Ball Player Dies

A Yankee infielder who helped raise awareness of deaf issues has died. A baseball injury left Gil McDougald nearly deaf. He died Sunday at his New Jersey home at the age of 82. A member of 5 World Series championship teams, McDougald was selected the American League’s Rookie of the Year in 1951 and was a five-time All Star.

CSI is Calling

CSI is looking for a deaf actress to play the mother of Gil Grissom. The casting notes describe the character as a "strong, confident, intelligent and influential woman" who has "never allowed her lack of hearing to keep her from doing." She's also a former librarian, fluent in ASL. The part will show up during episode 13 of the crime drama series, which is titled The Two Mrs. Grissoms.

Hospital to Pay $80k

New Hampshire's Portsmouth Regional Hospital will pay $80k for ADA violations. The agreement settles a lawsuit filed because the hospital failed to provide an interpreter to two deaf people on many occasions, despite the facility's written policy saying it would do so. Rosalie and Donald Valery will get $50,000 and Brian Minch $10,000. The hospital also agreed to pay a $20,000 civil penalty to the government. Portsmouth Regional also said it would:

• Provide live interpreter within an hour 80%
• Provide a video conference with an interpreter within 15 minutes
• Hire a 24-hour disability coordinator
• Hold staff training
• Perform data collection on it's progress
• Update its complaint procedures
• Create notification forms
• Make TTY service available
• Advertising its services for the deaf in the local newspaper

NJ ASL

A profile of ASL teachers in New Jersey public schools is here.

Leslie Nielsen Dies

Actor Leslie Nielsen has died. What many people did not know about the versatile actor, known for both his serious and comedic roles, is that he was legally deaf and wore hearing aids most of his life. It didn't stop him from starring in films like The Poseidon Adventure, Airplane and the The Naked Gun. A Canadian, Nielsen graduated from high school at 17 and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, even though he was legally deaf, and later became a radio DJ. He died Sunday in Fort Lauderdale at the age of 84.

Fighter History

A rundown of the fight history of deaf Ultimate Fighter Matt Hamill here.

YouTube Caption Changes

Google is rolling out big improvements to its YouTube automatic captions. The search giant says the changes have already cut errors by one-fifth. You can access the tool by clicking on the little “cc” button on most YouTube videos and selecting Transcribe Audio.Google software engineer Ken Harrenstien, who is deaf, says the software was released before it was perfected because there are some situations in which it is very accurate or at least very helpful. Google says people have watched video with automatic captions more than 23 million times. If your do a Google search on a phrase that happens to be in the middle of a video, Google will take you directly to that place in the video.

Ally ASL

Ally ASL is back in business. The Texas 22-year-old's YouTube account, Ally ASL, was shut down recently after several music companies decided her translation of some 90 popular songs into American Sign Language was a violation of copyright law. Allyson Townsend (her real name) asked for help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation which got YouTube, Warner and Universal to agree that it was a case of fair use. Check out her Facebook fan page here and you can watch one of her videos here.

The Silence

Austrailia's ABC network is offering a British thriller tomorrow night called The Silence. It's about a deaf girl who witnesses the murder of a policeman. The Silence attempts to show what cochlear implant users hear. Deaf actress Genevieve Barr plays the lead role. A graduate of Edinburgh University, Barr was teaching in an inner London secondary school and had to give up her teaching career to take on the role. The Guardian newspaper says it has a "storyline that leaves the viewer wanting more."

Fulbirght Scholarships

The Chronicle of Higher Education says Gallaudet University is top producers of U.S. Fulbright Students. Gallaudet also received this distinction in 2007. The Fulbright Program gives master's and doctoral candidates and recent B.S./B.A. graduates or graduating seniors opportunities for personal development, academic enrichment, and international experience. All three Gallaudet students who applied for Fulbright grants in October 2009 were awarded fellowships to pursue research abroad. You'll find the full list here.

Woman Escapes Fire

A Georgia woman was not woke up by her strobe light when a fire raced through her apartment building last night. Debra McCord of Fort Oglethorpe is deaf and unaware of an evacuation because of the blaze. A neighbor rang her doorbell, setting off strobe lighting inside provided by a old and weak unit. It wasn't enough to wake her. Fortunately, the neighbor knew McCord was deaf and alerted police. She escaped without serious injury. The apartment manager says she plans to install a strobe fire alarm.

Cochlear Stock Rises

The price of Cochlear stock soared after word of a recall by rival Sonova. Cochlear is an Australian company that dominates the cochlear implant business. It gained the most during 2010 in Australian trading after Sonova announced it was voluntarily recalling its HiRes 90K cochlear implant. At one point, Cochlear advanced 4.1 percent to hit $77.96 on the Australian stock exchange.

Hostage Hoax

Police in Buffalo got a call from someone saying they were deaf and held hostage. It turned out to be a hoax. WIVB-TV has this report.

Implant Market Facts

The cochlear implant market is about $800 million and expected to grow at a double-digit rate because the number of new patients is growing by about 200,000 each year.

Implant Recall

A hearing aid implant recall has sent the stock of a Switzerland-based implant maker tumbling. Shares of Sonova, the world's largest hearing aid maker, fell after the announcement that Advanced Bionics, which it owns, will recall its HiRes 90K cochlear-implant device. Two patients suffered from severe pain and overly loud sounds just days after activation of the device. Advanced had another recall six years ago.

Teens Raise Money for Deaf School

WDAF-TV in Kansas City offers a video report on 4 teens who put together a 5k walk to help the Kansas School for the Deaf.

Bright Student Rejected

Oxford University has rejected one of Britain's best students for a place at the school. Deaf since birth, Anastasia Fedotova earned six A grades in math, physics, chemistry, biology and general studies. The 19-year-old communicates with help from hearing aids and by lip-reading. Born in Russia, she grew up in Germany and came to England in 2005. Her sponsors are demanding an explanation from the school, though she plans to now apply to Cambridge University.

Spill Suit Denied

A lawsuit filed by 4 deaf people against a Minneapolis country over a contamination spill has been dismissed. Their suit claimed Dakota County should have provided them sign-language interpreters after a mercury spill in Rosemount. A judge disagreed and now an appeals court has come to the same conclusion. Although the judges said interpreters should have been provided during the emergency, they ruled that they deaf residents failed to prove that it was the county's responsibility to provide the service. They also wanted the county to provide interpreters at meetings on the subject after the spill. Dozens of people were treated for mercury exposure after teenagers dumped two jars of it onto a playground. A disaster response team scrubbed the residents with soap and water, but the plaintiffs said they were confused and didn't participate because there was no interpreter to explain the process.

School Leader Disappears

The director of Rhode Island's School for the Deaf is gone and school officials don't know when she'll come back and won't say why she is gone. Lori Dunsmore has taken an indefinite leave of absence from her post. She took over three years ago as only the second deaf person to lead the school in it's 134-year-old history. The assistant director and a teacher had recently left despite the school moving its dwindling enrollment into a new $31 million facility.

New ASD Prez

The American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut has tapped David Carter as President of the Board of Directors for the school. Carter's current position is that of Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications for Magellan Health Services. He succeeds Carleton Mowell and has been involved with the school for the past seven years.