By Jim Boyle © San Francisco Chronicle — Shielded from the sun by his baseball cap and dark shades, Ed Gallagher seems like any other middle-aged sailor headed for a carefree getaway on San Francisco Bay. But he’s blind, and these days, Gallagher is busy planning for an October race, one that would include some of his own technological advances…. READ STORY
By Tim Johnson © The Daily Nonpareil, Council Bluffs, Iowa — Now you see it, now you don’t. Members of a support group for the blind, most of whom have some vision, donned blindfolds during their monthly meeting Tuesday for a cooking project. The exercise is constructive, even for those with impaired vision, said Dawn Kruse, rehabilitation teacher for the Iowa Department for the Blind, who leads the Council Bluffs Blind Informational Group…. READ STORY
By Corey Jones © Topeka Capital-Journal and The Associated Press, Kansas — John Parker was officiating at a Topeka soccer league game in 1981 when his life changed forever. He graduated from Hayden in 1979 and played amateur soccer with the intention of trying out as a goalie for a pro soccer team because he was too short to play basketball, his favorite sport, in elite leagues. But life sometimes has a way of altering plans…. READ STORY
By Mark Niquette © The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio — The Strickland administration today restored $4.1 million in funding to four accounts it raided — including funds to prevent blindness and promote organ donations — to help balance the previous state budget…. READ STORY
NEWPORT, Rhode Island — When the competitors left the dock for the third and final day of racing at the C. Thomas Clagett Jr. Memorial Regatta, they did so in a beautiful crisp 12 knot northerly that unfortunately died off over the course of the morning…. READ PRESS RELEASE
© Buffalo News, New York — The National Statler Center is offering training in the hospitality and customer service fields for blind, visually impaired and other disabled people…. READ STORY
By Brenda Hawkins © Collier Citizen, Collier County, Florida — Seeking their independence, Collier’s visually impaired voters got a preview of the latest in audio ballot technology, Aug. 19. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the audio ballot machines have been required at Florida polling sites since 2002. But local advocates for the visually impaired have been critical that local election officials have not enough to make visually impaired voters more aware of the machines…. READ STORY
By Matthew Peters © GameSpot.com — Largely invisible to the mainstream, sightless gamers help each other tackle titles like Rock Band and Left 4 Dead, while others focus on games made for–and by–the blind…. READ STORY
By Laura Ann Sills © WTVM-TV, Columbus, Georgia — Gregory McDuffie was in Florida when he got the call. The call that he was going to firewalk. “I’m like, yeah, you’re going to let a visually impaired person walk across fire?” That is exactly what is going to happen. One-hundred people, five of which are visually impaired, will walk across coals that are over a thousand degrees. The walk benefits the visually impaired of Columbus in conjunction with Country’s Midnight Run…. READ STORY
By Richard Alleyne © Telegraph, United Kingdom — Scientists genetically “reprogrammed” human skin cells to possess the same properties as those that make up the retina. The process involved first turning them into pluripotent stem (IPS) cells, which have the potential to develop into virtually every kind of tissue in the body. By exposing the IPS cells to a specific cocktail of chemicals, the scientists then caused them to grow into partially developed retina cells – the light-sensitive cells at the back of the eye which transmit nerve signals to the brain…. READ STORY