By Daniel de Vise © The Washington Post — A voice rose above the chatter in the University of Maryland parking lot: “Blind man driving!” Twenty blind people took turns piloting a car on this muggy Friday morning , the first public test of technology that might one day overcome barriers to putting the sightless behind the wheel…. READ STORY
By Julie Shaw © Philadelphia Daily News — A blind Belgian man who was captured on video getting angry as he was arrested aboard a US Airways plane at Philadelphia International Airport in April will enter a court program for nonviolent offenders, his attorney said yesterday…. READ STORY
Woonsocket, RI — CVS/pharmacy, the nation’s largest retail pharmacy, announced today that it is implementing functional improvements to benefit its customers with visual impairments and other disabilities. The Company has installed tactile keypads in all CVS stores and it will enhance its website in 2009…. READ PRESS RELEASE
St. Paul — Minnesota State Services for the Blind’s Radio Talking Book is helping China establish its own radio reading service that will serve as many as three million blind or visually impaired persons in that country…. READ PRESS RELEASE
By Donna W. Hill © AmericanChronicle.com — When Jody Ianuzzi (56, Jensen Beach, Florida), graduated from high school, she was reading at a third grade level. Setting aside for the moment the obvious question of how any American school could graduate someone with such substandard literacy skills, let’s fast forward to what she’s achieved since…. READ STORY
By Liz Bowie © The Baltimore Sun, MD — The National Federation of the Blind filed a complaint with state education officials yesterday alleging that blind children in Baltimore are graduating from public schools as functional illiterates because they are not being offered the proper training and technology at their schools…. READ STORY
By Nick Wade and Joana Krause-Palfner © CNN — A German program is training blind women to identify breast cancer earlier and more precisely than doctors. The program, called “Discovering Hands,” was the brainchild of German gynecologist Dr. Frank Hoffmann…. READ STORY
© Reuters India — A blind Indian businessman is playing the role of a gunman who fights tigers and jumps off burning cars in a new Bollywood film to be released in August…. READ STORY
By Kirsten Stewart © The Salt Lake Tribune, UT — Incomplete student evaluations, untrained teachers and poor braille translations of textbooks and test booklets are among failings cited in a state probe of Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind. But these problems don’t constitute a violation of state and federal laws guaranteeing visually impaired children a “free, appropriate education,” say the report’s authors…. READ STORY
By Caryn Tamber © The Daily Record, MD –The Baltimore City Public Schools are neglecting the needs of blind students, according to a formal complaint filed with the Maryland State Department of Education on behalf of the National Federation of the Blind…. READ STORY