Imagine that you are a blind person who wants to help the people in war-torn Ukraine. The television news anchor tells viewers to point their phones to a QR code on the screen to get information on how to donate. How will a blind person use the phone camera to find that information on the screen? How will a person who is deaf find out what was said in an online video chat about high gas prices when there are no captions in place to provide details of the conversation. Everyone relies on media outlets for so many facets of their daily lives, but the disabled are often left in the cold, on the outside looking in, so to speak. When the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted in 1990, the Internet as we know it today did not exist as the ubiquitous marketplace for information, goods and services. Neither did the information and communications technology-(ICT) driven media environment.
MASTERCARD CREATES AD FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED TO MATCH ITS ACCESSIBLE CARDS
When advertisers promote their products, they seem remarkably adept at targeting the right audience—except when accessibility comes into play. It’s often expected that the abled persons in the circles of people with disabilities would see those commercials and buy those products for their friends, but the intended users are far more capable than others credit them to be. Mastercard walks the talk with a thoughtful spot that encapsulates what its accessibly-designed, differentiated cards are all about…
TENNESSEE BANS PAYING LESS THAN MINIMUM WAGE TO PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed legislation that prohibited paying people with disabilities below the minimum wage, making it the ninth state to end the practice. Under the federal Fair Labor and Standards Act, employers can apply for a certificate to pay people with disabilities “whose earning or productive capacity is impaired by a physical or mental disability, including those relating to age or injury, for the work to be performed” below the federal minimum wage…
GSA LOOKS INTO FACIAL RECOGNITION BIAS AND IMPROVING ACCESSIBILITY IN FEDERAL WEB SERVICES
The U.S. General Services Administration, which procures and investigates tech for things like government websites and online services, is making a two-pronged push for accessibility in its recently released Equity Action Plan. Websites must be made accessible beyond the bare minimum, it said, and bias in facial recognition systems means the feds will be avoiding it wherever possible. The Action Plan is the result of a bit of introspection at the GSA, which “conducted equity assessments and identified a set of actions for three high-impact focus areas,” one of which is “federal technology design & delivery.”…
NORTH ADAMS NOT COMPLIANT WITH ACCESSIBILITY-RELATED ORDER ISSUED LAST YEAR FOR THE PUBLIC SAFETY BUILDING
A plan to address accessibility issues at the city’s police and fire department building is more than two years overdue to the state’s Architectural Access Board. In November, the Architectural Access Board, which enforces accessibility laws in public buildings, fined the city $8,150 and ordered it to submit a bond of $10,000 that would be returned when it submitted temporary remediation plans for the building and a plan for an accessible public bathroom…
NY TO MAKE ABSENTEE BALLOTS MORE ACCESSIBLE FOR VOTERS WITH DISABILITIES
For Sharon McLennon-Wier, casting her vote in elections hasnít always been easy. The executive director at the Center for Independence of the Disabled, New York (CIDNY), McLennon-Wier is blind. Voting at a poll site in-person often proved very challenging, she says. There were crowds and lines to contend with, and despite the fact that every New York City polling station is required to have accessible voting equipment in the form of a Ballot Marking Device (BMD), sometimes the machine wouldn't be plugged in yet, or it would be out of paper, or staff at the site wouldnt really know how to use it
ACCESSIBILITY 'TOP OF MIND' IN PLANNING FOR 2023 ELECTION
ACCESSIBILITY OPTIONS FOR OLDER VOTERS AT THE POLLS
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT EXPANDS ARIZONA LAWSUIT ALLEGING DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION IN ACCESS TO SURGICAL CARE
The Justice Department filed an amended complaint today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona to add American Vision Partners (AVP) as a co-defendant in the department’s lawsuit against Barnet Dulaney Perkins Eye Center (BDP). The amended complaint alleges that AVP and BDP discriminate against patients who, because of their disabilities, need assistance transferring from their wheelchairs for eye surgery. AVP provides management, training, policies and guidance, staff, infrastructure and technology to BDP and other eye care medical practices…
SAN FRANCISCO DISTRICT ATTORNEY BOUDIN ANNOUNCES GROUNDBREAKING CIVIL PROSECUTION AGAINST LAW FIRM FOR EXPLOITING ADA TO FILE THOUSANDS OF FRAUDULENT LAWSUITS AGAINST SMALL BUSINESSES
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón announce that the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office are filing a civil complaint against the law firm Potter Handy LLP. Potter Handy has filed thousands of fraudulent, boilerplate lawsuits against small businesses alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and California’s Unruh Act, a civil rights statute…
'THE SIMPSONS' MAKES HISTORY WITH FIRST DEAF VOICE ACTOR AND USE OF AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE
When The Simpsons creative team decided to use American Sign Language in this Sunday's episode, there was one hitch: The show's animated characters have only four fingers. That was a little tricky, especially because the one thing we're translating is Shakespeare,says writer Loni Steele Sosthand.But I think we pulled it off. Sosthand, who joined The Simpsons in 2020, is the writer behind the show's April 10 installment, The Sound of Bleeding Gums.
BRINGING AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE TO LOCAL WEATHER ALERTS
One morning in June 2000, Tara Burglund was driving through a thunderstorm on her way to work just north of Sioux City, Iowa. She could see the dark clouds looming overhead and feel the 74 mph winds trying to roll her car as she pressed on the brakes. But she couldn’t hear the cracks of thunder or the urgency of the severe weather alerts. Burglund is deaf. While she followed her instincts to pull over into a parking lot, she didn’t know what was going on…
EMPLOYEE'S UNWANTED BIRTHDAY PARTY NETS HIM $450,000 AFTER LAWSUIT AGAINST KY COMPANY
Days before his birthday in August 2019, an employee at a Kentucky-based laboratory asked his office manager to not arrange a celebration for his birthday. It wasn’t the fear of getting older, but rather an anxiety disorder that can spur “panic attacks in stressful situations,” according to court documents. The employee, who was hired in October 2018 by Gravity Diagnostics, did not want a celebration because “being the center of attention” can trigger his disorder, the documents state…
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HOTELIERS NOT CATERING TO THE ACCESSIBLE TRAVEL MARKET MIGHT BE LEFT BEHIND
HALLMARK'S NEW ROMANCE MOVIE WILL BE LED BY AN ACTOR WITH DOWN SYNDROME
UNITED STATES PREVENTIVE TASK FORCE GUIDELINES CALL FOR SCREENING KIDS AS YOUNG AS 8 FOR ANXIETY
An influential panel of experts says all kids ages eight to 18 should be screened regularly for anxiety. This draft recommendation by the United States Preventive Task Force comes at a time when mental health problems among kids have escalated and are overwhelming the health system. The task force also recommends that kids 12 and older continue to be screened for depression, a recommendation that's been in place since 2016. The screenings are usually done by primary care physicians using standardized questionnaires that parents and/or kids answer…
ALS IS ONLY 50% GENETIC - IDENTIFYING DNA REGIONS AFFECTED BY LIFESTYLE AND ENVIRONMENTAL RISK FACTORS COULD HELP PINPOINT AVENUES FOR TREATMENT
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a devastating neurodegenerative disease that affects about 1 in 50,000 people. Well-known people who suffered from ALS include baseball player Lou Gehrig, who lived two years after he was diagnosed, and scientist Stephen Hawking, who lived for an extraordinary 55 years after his diagnosis. While the severity and speed of disease progression vary from person to person, most people with ALS die within two to five years after diagnosis..
WHAT IS MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY, THE CONDITION GILBERT GOTTFRIED DIED FROM?
Tributes poured in for Gilbert Gottfried on Tuesday after news broke that he died in Manhattan. The 67-year-old comedian’s family shared on Twitter that he passed away “after a long illness.” Gottfried’s publicist Glenn Schwartz later said in a statement to People that the comedian died from recurrent ventricular tachycardia due to myotonic dystrophy type II, a heart complication due to a form of muscular dystrophy. Gottfried’s death has raised a lot of questions about muscular dystrophy, including its symptoms and how someone can actually die from the condition…
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