Sign Language Interpreter Keeps Up with Phish, Wu-Tang Clan and Springsteen

Interpreter Holly Maniatty is getting some national attention for her work at concerts. She tells ABC News "interpreters have niche areas that they are better at. Some are much better at legal, or medical, but performance interpreting just happens to be my niche. It’s something I really enjoy. I spent a lot of time developing my style and skill.” You can read more of her interview with ABC here and watch a video of Maniatty below.

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Iran wins Women's Kata

Iran’s Mojdeh Mardani

Iran's Mojdeh Mardani beat competitors from Russian, Ukrainian and Turkish in Kata to get to the gold medal match where she took on a Venezuelan athlete to win the gold medal. Kata is a set sequence of karate moves organized into a pre-arranged fight against imaginary opponents. Iranians now have 11 medals, including one gold, two silver and eight bronze.

The Russian team won gold for men's Kata, Turkey took the silver and Iran the bronze.

Movie Chain Hit with ADA Lawsuit

Bow Tie Cinemas is facing a lawsuit in which the theater chain is accused of violating ADA law. The Connecticut Association of the Deaf say a deaf person was told at one of the theaters closed captioning devices that make the movies accessible to deaf patrons were either unavailable or did not work. The Ridgefield, Connecticut-based chain has not commented on the suit.

Runner Collapses

A scare during today's Deaflympics: Long distance American runner Diana Dick collapsed with just two laps left in the 10,000 meter run. She was treated for dehydration and heat exhaustion, then moved to a nearby hospital. Her coach says she is doing better and should be out of the hospital by tomorrow morning. Read more about track and field at the USADSF site here.

Feds go after FL doc for ADA violation

A Florida doctor is in trouble for allegedly not providing interpreters for deaf patients. The Justice Dept. says Dr. Hal Brown of Vero Beach retaliated against Susan and James Liese for filing a lawsuit against the hospital located next door to his practice for violating ADA law and not providing an interpreter during emergency surgery. Brown told them he would no longer see them as patients--and that, says the Justice Dept. lawsuit, is not legal.

Big companies line up against deaf woman to support eBay

eBay Logo

For three years we've been following the lawsuit filed again eBay by a deaf Missouri woman who claims the site is violating ADA law. Here's how it happened: All Melissa Earll wanted to do is sell some used books and memorabilia on the site. But Earll was not allowed to register as a seller because she is deaf. The company requires a phone in order to verify their identities. She spend a couple of months trying to work something out with eBay, but the company wouldn't accept any other verification--eBay refused to allow her to use a text message service. She sued in 2010, and you can read about the original lawsuit here and her appeal earlier this year here. Earll is asking the 9th Circuit to revive her case to revive her discrimination lawsuit but she's running into some big opposition. A group that represents Amazon, Facebook, Google, and other Internet companies called the Internet Association is lining up on the side of Ebay, claiming in court documents, these online commerce sites could be ruined if they are required to accommodate users with disabilities. The court filing claims “applying the ADA to all Web sites may place uncertain, conflicting, burdensome, and possibly ruinous obligations on members of The Internet Association.” The document goes on to say that making their sites ADA compliant is just too complicated to do.

Children Learning Sign Falling

The share of deaf children taught by sign language has fallen from 55% to 40% in the past decade, according to The Economist.

Village Signing Vanishing

For a long time, nearly everyone on Martha's Vineyard used a distinctive sign language. The island off the coast of Massachusetts used this unique form of communication from the middle of the 17th century to roughly the turn of the 20th. But by the mid-1960’s, signing on the island had ceased, since the last deaf person living there had died. Martha's Vineyard was just one of the places on the globe you could find "village sign language." Slowly, those places are disappearing. The Boston Globe explains why village sign is vanishing in an articlehere.

Baby sign language gains popularity but some are concerned

"Some parents worry that introducing signs or gestures competes for a baby’s attention and working memory and that it can potentially interfere with spoken-language learning. But the most widely cited research shows the opposite to be true. 'When a baby learns to crawl, it doesn’t slow down [the process of] learning to walk. It gets them excited to move around,' said Linda Acredolo, a psychologist and retired professor from the University of California at Davis." Read more at the Washington Post

Texas Celebration of ADA Signing

Corpus Christi's Deaf and Hard of Hearing Center celebrated the 23rd anniversary of the signing of the American's with Disabilities Act yesterday. KIII-TV has a short video report with captions.

KiiiTV3.com South Texas, Corpus Christi, Coastal Bend

Cycling for South African Education

A deaf cyclist is peddling across the US to raise awareness and funds for the education of deaf South African students. Dr. Murdoc Henderson, a professor at Gallaudet University, started in San Francisco and is on his way to Washington, DC for his relief organization called Intaba. KOMU-TV caught up with him this week in Missouri. Here is a short video from the TV station.

TV Captioning and Music

If you’re not a person who uses the closed captions on your television, you’ve probably never thought about how music is depicted on a show or DVD. Read more from the Washington Post here.

Opening Ceremonies video

Here's a Dutch video of the opening ceremonies of the opening ceremonies of the 2013 Deaflympics taking place now in Sofia, Bulgaria.

ADA signing ceremony

Here's a video of President George H. W. Bush at the signing ceremony of the Americans with Disabilities Act that took place July 26, 1990 on the lawn of the White House.

Suit: Texas man's rights violated at border checkpoint

A deaf man in Texas has filed a lawsuit over what happened to him near the Mexican border. Adam Schraer says he was held at a federal checkpoint near Boca Chica Beach in Brownsville, Texas without an interpreter. He wants the Department of Homeland Security to reveal its policies and procedures regarding the detainment of deaf people. Schraer was returning from a trip to the beach with friends in April when he was stopped by agents who did not know any sign language. They held Schraer for two hours while the officers, who confiscated his cell phone, called people in his contact list and asked them questions. The officers made no effort to contact an interpreter, according to his complaint. One of the people who was randomly called contacted Schraer's parents, who eventually arrived to pick him up.

New Deaflympics President

The Deaflympics has a new man at the top. Valery Rukhledev of Russia will become the ninth president of the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf. Rukhledev received 39 votes while the UK's Craig Crowley, who has held the position for the past four years, received 33 votes. The vote took place in Sofia, Bulgaria where the summer games are taking place. The two men ran against each other for the same position four years ago during the games in Tapei, Taiwan. Rukhledev holds six gold medals in wrestling and in 2001 was named one of the top ten greatest deaf athletes of the 20th century by the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf. Rukhledev
established the Russian Deaf Sports Union two decades ago.

Deaflympics Begin!

The opening ceremony for the 22nd Summer Deaflympics takes place this evening (Friday) at Arena Armeec starting at 6pm in Sofia, Bulgaria. Find out more here.

Inmates Learn Sign Language

When Scott Huffman came to prison two years ago, he never imagined sign language would become such a huge part of his life. Find out how it has changed his life--and the lives of nine other inmates here.

The challenge of Signing Hip Hop

Holly Maniatty

We shared with you the video that made Holly Maniatty a viral video star for her interpreting at this year's Bonnaroo festival. You can see her terping for Wu Tang Clan here. She sat down with NPR for an interview and addressed some controversial issues. Maniatty says:

Some people made some comments or, I guess, threw some heat my way about signing the N-word during that concert, and it's interesting that all those people that said that that wasn't appropriate - none of them were users of ASL and/or interpreters. And as an interpreter, we're ethically bound not to change the message that we're given. I feel that I have to give the opportunity to the deaf patron to either be down with it or offended. And it's not my role to, A, take away that opportunity, or B, censor somebody who - this is their art form and their livelihood.

Read or listen to the full interview here.

School for the Deaf gets new director

Sharla Jones is the new director at the Oregon School for the Deaf. The last director, Patti Togioka, retired last month. Jones has worked at the school for several years as both a supervising teacher and principal.

Getting to know... Deaflympics

Deaflympics symbol

The Deaflympics or Silent Games is one of the longest ongoing international multisports competitions--second only to the Olympics. In 1924, the first International Silent Games take place in Paris in 1924. By the 1980s, the International Olympic Committee tried to combine the Deaflympics with the Paralympics but the organizations could not come to terms on issues like interpreters. In 1988, the International Olympic Committee began funding the Paralympics as part of the Seoul Olympics. Meanwhile, no support from the international organization goes to deaf athletes in the Deaflympics. They must raise the funds themselves to participate. The Winter Deaflympics scheduled for Slovakia in 2011 had to be cancelled because of financial problems (read more here) but the summer games, underway now in Bulgaria, are in much better shape. The next winter games are set for Vancouver in 2015. To compete in the Deaflympics you must have a deafness of 55 decibels or greater. Although the Winter and Summer Deaflympics happen every four years, like the hearing Olympics, they take place in odd-numbered years.

Former Deaflympics Official Gets jail time

Jaromír Ruda

As the summer Deaflympics gets underway this week in Bulgaria, there are reports out of Slovakia that a former Winter Deaflympics is headed to jail. Two-and-a-half years ago we told you about the the cancelation of the games set Slovakia in a post here. Reports came out that the head of the Slovak Deaflympic Committee, Jaromír Ruda, had run up bills that have not been paid and he had no stadium agreement in place. Now a Slovak court has found Ruda guilty of fraud and embezzlement, giving him to 13 years in prison, according to a SITA newswire report. An associate was sentenced to 16 months in prison. Ruda plans an appeal. Ruda was given a large amount of money for the games (more than $2 million in U.S. currency which he used for other purposes. The process through the court system in Slovakia has been a long one for Ruda. He was given 13 years, then he appealed. The case was returned to the lower court about a year and a half ago. A second identical verdict was then issued and again challenged. The result was that Ruda's associate got his sentence reduced from 14 years to 16 months. But Ruda's legal problems are not over. He faces more charges that he deceived several private companies about plans to rebuild stadiums in two towns for ice hockey. They allege he took what amounted to more than $13 million U.S. dollars from the deal with a fake bank guarantee. On top of this, he took a sum totaling more than one million U.S. dollars from the national deaf sports federations to book hotels and such--and is accused of not using the money for which it was intended. Many deaf competitors arrived in Slovakia before finding out they had no where to stay and the sports facilities that were supposed to be used for the 17th Winter Deaflympics were not ready for the competitions.

Stories about Deaflympics Teams

There are several stories published by news outlets around the world about Deaflympics teams. Read about the Nigerian team here and here.You’ll find a story about a South African star who had won more than two dozen metals here. Learn about the team from India here and why one teen from India almost didn’t get to go in a story published here.

New Communication Tool for Deaf-Blind gets a Workout

A deaf-blind Seattle man is getting a chance to try out a new portable device called the DeafBlind Communicator, which is designed to allow him to communicate freely. Read about his experience in the Seattle Times here.

Students create sound-sensing glove

Student innovators from Jordan University explain their sound-sensing glove hardware for the deaf to interact with the hearing. They were attending the recent World Economic Forum at the Dead Sea in Jordan (no captions).

Implant Activated During Today Show

A deaf woman agreed to have her cochlear implant turned on live on NBC's Today Show this morning. Find out how it went in the video below (captions included).

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Discovery at KY School for the Deaf

A library book has been found at the Kentucky School for the Deaf that is 185 years after it was due. The book about ancient civilizations was checked out of the Centre College library in Danville, Kentucky during the 1820s. The two schools were tied together in those days, with one board of trustees between them. A librarian estimates the fine for not returning the book would be about $6000.

CODA in NO

The 30th annual CODA International conference will take place this coming Thursday through Sunday (July 25-28) in New Orleans Find out more here.

Deaf Light Disco

A multi-senory event called Deaf Light Disco is set for this coming Friday (July 26) in the Queensland Australia city of Brisbane. School age kids will gather, crank up the bass and music videos are projected on the walls. There are also games and activities. Deaf students, CODAS and students will deaf siblings came the last time, which you can see in the video below. It's an effort of the Crestmead Police-Citizens Youth Club (PCYC) and Deaf Sports & Recreation Queensland. There's more information here.

Call from UK to support Deaflympics from Newspaper

"Deaflympians competing in Sofia had to beg and skimp just to be there" says the Guardian. The paper makes a pitch for support of the British Deaflympic squad here.

Update on Police Using "Excessive Force" on "frail" deaf man

Last year we told you about an investigation that found a Canadian police officer used excessive force on a sick, deaf man in a small Alberta town. You can read about it here. Bill Berry was trying to pay a ticket at the courthouse in the town Red Deer, about 100 miles north of Calgary. Officer Thomas Bounds approached Berry, telling Berry he had entered through an exit door and would have to go back out and come in again, through the proper screening entrance. Bounds ignored Berry's attempts to communicate that he is deaf and didn't understand the order - and couldn't speak because Berry had his larynx removed because of cancer. The policeman piked up Berry and put him outside--you can see what happened in the video below. Berry collapsed because Bounds had knocked out a tube in Berry's neck through which Berry breaths. A policeman eventually figured out what was wrong and re-inserted the tube. Bounds later said Berry had waved his arms, which he took as an aggressive move and that he thought Berry might attack other people in the room. However, a video of the confrontation showed otherwise. The 118 pound grandfather says he suffered numerous injuries including multiple contusion. A police investigation verified the use of excessive force, calling Berry "frail." Now, he's filed a $1.5 million lawsuit.

Deaf friends open Store together in Cali

A new comic book store in the LA suburb of Riverside is open for the first time this weekend--and the owners are deaf. Three years in the planning, the store is called Sphinx Comics, Cards and Collectibles and covers 1600 square feet. Craig Herman (born deaf) and Mikey Marts (lost his hearing as a child to spinal meningitis) are both in their 40s and graduated from Gallaudet with degrees in business administration. But the men didn't met when Herman moved to town so that his two children (ages 12 and 4) could attend the California School for the Deaf. Marts' wife works at the school. The co-owners plan to use iPads or note pads with hearing customers who don't know ASL. Both started collecting when they were kids--Marts kept comic books while Herman collects sports figures and cards.

Competitors prepare for the Deaflympics

Deaflympics competitors are getting ready for the journey to Bulgaria in hopes of bringing back gold to the U.S. Ohio's Stacy Messner will compete in football (soccer) for team USA. The 25 year old says, “It has been a great journey.. I never thought I would ever be where I’m at now." Find out more about why this will likely be her last Deaflympics appearance here. The Sacramento Bee has a write up on High School senior Matthew Klotz here. The swimmer says, "I've been training hard at practice, this whole summer, just getting ready for it."  Two Green Bay siblings will represent the U.S. in track and field. Read about what keeps them going here.  The 22nd International Summer Deaflympics starts Friday (July 26) in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Deaf, Loud and Proud

A deaf percussion band from Singapore has just raised $4000 on the internet to make a trip to visit deaf children in Cambodia. ExtraOrdinary Horizons is made up mostly of students who play drums, marimbas, bells, djembes, surdos, tambourines and xylophones. They hope to inspire 160 students at the Krousar Thmey School for the Deaf in Phnom Penh. To find out more, click here. Watch a video of what the group can do below.

Hearing-assistance technology options in Movie Theaters

ADA law requires U.S. theaters to make programs and services accessible to those who require hearing assistance.  Here are some of the devices you'll find at theaters that can improve the movie-going experience:

Assistive Listening Devices (ADLs)
When a theater has an ALD available, that means the moviegoer will be given a headset that will work with the person's hearing aids. Some hearing aids come with a T-switch, which means a neck loop can be plugged directly into the hearing aid. ADLs require adjustments to the volume of both the hearing aid and the hearing assistance device provided by the theater.  The user often leaves identification at the ticket office such as a driver's license when they pick up the device which is returned when the device is returned.

Subtitle Glasses 
Sony has developed glasses that work like 3D glasses. They project subtitles in the glasses that only the wearer can see. The glasses fit over regular glasses and the size of the letters is adjustable.

Closed Captioning
In this case, the spoken words are projected on the screen along with the film or onto the seat in front of the viewer.

Smart Phones Apps
There are apps that will amplify surrounding sounds.

If you are going to use a theater's hearing assisted technology, it is recommended you arrive early. You may be asked to leave your driver's license, but there should never be a charge.

A video of the top stories for the first half of 2013

Fund-raising ride reaches West Coast

In April we started tracking the ride of Jacob Landis across country. We first told you about his adventure here. He plans to ride more than 10,000 miles to every major league ballpark in support of cochlear implants. He's made it across the country to Los Angeles and will attend an Angels game tomorrow (Friday). He visited Dodger stadium yesterday. Landis says he has more than half of his planned route and visited 21 stadiums. The effort has raised about $85,000, according to Landis. Read a news article about the latest on Jacob here hereor see his personal blog here. Below is a video about the ride (captions included).

Technology threatens sign languages

"New technologies mean more worries for deaf activists... A recent paper by the University of Miami concluded that in a decade most of the genes linked to deafness will be identified. That could lead to easier treatment (or, some fear, the abortion of fetuses bearing those genes). Implants are getting cleverer, too. A three-year-old from North Carolina is the first child in America to have one wired directly into his brainstem. A touching video of the boy hearing his father speak for the first time has gone viral. Yet Joe Valente, a deaf professor of early-years education at Pennsylvania State University, points at research showing the risk of infection from cochlear implants, particularly for the young. Deaf children with implants who use only spoken language perform worse at school than their peers who learn sign language. Cristina Hartmann, a deaf lawyer from New York who received her implant at the age of six, complains that even after a decade of speech therapy she did not talk and hear like a normal person. And 70% hearing is still a handicap: certain pitches can be inaudible and noisy places confusing."

Read the full article in The Economist here.

Real-time translation of Sign-Spoken conversations

Researchers in China are using Microsoft Kinect to live-translate Chinese sign language into text. The effort combines work at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Computing Technology and Microsoft Research Asia. They aren't the only techie group working on the idea. The U.K.'s Technabling says it hopes to provide software that will work across platforms by the end of the year. Here's a video about the work in China (captions included).

Obama picks Deaf Black Female Lawyer for White House job

The White House has a new person in the job to oversee its efforts on disability issues. Claudia Gordon moves over from the Dept of Labor where she dealt with potential discrimination by federal contractors to now work between the Obama administration and the disability community as the White House's disability liaison. Her new title is associate director in the White House Office of Public Engagement. The discrimination Gordon experienced as a deaf child in Jamaica compelled her to become a lawyer. Her family moved to the U.S. when she was a child. She attended New York's Lexington School for the Deaf where she learned sign language and later became the first deaf student to graduate from the American University's Washington College of Law. Gordon has worked for the National Association of the Deaf Law and Advocacy Center as well as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  You can learn more about Gordon at the White House website here.

5 Lessons on Customer Discrimination

In the wake of allegations that Starbucks in New York discriminated against deaf customers (we told you the story last Friday here) Fox Business News offers tips from employment lawyers on educating employees about discrimination. Read the tips here.

Scholar: What ASL does for children

A California researcher says there's a strong correlation between ASL fluency and English literacy among the deaf. If true, this supports a common belief that ASL plays a significant role in the academic development of deaf children. Tom Humphries at UC San Diego is exploring a teacher preparation program that "combines best practices in bilingual education and deaf education." You can read a PDF explaining Humphries' rational here.

Customer Discrimination Tips

Want to avoid a discrimination lawsuit for the way you treat your customers? Here are some tips from employment attorneys on educating employees about discrimination:

1 - Formalize training.
Derek T. Smith: “There needs to be more of a focus, because I get inquiries every week about discrimination lawsuits." Eric Broutman: “It needs to be discussed with every new hire, or once a year.” H

2 - Teach them what discrimination looks like.
Derek T. Smith: “Any time an establishment calls someone a racial slur when they get into a fight. Or if they treat people differently – I’ve seen cases in stores where racial profiling has occurred. African-Americans have been followed around the store, whereas white patrons have not.

3 - Provide reasonable accommodations.
Derek T. Smith: “If anybody has a disability, they need to be accommodated in a reasonable fashion. If a person in a wheelchair has difficulty getting into your store, you need to get off your [butt] and walk over, and help the person into the store.”

4 - Consider installing cameras.

5 - Enable customers to give feedback.
Eric Broutman: “It’s important to have managerial oversight to make sure there’s compliance [with rules regarding discrimination]. Allow customers an avenue to make complaints, so if there are rogue employees, you can make sure to take necessary action.”

Read more at Fox Business News

Deaf Man Wins Court Victory against city of Portland

Portland will pay more than $51,000 to Philip Wolfe. We told you his story back in November here. The deaf man sued the Portland city police department for violating his ADA rights. Wolfe said there was no system in place for how officers are supposed to deal with deaf people--even though the Justice Department has created a list of recommendations for law enforcement agencies. The city admitted as much in its court filing.

The problems for Wolfe started a year ago, Wolfe left his apartment to get away from an abusive partner and had a friend call 911. His friend told police that Wolfe would need an interpreter. When officers arrived with no interpreter, Wolfe asked for one. They did not honor his request and then misunderstood his desire to report domestic abuse for wanting to get into his apartment. His partner broke in the apartment that evening and attacked him. Again, Wolfe asked his friend to call 911. Again, his friend asked for an interpreter. Police arrived without an interpreter. Once again, Wolfe asked for an interpreter. Instead of calling for an interpreter, another officer was sent to the scene who knew some ASL. But she was only a beginner and was unable adequately interpret for him. Police eventually arrested his partner, but the charges were dropped when the partner committed suicide. Now, judge Michael Mosman is ordering the city to adopt that Justice Department policy.

Basketball camp for deaf at Riverside

A basketball camp at the California School for the Deaf, Riverside has just ended. A look at how it went here.

D.C.’s H Street embedded with deaf culture

Deaf waiters work at restaurants. People of all ages walk up and down the street using American Sign Language, or ASL. Bartenders know the sign for Jagermeister. The simple accommodations fostered a sense of belonging for the deaf community on a street that was evolving from chicken-wing shops and shuttered funeral parlors to $12 cocktails and indoor mini-golf. Read the Washington Post story here.

Awards Down Under

The Austrailian Sign Language Interpreters' Association of New South Wales is holding it's annual Deaf Australia Interpreter of the Year Awards this Saturday (July 20). There are seven categories for nominations. The theme for the gathering will be the Roaring Twenties. For more information, click here.

GA Biennial Gathering

An ASL Festival is planned this Saturday afternoon (July 20) to raise money for the Georgia Association of the Deaf. It's part of the group's biennial conference taking place at the University of Georgia in Athens. Admission is five dollars to attend at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education’s Mahler Hall. There will be performances provided by the deaf from other countries who now live in Georgia along with presentations on the history, culture and language of American Sign Language. The conference itself begins Wednesday. For more information, click here.

Arizona schools for deaf, blind in upheaval

This spring, students at the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind gathered rubber ducks and a coffin and staged elaborate protests with a goal of forcing a face-to-face conversation with Superintendent Robert Hill. Hill has become a lightning rod of controversy. He faces accusations of sexual harassment, disability discrimination, wrongful termination and retaliation. The conflicts have thrown the school system into chaos that has drawn in the governing board, several state agencies and Gov. Jan Brewer. At the protest, the students, many of them deaf, took to the sidewalks with signs urging passing cars to “honk loud.” They made masks of Hill’s face and held a pseudo-funeral, “burying” the administrator who they said had buried them with his disregard. They placed rubber ducks throughout the campus, a gesture suggesting Hill was a lame-duck superintendent. Read more at Arizona Central here. Or watch this video report on the Spring protest from KGUN-TV.

FEMA: Prep for Storms

A rep from the New Jersey Association of the Deaf and also the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) explains how to prepare for a storm in the FEMA video posted below on DeafNewsToday.com. Annmarie Buraczeski also shares her personal experience with Superstorm Sandy.

NY Paper: "Starbucks workers in deaf jam"

"They were ridiculed, laughed at and told they had to leave Starbucks," Eric Baum is quoted as saying in the New York Daily News. He's the lawyer who is suing on behalf of a dozen deaf customers. In response, Starbucks spokesperson Jamie Riley says the company aware of the allegations and is investigating. "Discrimination of any kind is unacceptable at Starbucks," she said. Read more here.

GA Summer Fest adds Terps

A Georgia festival focused on the plays written by locals is will offer interpreting services during shows and at its Meet the Playwright talkback series.  Organizers of the 15th annual Essential Theatre will use focus groups after the festival ends to find out what else can be done to meet the needs of the deaf and hard of hearing audience members. The Essential Theater runs through August 11 at the Actor's Express Theatre in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta.  There is a list of shows with ASL interpreting and the talkback series here.

Discovery of bodies prompts fundraising effort

The bodies of two teenage friends were pulled out of a New Mexico lake earlier this month. The boys had been helping a group from the Apache Creek Deaf and Mute Camp located southwest of Albuquerque. A website is now accepting donations to help the family, which you can see here. Below are two short video reports. The first from KOB-TV (captions available) and another from KUSA-TV (no captions but you can read the story here.

Summer Camp for Implant recipients

A clinic in LA is giving families is helping to train cochlear implant wearers how to interpret the information they receive from the device during a summer boot camp. KABC-TV has a video report, posted below on DeafNewToday.com. No captioning, but you can read the story here.

Drive-in theater with Open Captions

Kansas City is getting its first open caption outdoor movie theater. A video report from WDAF-TV is posted below. No captions but there is a script included here.

Starbucks sued for refusing to Serve the Deaf

A dozen deaf New Yorkers say some Starbucks in the city are refusing serve them. They have even been thrown out of the coffee shop and made fun of them. The group's lawsuit says it has happened more than once, at more than one Starbucks. The man taking the lead in the lawsuit, Lawrence Bitkower, organizes monthly coffee chats for the deaf. He says Starbucks refused to serve his group, telling them in writing that Starbucks doesn't serve deaf people. Another man involved in the lawsuit, Alan Roth, says last year he tried to get coffee at a Park Avenue Starbucks but was laughed at and then yelled at when he asked to see a manager. Roth says the manager did nothing in response to his complaint. Another deaf person said they saw a Starbucks employee reprimanded for trying to communicate with a deaf customer using sign language. In once instance, police were called to remove a deaf group for causing a disturbance. The deaf plaintiffs say the police ended up reprimanding the Starbucks employees. Starbucks CEO Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz apologized and send a gift card, but the lawsuit complains that no action has been taken by the company to educate its employees about deaf customers... and the problem continues. Starbucks has yet to respond to the lawsuit.

Episcopal deaf ministries

It was Episcopal minister Thomas Gallaudet who first offered services in sign language in New York City in 1852 that started the church's ministry to the deaf. The Episcopal church became the first protestant denomination to ordain a deaf person--the Rev. Henry Winter Syle in 1876 and there are more than two dozen deaf Episcopal churches today. Read about how the church continues to minister to the spiritual needs of deaf and hard-of-hearing people in the U.S. today in an article here.

Passionate Lives

A new book tells the stories of 22 deaf and hard of hearing people "living out their passions and doing what they were born to do" such as I. King Jordan, former president of Gallaudet University and rapper Sean Forbes. The Passionate Lives of Deaf and Hard of Hearing People comes from the pen of Karen Putz, a mother of three deaf and hard of hearing kids. She grew up hard of hearing herself and says, "It is my hope that every deaf and hard of hearing person will pick up this book and realize they can live the life they’re passionate about–all that’s needed is the courage to unwrap their passion and put it in motion."

Deaf Students take to the Stage

Drama can be life changing for deaf students. One example is in New York City at the Lexington School for the Deaf where students are using theatre to express their creativity and their hopes and dreams. Here's a video introduction to what excites the students.

Florida Infant Gets implant

A Tallahassee child may soon hear her mother's voice after implant surgery. WCTV has a video report  here (captions included).

Layoffs at Sorenson

Dozens of people will lose their jobs next month when Sorenson Communications cuts their Internet Protocol Relay department. We first told you about the company's plans to get rid of that department on Monday. Here's a video report about the change from Utah's KSL-TV. Captions available.

Construction at Deaf School

Construction at California School for the Deaf, Riverside, has been underway for more than six years. How much longer will it go on? Find out by reading an article from an Inland Southern California paperhere.

Child Dies in Hot Car, Grandmother arrested

A Canadian deaf woman could spend the rest of her life in jail for leaving her grandson alone in the car during a heatwave. Leslie McDonald was supposed to be taking care of one-year-old Maximus Huyskens while his father worked and his mother was at an appointment but the 51-year-old from Milton, Ontario left him inside the car outside of his home inside a small sedan. He was found his parents, dead of heatstroke.  You can read the obituary for Maximus here.

Bringing deaf Christians back to the church

WZZM-TV in Grand Rapids has a video report on a deaf congregation in the Cascade Township. No captioning, but you can read the story here.

Deaf wrestler aims to get in the WWE

“Growing up, I always wanted to become a wrestler,” said Louis Long, who was captain of his school’s varsity soccer, basketball, and track and field teams. “I want to show the world deaf people can roll up their sleeves and do these kinds of things. My goal is to educate others that deaf people can compete. There’s a huge lineup of people waiting to get into the WWE, but I want to show we can do this.” Read the full story here.

App turns Songs into Vibrations

A South American ad agency has created a music app for the deaf in it's promotion for an international music festival in Colombia. Every January, for eight days, more than 20,000 music enthusiasts descend upon the picturesque coastal city of Cartagena, Colombia, Cartagena International Music Festival. In the spirit of the festival's theme “Music Is For Everyone” Y&R Colombia has created the Vibetunes app. It transforms song frequencies into vibrations so deaf people can feel the music in their smartphones. The phone will vibrate along with a song's frequencies to allow the user to experience the beats and intricacies of each song. An Android version of the app is available here. You can see a video promoting the app below.


Vibetunes from Daniel Saenz on Vimeo.

Gally's New Student Center based on DeafSpace

The new Gallaudet residence hall 

The new dormitory at Gallaudet University exudes raw energy. Rough wood planks, exposed steel, polished concrete, and gleaming bamboo unite to provide architectural muscle. But the real power comes from a barely detectable dynamic. That energy doesn’t come from how the structure looks on its historic Washington D.C. campus, but how the building functions for the people inside. “It’s about how buildings structure and frame human interaction,” says David J. Lewis of LTL Architects. “The basic conditions of architecture were brought to the fore.” Read more here.

Relay Provider Cuts Service

A major IP relay provider is dropping its service after eight years. Sorenson Communications has written to the FCC to inform the agency. The company says the rates it gets paid aren't enough to pay for the equipment and the relay operators. The Commission cut the rate it pays IP Relay providers by 21 percent this year and plans further cuts in the future. Two other IP Relay providers have made similar decisions recently. Customers can keep their present relay number by transferring to another provider such as Sprint--if they do so by the end of next month (August 31). The FCC has a list of providers here. Sorenson will continue to offer its CaptionCall service, which is a separate service from the relay.

Deaf Sneezing

Do the deaf sneeze differently? The BBC investigates here.

Deaf pageant contestant refuses to accept ‘You can’t’

When Elizabeth was a teenager, she was told she couldn’t be a lifeguard because she’s missing an arm. She did it anyway. Read the story and see a video report about her here (no captions).

Deaf-blind priest honored

A deaf-blind Catholic priest is being honored in the UK. 71-year-old Cyril Axelrod is receiving the Order of the British Empire from the Queen of England. He is the first deaf-blind person to do so. Axelrod comes from a Jewish family and was born deaf and is now blind from Usher syndrome. Fluent in more than a dozen languages including Braille and several international sign languages, he told his story in the autobiography entitled And the Journey Begins. He went from St Vincent's School for the Deaf in Johannesburg, South Africa to Gallaudet University, eventually becoming only the second person born deaf to be ordained in the Roman Catholic church. Axelrod has served as a chaplain in deaf schools, established a nursery school for the deaf in Soweto, and a hostel for the deaf.  He eventually left Africa to travel the world in support of the deaf-blind community. He served in China and now lives in Peterborough, England. Here is a video of Axelrod from 2011.

State Deaf School Report

Iowa School for the Deaf

An audit of the Iowa School for the Deaf shows the Council Bluffs facility has an average enrollment of 101 students and spends more than $94,000 on each one (during the year ending June 2012). That's a drop from the previous year which had an average enrollment of 108 and cost of more than $99,000 per student. The outreach services provided to students also fell from 31 to 27 sites. You'll find more details on the report from the Office of Auditor of State here.

Gally Expansion

Gallaudet University is looking to develop some of its land off the main campus. Find out what administrators have in mind for the valuable DC property here.

Terps in Saudi Arabia

There's an interpreter shortage in Saudi Arabia. Ahmad Al-Faheed of the Arab Federation of Organizations Working with the Deaf reports there are only eight accredited sign language interpreters for 750,000 people with hearing difficulties in Saudi Arabia. That's one for every 93,000 people. Five of the eight work at King Saud University.