites for ADA compliance issues in 2018, according to Amihai Miron, who heads User1st, a website accessibility firm. That's triple the number the year before. He says there are six myths related to the ADA issue including the idea that "No one’s complained, so there’s no problem" and "There’s no clear lega...
Fri, Aug 09 2019

Theater loses appeal: Must provide terps
Deaf News Today The Fox Theatre in St. Louis must provide interpreters for the deaf when asked —- not just once for the run of a show. That's the ruling of an appeals court panel. The 8th U.S. Court of Appeals voted two to one to uphold a lower court ruling. Tina Childress sued the theater when it refused to provide her captioning for a performance of Rent. She was told there was o...
Thu, Aug 08 2019

Researchers say they're a step closer to new ways of...
Deaf News Today Researchers say they have figured out which proteins control the formation of hair cells—a finding that could lead to new ways of restoring hearing by triggering hair cells to grow. The findings come out of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine based on the use of genetic tools. Read the details of the study here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Tue, Aug 06 2019

The Deaf Teen taking Esports by Storm
Deaf News Today image from CNN video Soleil Wheeler was born deaf and now at 13 years old, she's an international star in the world of esports. Known as Ewok, she has 200,000 followers on Amazon's Twitch streaming service and is the first female to join Faze Clan, a famous esports organization that helps promote its 80-or-so players and train them for competitions. Wheeler attends t...
Sat, Aug 03 2019

happy Birthday, Bob Hiltermann!
Deaf News Today from BobHiltermann.com Deaf since the age of 4, Bob Hiltermann was born on this day (August 1, 1952) in Germany, the tenth of eleven children born. A bout with meningitis left him deaf but he wasn't diagnosed until the age of ten. Hiltermann learned ASL while attending Gallaudet University in Washington, DC and later formed MuSign (a Signing/Mime company). He acted w...
Thu, Aug 01 2019

Delta will be first to offer sign language bar for uniforms
Deaf News Today Delta Air Lines is now allowing in-flight crew members' to include a language bar option on their uniforms to indicate whether they know a signed language. The option is already available for spoken languages like Spanish and Russian. Delta will be the first U.S. airline to do this. Delta CEO Ed Bastian shared the news with a video on his LinkedIn page. Read More at ...
Wed, Jul 31 2019

BBC Tests New Audio Mix
Deaf News Today The BBC is testing new technology that allows hard-of-hearing viewers to adjust audio levels in new ways. They can reduce background noise and make the dialogue crisper. Find out more about the technology on the BBC’s Taster website here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Wed, Jul 31 2019

A "tireless champion and advocate for the Deaf...
Deaf News Today Harlan LanePHOTO: Mary Knox Merrill/Northeastern University Harlan Lane died July 13 at the age of 82 from Parkinson’s disease. A psychologist and linguist, Lane helped to found the ASL program at Northeastern University. But he will mostly be remembered as a "tireless champion and advocate for the Deaf community." Among the books he authored was The People of the ...
Mon, Jul 29 2019

How Rochester Became a Hub for the Deaf
Deaf News Today Rochester is home to one of the largest deaf and hard-of-hearing populations in the U.S. Read about how that came about in an article from the Daily Beast here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Sun, Jul 28 2019

Sainsbury’s turns store into signing supermarket
Deaf News Today Sainsbury’s, one of the UK's largest supermarkets, turned one of its stores into a signing supermarket. It was renamed “Signsbury’s” for the three-day project. Read more about it here. Read More at DeafNewsToday.com
Thu, Jul 25 2019