Gally comes close but misses March Madness

Gallaudet lost to Morrisville State this weekend, knocking the Bison out of contention for a spot in March Madness. Morrisville State won by a score of 72-68. Gally had a chance to tie with only 10 seconds left in the game but missed the shot. Read more about what happened in the Washington Post.

Why she refused to alter her twins' genes

Sarah-Jane Moloney O'Regan decided not to alter the genes of her twins' to prevent them being born deaf. The sign language interpreter explained why on Ireland's Late Late Show here or watch the video below.

First March Madness for Gally?

image from Gallaudet.edu

The Gallaudet men's basketball team has already set a school record by winning 20 games. And they aren't done. The school is hosting the North Eastern Athletic Conference tournament for the first time this weekend. If the Bison can pull off wins in their two games, they would be the first team in Gally history to earn a berth in the NCAA Division III tournament. Read more in the Washington Post.

New Show from Deaf West

A new Deaf West Theatre production opens March 7 in LA at the Wallis. "Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo" will run through March 26. The cast includes deaf and hearing actors. You'll find more details here.

SCOTUS sides with Service Dog

A Supreme Court ruling could have an impact on students with disabilities across the country, according to the ACLU. The high court has unanimously ruled in favor a Michigan girl who wanted to bring her service dog school with her. Administrators at the Napoleon Community School had told Ehlena Fry's family that she could have human helpers but not her Goldendoodle named Wonder. Her family thought that was a violation of ADA law. The case now goes back to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Warehouse coworkers learn ASL

Kamal Nasser is helping coworkers at Columbus's AT&T warehouse learn ASL. Nasser is deaf, so this is making work better for him, but it's also bonding his coworkers together. WSYX has a video report. No captions, but you can read the story here.

Deaf MS Man Shot to Death

Rafael Thompson was found dead in his car in Jackson with multiple gunshot wounds, according to MS News Now. Thompson had attended the Mississippi School for the Deaf before going to college. Jackson Police have no suspects in the case. Here's a video report from MS News Now.

MSNewsNow.com - Jackson, MS

Deaf Man Killed by Train

A Colorado deaf man was hit and killed today afternoon by train while he was crossing the tracks. KDVR-TV has surveillance video from a neighboring business in the video report below.

Large Collection of ASL GIFs now Available

A library of more than 2,000 GIFs of individual signs are now available through GIPHY, the GIF search engine. The collection of ASL looping flashcards is cut from a educational series called "Sign With Robert" featuring Robert DeMayo. There's text to make it clearer. "Sign With Robert" director and producer Hilari Scarl says, "The GIF format has the ability to loop infinitely, so it's perfect for learning new signs. [It] doesn't require the back and forth of hitting play, rewind or repeat." Particular sign can be found by using the search bar. There's an example below.. and you can access the "Sign with Robert" GIPHY library here.


via GIPHY

Deaf Student: School Discriminated Against Me

A deaf Lousiana college student has filed a lawsuit claiming that the University of Louisiana-Lafayette did not him as required by ADA. Fabian S. Strauss says he requested a note taker but was denied. Read more about it in the Louisiana record here.

One Billion Videos Captioned.. sort of

While YouTube is bragging about have one billion captioned videos, critics are pointing out that many of the automatically generated captions are wildly inaccurate. It's been eight years since Google added the automatic speech recognition designed to generate captions and the company says it's accuracy is up by 50 percent. But in the anouncement about the number of captioned videos, Google Product Manager Liat Kaver admits the program is not where the company wants it to be:

A major goal for the team has been improving the accuracy of automatic captions — something that is not easy to do for a platform of YouTube’s size and diversity of content. Key to the success of this endeavor was improving our speech recognition, machine learning algorithms, and expanding our training data. There were limitations with the technology that underscored the need to improve the captions themselves. Results were sometimes less than perfect, prompting some creators to have a little fun at our expense!

Read the full announcement from YouTube here.

Deaf High School Mascot

Deaf from birth, 15-year-old Freshman Kamron King "has mastered sign language and how to lip read and speak." As his high school mascot, King says he "uses his eyes and his energy to get the crowd fired up." He's affectionately known as "Kam the Ham." Here is an NBC News video report.

Irish Comedian Insults Deaf with Fake Signing

An Irish comedian stood up in front of a group gathered to hear a streamed political speech and pretended to use sign language. His random gestures were not appreciated by the Deaf community, Irish Deaf Society said it was insulted by the prank. Read more about it here.

Shot after not understanding gunman's demands

John Kelly was getting money out of an ATM when he was shot four times because the deaf man couldn't hear the commands of robbers. WISN-TV in Milwaukee has a video report here.

A review of Switched at Birth from a deaf perspective

The TV series Switched at Birth has gotten a lot of positive press for its protrayal of deaf characters. But one reviewer says that while the show is a "GREAT innovation" it doesn't live up to its potential. Case in point:

If you are fluent in sign and have been in and around the deaf community it is annoying that the cast can’t learn ASL properly after 4 full seasons. It’s painful to watch Vanessa Marano (Bay Kennish) struggle through her lines as if she has an ASL coach telling her how to sign off set. It’s terrible. She is supposed to have known her deaf “sister” for 4 years now plus she is dating deaf guys for a few years and she doesn’t know the difference between the sign of “English” and “night.”

Read the full review in the San Francisco News.

Police: Video Made of Deaf Man's Beating

A video shows a deaf man being beaten in Detroit by another deaf man.. and "police said the woman holding the camera in the video set it all up," reports WDIV-TV. The three attended the same school for the deaf.

Super Bowl Signing

Kriston Pumphrey
image from NAD

The Super Bowl festivities will include the talents of an NTID alum (National Technical Institute for the Deaf). Kriston Lee Pumphrey will sign the National Anthem and “America, the Beautiful.” Pumphrey lives in Detriot where he works as an anchor at sign language channel DPAN-TV, but he considers Seattle his hometown. WJBK-TV has more on his background here, NTID has a news release here, and the National Association of the Deaf here.

Ruling on Firing of Deaf School Teachers

A judge has overturned a decision by an arbitrator about the firing of two teachers at the Iowa School for the Deaf over what administrators said was poor performance. Read the full story from Associated Press here.

The Good Vibrations Music and Arts Festival

Organizers of a Texas music festival set for the summer claim it will be the first to be completely accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing community. KHOU-TV has a video report.