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Tag: Vision impairment and blindness

  • Some blind fans to experience Super Bowl with tactile device that tracks ball

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    Some blind and low-vision fans will have unprecedented access to the Super Bowl thanks to a tactile device that tracks the ball, vibrates on key plays and provides real-time audio.

    The NFL teamed up with OneCourt and Ticketmaster to pilot the game-enhancing experience 15 times during the regular-season during games hosted by the Seattle Seahawks, Jacksonville Jaguars, San Francisco 49ers, Atlanta Falcons and Minnesota Vikings.

    About 10 blind and low-vision fans will have an opportunity to use the same technology at the Super Bowl in Santa Clara, California, where Seattle will play the New England Patriots on Feb. 8. With hands on the device, they will feel the location of the ball and hear what’s happening throughout the game.

    Scott Thornhill can’t wait.

    Thornhill, the executive director of the American Council of the Blind, will be among the fans at Levi’s Stadium with a OneCourt tablet in their lap and Westwood One’s broadcast piped into headphones. He was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa when he was 8, and later lost his sight.

    “It will allow me to engage and enjoy the game as close as possible as people who can see,” Thornhill told The Associated Press. “As someone who grew up playing sports before I lost my vision, I’m getting a big part of my life back that I’ve been missing. To attend a game and not have to wait for someone to tell me what happened, it’s hard to even describe how much that means to me.

    “It’s a game-changer.”

    Clark Roberts experienced it first hand.

    The Seahawks fan was invited by the team to attend its home game against Indianapolis on Dec. 14 to experience the game with the OneCourt device that is the size of a thick iPad with raised lines outlining a football field.

    “The device does two wonderful things,” said Roberts, who lost his sight when he was 24 due to retinitis pigmentosa. “It vibrates in different ways for different plays and through headphones, I was able to hear Seattle’s amazing announcer, Steve Raible. Real-time audio is the real beauty of the device because usually when I’m listening to a game, there can be a delay of up to a minute or more and that can be challenging to constantly ask family and friends what happened.

    “Can you imagine how this can open up everything, not just football?”

    OneCourt is working on it.

    It has partnered with NBA and Major League Baseball teams to provide its devices at games and is in talks to make them available with the NHL, along with other leagues and sports organizations all over the world.

    OneCourt launched in 2023 after founder Jerred Mace saw a blind person attending a soccer match while he was a junior at the University of Washington.

    The startup with headquarters in Seattle uses the NFL’s tracking data from Genius Sports and translates it into feedback for the device to create unique vibrations for plays such as tackles and touchdowns.

    The data is generated from cameras and chips embedded in balls, jerseys and elsewhere. The same technology is used by the NFL’s NextGen Stats for health and player safety, statistics and gambling.

    “It’s a testament to the maturity of the product and our company that we have gone from delivering this to a handful of teams throughout the last year or two to having it at the largest event in American sports,” OneCourt co-founder Antyush Bollini said. “The Super Bowl is such an amazing event and now blind and low-vision fans can use our technology in a way they deserve.”

    Ticketmaster’s funding for the NFL pilot went toward underwriting the device to make it available to fans for free, according to senior client development director Scott Aller.

    “This is a very, very big social impact win,” Aller said. “We hope that we can make an investment like this in every single one of our markets.”

    After some teams approached the league about improving access for all, the NFL has spent the past few months piloting the program and ultimately decided to have the device make its Super Bowl debut.

    “It’s not lost on us that we have blind to low-vision fans and we want to do right by them,” said Belynda Gardner, senior director of diversity equity and inclusion for the NFL.

    Gardner said the league has been very encouraged by the pilot and potential of this technology.

    “We’re reviewing what we learned and evaluating how it can be implemented going forward,” Gardner said. “There aren’t any definitive next steps and we will use the offseason to determine where this technology sits in the NFL’s suite of offerings.”

    Thomas Rice, a Jaguars fans, who is blind, said he had a seamless experience with the OneCourt device at a game in Jacksonville. Rice picked up the tablet at guest services at EverBank Stadium and after settling in at his seat, he felt and heard football in a new way.

    “When Trevor Lawrence threw a touchdown pass to Brian Thomas Jr., I felt the ball travel through the air,” Rice said. “When Travis Etienne ran the ball, I could feel it happen along the sideline.”

    “It was like giving me my own pair of eyes.”

    ___

    Follow Larry Lage on X

    ___

    AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

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  • AP PHOTOS: A blind pianist from Nagaland says music is ‘one thing that has kept me alive’

    AP PHOTOS: A blind pianist from Nagaland says music is ‘one thing that has kept me alive’

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    KOHIMA, India — Takosangba Pongen had his vision for 14 years. He has been blind for the past 13. But in front of a piano, nobody can tell.

    “Playing the piano transports me to another dimension. After losing my vision, music has been one thing that has kept me alive. It opened a window to see the world. It gives me energy and hope to go forward,” he said.

    On Sunday night, he performed for a crowd at the Brillante Piano Festival in Bengaluru, the capital of the southern Indian state of Karnataka.

    Pongen, 27, plays by ear. He is self taught, with help from YouTube tutorials that he began in 2020. He said he would like to be a professional musician someday but that finding an institute that teaches the visually impaired has been a challenge.

    He first noticed problems with his sight when he couldn’t read what his schoolteacher was writing on the blackboard. Then he recalls having difficulty seeing small glass marbles as he played with his siblings. Surgery made the problem worse. By 14, he was blind.

    “I sometimes wish I could see. But after all these years, I have accepted my fate as God’s plan for me. He wants to use me as a tool to inspire and motivate others. If a blind man can do it, why can’t others who are fully able?” he said.

    Brillante originated in the small mountain town of Kohima, in the northeastern Indian state of Nagaland, not far from where Pongen now studies. Festival organizers said they “believe in the transformative power of music as an agent of social development.” Pongen is a part of their “Specially Abled Musicians” program.

    He played Nocturne in B Flat Minor by the 19th century composer Frederic Chopin. It is a piece inspired by the night. Pongen said Chopin is his favorite classical composer and that he also hopes to play modern and fusion jazz someday.

    “I love music that is expressive and emotional,” he said.

    Pongen had travelled more than 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles) to Bengaluru with his white cane and sister by his side to play at the fifth edition of Brillante. His heart was racing, he said, when the festival’s director, Khyochano TCK, introduced him to the other musicians.

    The nervousness crept back when his time to perform arrived. He took a deep breath and reassured himself. Then his sister Imlibenla gently guided him onto the stage and seated him in front of a grand piano. From there, he soared.

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  • Census Bureau wants to change how it asks about disabilities. Some don't like it

    Census Bureau wants to change how it asks about disabilities. Some don't like it

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    The U.S. Census Bureau wants to change how it asks people about disabilities, and some advocates are complaining that they were not consulted enough on what amounts to a major overhaul in how disabilities would be defined by the federal government.

    Disability advocates say the change would artificially reduce their numbers by almost half. At stake are not only whether people with disabilities get vital resources for housing, schools or program benefits but whether people with disabilities are counted accurately in the first place, experts said.

    Some also question the timing of the change, which comes just as more people are living with new, long-term conditions from the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Census Bureau officials say the proposed change on its most comprehensive survey of American life will align the U.S. with international standards, allowing comparisons among countries. They also say it will better capture how disabilities occur in the real world, since they rarely fit neatly into stark yes-or-no boxes that don’t account for variations or nuance.

    The bureau has spent time, money and energy trying to improve counts of racial and ethnic minorities who have been historically undercounted, but the statistical agency seems willing to adapt questions that will shortchange the numbers of people with disabilities, said Scott Landes, an associate professor of sociology at Syracuse University.

    “This, in my mind, is illogical,” Landes, who is visually impaired, said in an interview. “There is a piece of me that thinks, ‘How dare you — to think that we don’t count.’ I get offended.”

    If given final approval, the changes to the American Community Survey questions would be implemented in 2025. The ACS is the most comprehensive survey of American life, covering commuting times, internet access, family life, income, education levels, disabilities and military service, among other topics. The statistical agency was asked to make the change by the National Center for Health Statistics and is accepting public comment on the proposal through Dec. 19.

    The existing questions ask respondents to answer “yes” or “no” if they have difficulty or “serious difficulty” seeing, even with glasses, or are blind; hearing, or are deaf; concentrating, remembering or making decisions because of a physical, mental or emotional condition; walking or climbing stairs; dressing or bathing; or performing everyday tasks because of a physical, mental or emotional condition. If the answer is ”yes,” they are counted as having a disability.

    Under the proposed change, respondents would be allowed to answer most of the same questions with four choices: “no difficulty,” “some difficulty,” “a lot of difficulty” and “cannot do at all.” There are tweaks to the language of the questions, and the proposal adds a query on whether respondents have trouble communicating.

    But the most significant change involves the threshold beyond which people are determined to have a disability. The international standards being considered by the Census Bureau typically define a person as having a disability if they answer “cannot do at all” or “a lot of difficulty” for any task or function.

    During testing last year by the Census Bureau, the percentage of respondents who were defined as having a disability went from 13.9% using the current questions to 8.1% under the international standards. When the definition was expanded to also include “some difficulty,” it grew to 31.7%.

    Marlene Sallo said her degenerative spine condition presents difficulties on some days, but overall she is able to function on a daily basis, so she worries that she might not be considered as having a disability with the revised questions.

    “Right now, it’s not inclusive and it will miss many individuals within my community,” Sallo, executive director of the National Disability Rights Network, said last month at a meeting of a Census Bureau advisory committee, of which she is a member.

    Officials at the Census Bureau and the health statistics agency argue that the change will give officials better information and details about disabilities that can inform how services or resources are provided. Census Bureau officials had two conference calls with disability advocates on the subject this week.

    “Forcing a dichotomy masks nuance,” Julie Weeks, an official at the National Center for Health Statistics, said during a presentation last month.

    The terminology surrounding disabilities has evolved in recent years, moving away from labels that imply inferiority and toward more sensitive language that outlines the specific conditions or circumstances in which individuals or groups live. The Associated Press defers whenever possible to the wishes of people or groups in how they choose to be described but uses neutral language that withholds judgment about a person’s condition.

    Disability advocates said the international standards were formulated without their input. Last month, the Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee recommended that the statistical agency not adopt the change until it meets further with disability advocates and researchers.

    While the proposal may be better for scientific research, the questions, if approved, will be adapted with the needs of agencies and not people with disabilities in mind, Andrew Houtenville, research director at the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire, told members of the National Advisory Committee at last month’s meeting.

    “This has taken a lot of people by surprise,” Houtenville said.

    Some experts believe the current questions don’t adequately account for people with mental health problems, developmental disabilities or chronic health conditions, like those faced by many people living with long COVID. But they say the proposed change isn’t the answer.

    “Disability is an evolving concept, and there is a new kind of disability we didn’t have five years ago, Long COVID, and we need to be able to account for that and other changes,” said Susan Popkin, co-director of the Disability Equity Policy Initiative at the Urban Institute, who has a chronic autoimmune condition.

    The proposed change is grating to some advocates since it is occurring at a time when disability has grown to be an identity and a social movement, rather than just a function-based definition of someone’s limitations. For instance, a person with limited hearing may be able to function fully with the help of hearing aids but can still identify as having a disability.

    “You can be proud of your disability and still not want the pain and symptoms of the conditions that lead to that disability. That is part of a shift in disability as a demographic group,” said Bonnielin Swenor, director of the Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center, who has low vision.

    “There is a shift of view in disability pride and claiming disability identity as part of who we are … not as a deficit,” Swenor said.

    ___

    Follow Mike Schneider on X, formerly known as Twitter: @MikeSchneiderAP.

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  • Census Bureau wants to change how it asks about disabilities. Some advocates don't like it

    Census Bureau wants to change how it asks about disabilities. Some advocates don't like it

    [ad_1]

    The U.S. Census Bureau wants to change how it asks people about disabilities, and some advocates are complaining that they were not consulted enough on what amounts to a major overhaul in how disabilities would be defined by the federal government.

    Disability advocates say the change would artificially reduce their numbers by almost half. At stake are not only whether people with disabilities get vital resources for housing, schools or program benefits but whether people with disabilities are counted accurately in the first place, experts said.

    Some also question the timing of the change, which comes just as more people are living with new, long-term conditions from the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Census Bureau officials say the proposed change on its most comprehensive survey of American life will align the U.S. with international standards, allowing comparisons among countries. They also say it will better capture how disabilities occur in the real world, since they rarely fit neatly into stark yes-or-no boxes that don’t account for variations or nuance.

    “The bureau has spent time, money and energy trying to improve counts of racial and ethnic minorities who have been historically undercounted, but the statistical agency seems willing to adapt questions that will shortchange the numbers of people with disabilities,” said Scott Landes, an associate professor of sociology at Syracuse University.

    “This, in my mind, is illogical,” Landes, who is visually impaired, said in an interview. “There is a piece of me that thinks, ‘How dare you — to think that we don’t count.’ I get offended.”

    If given final approval, the changes to the American Community Survey questions would be implemented in 2025. The ACS is the most comprehensive survey of American life, covering commuting times, internet access, family life, income, education levels, disabilities and military service, among other topics. The statistical agency was asked to make the change by the National Center for Health Statistics and is accepting public comment on the proposal through Dec. 19.

    The existing questions ask respondents to answer “yes” or “no” if they have difficulty or “serious difficulty” seeing, even with glasses, or are blind; hearing, or are deaf; concentrating, remembering or making decisions because of a physical, mental or emotional condition; walking or climbing stairs; dressing or bathing; or performing everyday tasks because of a physical, mental or emotional condition. If the answer is ”yes,” they are counted as having a disability.

    Under the proposed change, respondents would be allowed to answer most of the same questions with four choices: “no difficulty,” “some difficulty,” “a lot of difficulty” and “cannot do at all.” There are tweaks to the language of the questions, and the proposal adds a query on whether respondents have trouble communicating.

    But the most significant change involves the threshold beyond which people are determined to have a disability. The international standards being considered by the Census Bureau typically define a person as having a disability if they answer “cannot do at all” or “a lot of difficulty” for any task or function.

    During testing last year by the Census Bureau, the percentage of respondents who were defined as having a disability went from 13.9% using the current questions to 8.1% under the international standards. When the definition was expanded to also include “some difficulty,” it grew to 31.7%.

    Marlene Sallo said her degenerative spine condition presents difficulties on some days, but overall she is able to function on a daily basis, so she worries that she might not be considered as having a disability with the revised questions.

    “Right now, it’s not inclusive and it will miss many individuals within my community,” Sallo, executive director of the National Disability Rights Network, said last month at a meeting of a Census Bureau advisory committee, of which she is a member.

    Officials at the Census Bureau and the health statistics agency argue that the change will give officials better information and details about disabilities that can inform how services or resources are provided.

    “Forcing a dichotomy masks nuance,” Julie Weeks, an official at the National Center for Health Statistics, said during a presentation last month.

    The terminology surrounding disabilities has evolved in recent years, moving away from labels that imply inferiority and toward more sensitive language that outlines the specific conditions or circumstances in which individuals or groups live. The Associated Press defers whenever possible to the wishes of people or groups in how they choose to be described but uses neutral language that withholds judgment about a person’s condition.

    Disability advocates said the international standards were formulated without their input. Last month, the Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee recommended that the statistical agency not adopt the change until it meets further with disability advocates and researchers.

    While the proposal may be better for scientific research, the questions, if approved, will be adapted with the needs of agencies and not people with disabilities in mind, Andrew Houtenville, research director at the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire, told members of the National Advisory Committee at last month’s meeting.

    “This has taken a lot of people by surprise,” Houtenville said.

    Some experts believe the current questions don’t adequately account for people with mental health problems, developmental disabilities or chronic health conditions, like those faced by many people living with long COVID. But they say the proposed change isn’t the answer.

    “Disability is an evolving concept, and there is a new kind of disability we didn’t have five years ago, Long COVID, and we need to be able to account for that and other changes,” said Susan Popkin, co-director of the Disability Equity Policy Initiative at the Urban Institute, who has a chronic autoimmune condition.

    The proposed change is grating to some advocates since it is occurring at a time when disability has grown to be an identity and a social movement, rather than just a function-based definition of someone’s limitations. For instance, a person with limited hearing may be able to function fully with the help of hearing aids but can still identify as having a disability.

    “You can be proud of your disability and still not want the pain and symptoms of the conditions that lead to that disability. That is part of a shift in disability as a demographic group,” said Bonnielin Swenor, director of the Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center, who has low vision.

    “There is a shift of view in disability pride and claiming disability identity as part of who we are … not as a deficit,” Swenor said.

    ___

    Follow Mike Schneider on X, formerly known as Twitter: @MikeSchneiderAP.

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  • Eyedrops from CVS, Rite Aid and others carry possible infection risk, FDA says

    Eyedrops from CVS, Rite Aid and others carry possible infection risk, FDA says

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    U.S. health regulators are warning consumers not to use more than two dozen varieties of over-the-counter eyedrops due to the risk of infections that could lead to blindness

    ByThe Associated Press

    October 30, 2023, 11:23 AM

    FILE – A sign for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is displayed outside their offices in Silver Spring, Md., Dec. 10, 2020. U.S. health regulators are warning consumers not to use more than two dozen varieties of over-the-counter eyedrops because of the risk of infections that could lead to blindness. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

    The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — U.S. health regulators are warning consumers not to use more than two dozen varieties of over-the-counter eyedrops because of the risk of infections that could lead to blindness.

    The Food and Drug Administration advisory applies to lubricating drops sold by six companies, including CVS Health, Target, Rite Aid and Cardinal Health. Consumers should stop using the products immediately and avoid purchasing any that remain on pharmacy and store shelves, the FDA said in a statement Friday.

    The agency asked the companies to recall their products last week, because FDA inspectors found unsanitary conditions and bacteria at the facility producing the drops. The FDA did not disclose the location of the factory or when it was inspected.

    No injuries related to the products had been reported at the time of the announcement, but the FDA encouraged doctors and patients to submit cases through the agency’s online reporting system.

    Earlier this year, federal officials linked an outbreak of drug-resistant bacteria to eyedrops from two companies, EzriCare and Delsam Pharma. More than 80 people in the U.S. tested positive for eye infections from the rare bacterial strain, according to the most recent update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    After the products were recalled in February, health inspectors visited the manufacturing plant in India that made the eyedrops and uncovered problems with how they were made and tested, including inadequate sterility measures.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Agreement central to a public dispute between Michael Oher and the Tuohys is being questioned

    Agreement central to a public dispute between Michael Oher and the Tuohys is being questioned

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    MEMPHIS, Tenn. — In 2004, when Michael Oher was a coveted college recruit, the 18-year-old high schooler agreed in court to allow the Memphis couple he lived with to make decisions for him about signing contracts and any medical issues.

    Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy had taken in Oher, who had been in the Tennessee foster care system and at one point lived on the streets. The judge-approved agreement, called a conservatorship, was made with the permission of Oher’s biological mother and inked about two months before Oher signed to play offensive line for Ole Miss, where Sean Tuohy had been a standout basketball player.

    Nineteen years later, Oher has asked for the agreement to end in a probate court filing accusing the Tuohys of enriching themselves at his expense and lying to him by having him sign papers making them his conservators rather than his adoptive parents. Oher, who played eight NFL seasons, claims the Tuohys never took legal action to assume custody before he turned 18, though he was told to call them “Mom” and “Dad.”

    The demand by Oher, whose life story was turned into the Oscar-nominated film “The Blind Side,” has led to scrutiny of the Tuohys and of the agreement itself, with one expert questioning how a judge approved it.

    “There are a lot of not just unusual, but shocking and maybe never before seen things, for even attorneys experienced in this area,” said Victoria Haneman, a professor of trusts and estates at the Creighton University School of Law.

    Now 37, Oher seeks a full accounting of assets, considering his life story produced millions of dollars, though he says he received nothing from the movie. He accuses the Tuohys of falsely representing themselves as his adoptive parents, saying he only discovered in February that the conservatorship provided him no familial relationship to them.

    The Tuohys said they loved Oher like a son and supported him when he lived with them and when he was in college. They are devastated by accusations by Oher, who has been estranged from them for about a decade, their lawyers say.

    In Tennessee, a conservatorship removes power from a person to make decisions for themselves, and it is often used in the case of a medical condition or disability. But Oher’s conservatorship was approved “despite the fact that he was over 18 years old and had no diagnosed physical or psychological disabilities,” his petition said.

    The Tuohys said they set up the conservatorship to help Oher with health insurance, a driver’s license and being admitted to college. Their lawyers said in a news conference Wednesday that the Tuohys never received money from Oher’s NFL contracts or shoe deals and they split money from “The Blind Side,” which earned the couple, their two children and Oher an estimated $100,000 apiece.

    The Tuohys didn’t instead adopt Oher because the conservatorship was the fastest way to satisfy the NCAA’s concerns that the Tuohys weren’t simply steering a talented athlete to Ole Miss, lawyer Randall Fishman said.

    “There was one thing to accomplish, and that was to make him part of the family, so that the NCAA would be satisfied because Sean would have been a booster of the university,” Fishman said.

    The Tuohys’ lawyers said they intend to end the conservatorship and that the accounting Oher asked for would not be difficult.

    Still, how the agreement was reached raised concerns for Haneman, the Creighton professor.

    “I am frankly floored that any judge allowed them to use the conservatorship in this way, you know, with the purpose of circumventing NCAA rules,” she said.

    Haneman also questioned why the conservatorship didn’t include a medical affidavit showing disability, or the appointment of a guardian ad litem who would protect Oher and provide an “independent set of eyes.” Both are typically part of conservatorships, she said.

    Haneman said there were other legal options available, such as power of attorney, that would not have stripped Oher of his “legal capacity.”

    “At the end of the day, you do not put an adult in a conservatorship because they need help with a driver’s license or college applications,” Haneman said.

    Fishman said the medical affidavit wasn’t needed because Oher didn’t have mental or physical disabilities. Also, Oher had no assets to be accounted for, and the Tuohys were only made “conservator of the person.”

    “People have been saying, ‘Well, you’ve got to have some kind of issue to be a ward in a conservatorship,’” Fishman said Thursday. “That’s just not true. He just needed some guidance and that’s why the court did it.”

    Fishman said the guardian issue was waived because Oher was 18 and his mother consented.

    Another Tuohy attorney, Martin Singer, said in a statement that profit participation checks and studio accounting statements support the assertions that Oher received money from the film.

    When Oher refused to cash the checks, the statement said, the Tuohys deposited Oher’s share into a trust account for his son.

    The couple said agents negotiated the advance for the Tuohys and Oher from the production company for “The Blind Side,” based on a book written by Sean Tuohy’s friend Michael Lewis.

    Lewis told The Washington Post that no one involved in the book received millions of dollars. Regarding money made off the profits from the film, which raked in hundreds of millions of dollars, Lewis said that he and the Tuohy family each received around $350,000 after taxes and agent fees.

    “It’s outrageous how Hollywood accounting works, but the money is not in the Tuohys’ pockets,” Lewis told the newspaper in an interview published Wednesday.

    People depicted in biopics typically do not make a lot of money because they have little bearing on a movie’s success, said Julie Shapiro, director of the Entertainment and Media Law Institute at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

    “Most often, it’s the actors, director and screenwriters who determine the financial success of a project,” Shapiro said. Studios do not need to acquire someone’s “life rights” to tell a story. But they often do it to prevent lawsuits, she said.

    The petition by Oher, who has never been a fan of the movie about his life, asks that the Tuohys be sanctioned and pay damages.

    Some have questioned why the Tuohys didn’t simply adopt Oher as an adult.

    “There’s no really clear answer as to what the legal obstacle was for them to complete the adoption,” Haneman said. “They did say (Wednesday) that it was a timing issue, but that timing issue would not have prevented them from completing the adoption while he was at Ole Miss.”

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  • New Biden rule would make government websites and apps more accessible to people with disabilities

    New Biden rule would make government websites and apps more accessible to people with disabilities

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    The Biden administration is proposing new regulations to make state and local government websites and apps for services like libraries, parking, transit and court records more accessible for people with disabilities

    FILE – President Joe Biden speaks during a celebration of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and to mark Disability Pride Month, in the Rose Garden of the White House, Sept. 28, 2022, in Washington. The Biden administration is proposing new regulations that would make state and local government websites more accessible for people with disabilities. That includes services like library websites, parking app and transit schedules, and court records. Wednesday is the 33rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

    The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — The Biden administration proposed new regulations Tuesday to make state and local government websites and apps for services like libraries, parking, transit and court records more accessible for people with disabilities.

    The new Justice Department rule would establish certain accessibility standards for websites and app-based services maintained by state and local governments, the White House announced. Those could include providing text descriptions for photos for the visually impaired who use screen readers, and captioning for government videos.

    Administration officials say such websites and government services have not been as accessible as they should be for people with disabilities, and that President Joe Biden was aiming to change that. Wednesday is the 33rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

    “President Biden has been completely clear that everyone in America has to be able to share in the benefits of technology,” said Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “That means a digital infrastructure that works for the 25 percent of Americans who are living with a disability.”

    The timing of when the more stringent standards would go into effect will be more clear once the proposed rule from the DOJ is formally released, administration officials said.

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  • Visually impaired people in Ukraine struggle to cope during Russian missile attacks

    Visually impaired people in Ukraine struggle to cope during Russian missile attacks

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    KYIV, Ukraine — Sunlight filters through shattered windows, casting a glow upon the dusty furniture and fragments of glass strewn across the floor of the office belonging to Oleksandr Vinkovskyi, director of a Kyiv business where visually impaired people worked.

    Vinkovskyi is blind, and can’t see the scale of damage caused by debris from one of many Russian-fired drones on the Ukrainian capital last month. But he knows that 80 people, including 54 with a disability who used to work there manufacturing circuit breakers, sockets and hangers, are now out of work.

    Most of the windows have been shattered, the doors broken, equipment ruined, and a gaping hole marks the wall on the third floor. Vinkovskyi has halted the operation for now, deeming it too dangerous for his employees.

    “A visually impaired person goes to work not only to earn money, but also to communicate, interact, and be part of society in some way,” said Vinkovskyi. “And I don’t know how to estimate this loss.”

    Losing the place of work is just one of a multitude of challenges that people with visual impairments face across Ukraine since Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022. In the past month, when Russia predominantly targeted the capital during the night as people slept, the struggles multiplied, making it even more challenging for the visually impaired to orient themselves.

    “A visually impaired person can’t locate where the explosion happened. For them, every explosion feels like it’s happening in their home,” Vinkovskyi said. “They don’t know the scale of what happened, and that brings additional stress.”

    The sounds that visually impaired people rely on as their primary means of navigating their surroundings are incredibly vivid and sensitive. As a result, the explosions evoke heightened fear and distress.

    Larysa Baida, the program director of the National Assembly of People with Disabilities of Ukraine, said that many individuals experience states of panic in such situations. In response, the organization has been providing psychological assistance and rehabilitation to support visually impaired people during the war.

    “I’m still confused and can’t come to my senses,” said Volodymyr Holubenko, 62, who is blind and is the administrator of the business where visually impaired people worked, when recalling the day of the attack.

    “I heard everything. Our doors at home were shuddering,” said Holubenko, who lives near the facility.

    Holubenko, who has been working at the company for 47 years, described May as a very challenging month. However, he says he feels more protected this year compared to the previous one, when the war was in its early stages. He closely follows the news about the promises of Ukraine’s Western allies to supply anti-aircraft defense systems and eagerly awaits their delivery.

    Olesia Perepechenko, executive director of nongovernmental organization Modern Sight and herself blind, says she starts hearing the missiles flying and explosions even before her husband, mother or anyone else hears them.

    “I hear these sounds slightly earlier, and the anxiety comes slightly earlier. And that’s why my agitation is so acute,” Perepechenko said.

    She lives in the Kyiv province and said that Russia’s nightly barrages in May were particularly challenging.

    “When Shaheds constantly fly over you, when the noise of drones just doesn’t stop, it drives me to hysteria. Why is it hovering above our house?” she said, referring to the Iranian-made drones that Russia frequently sends into Ukraine.

    “I understand that it’s not just one hanging there — one flies by, and then a few more follow. And that noise, it becomes this long, monotonous hum of a drone.”

    She finds it psychologically “very frightening” and hard to cope with in the moment that it’s happening.

    “I cry, I seek solace in my mother, I hug her and comfort her or run to my husband, leaning on him.”

    After one of the many attacks in May was over, she burst into tears, and grabbed ice cream from the freezer to “cope with the stress.”

    “At that moment, I longed for something comforting, pleasant. And for some reason, it seemed to me that ice cream would help, although later, of course, I turned to valerian,” she said, referring to a sedative.

    “People with vision impairment or blindness are vulnerable and disproportionally affected by the war,” said Ariane Laplante-Lévesque, the technical specialist in Eye and Vision and Ear and Hearing Care at the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Europe. For one, it becomes more difficult for them to navigate streets or new physical environments, she said.

    Perepechenko recalls Russia’s extensive missile strikes during the winter, aimed at destroying Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. During the frequent power outages caused by the damage to power stations, Perepechenko once found herself trapped in an elevator.

    “I felt like I was going to die there, suffocating,” she recalled.

    Since then, she has been attending therapy sessions to overcome the constant fears for her life brought on by the war. She has found it helpful, as she plans to continue living in a country that is constantly ravaged by the ongoing war.

    She also vividly recalls the challenges she faced in navigating Kyiv, where she works, and the nearby village where she lives when Russian troops withdrew from the regions last year.

    “Walking was impossible. I walked with a cane, and there were constantly these anti-tank traps and pieces of burnt debris scattered on the sidewalks,” she said. “It was very dangerous and scary.”

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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  • Listen both ways: Blind walkers winning safer road crossings

    Listen both ways: Blind walkers winning safer road crossings

    [ad_1]

    CHICAGO (AP) — After a retinal disease left him legally blind, architect John Gleichman was struck by a taxicab while walking home near Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo — at the same intersection where a 4-year-old girl was killed by a hit-and-run driver years earlier.

    Although Maya Hirsch’s death in 2006 ignited a citywide crusade for pedestrian safety improvements, almost all the electronic upgrades since then have been for people who can see. Nearly 3,000 Chicago intersections are now equipped with visual crossing signals, yet fewer than three dozen include audible cues.

    A federal judge ruled in March that such disparity in the nation’s third-largest city violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, a second landmark victory for blind residents who challenged the accessibility of a major city’s signalized crosswalks.

    “Every time I go out to go downtown for a meeting, I have to think I could get hit today and not make it home,” said Gleichman, 65, who has been struck four times times by vehicles while navigating the city with his white cane since being diagnosed as legally blind in 2005. He considers himself fortunate to have escaped serious injury each time.

    Future court proceedings could decide how many audible crossing signals Chicago must install, but a similar case in New York City suggests it could be substantial. A federal judge there appointed an independent monitor and in December 2021 gave officials a decade to gradually make at least 10,000 of its approximately 13,000 signalized intersections accessible to blind pedestrians. It’s already well ahead of schedule.

    “It’s been huge progress. It’s a game-changer to the blind and visually impaired community,” said Terence Page, president of the Greater New York Council of the Blind. “As new cities begin to build infrastructure, we want accessibility to not be an afterthought but work in parallel with the upgrades.”

    Accessible pedestrian signals, known as APS, have been around for decades, though the technology has evolved.

    Many of Chicago’s few APS-equipped intersections — including on a busy street outside The Chicago Lighthouse, which provides services to blind and low-vision residents — still rely on beeps or cuckoo chirps to announce when it’s safe to cross. Newer models actually speak the words “walk” or “don’t walk,” and feature tactical buttons to clarify directions so blind pedestrians don’t stray into traffic. Some also convey the time remaining before the light turns red.

    Sandy Murillo, a lifelong Chicago-area resident who was born with glaucoma and lost her sight at age 2, said she didn’t even know about APS until she heard a strange voice say “walk” during a childhood family trip to Southern California.

    “That kind of made it dawn on me,” said Murillo, who produces a radio show for The Chicago Lighthouse and writes a blog on issues facing the blind community. “I thought, ‘Oh, so that’s what it is. They’re there for people like me.’”

    Chicago’s Department of Transportation declined to comment on the judge’s ruling, citing the ongoing litigation. But spokesperson Erica Schroeder told The Associated Press in an email that APS devices are installed at 35 intersections and “under construction, in design, or in procurement” at more than 150 others.

    The department estimates a $50,000 to $200,000 price tag per intersection to install APS. Grant money is available through the 2021 federal infrastructure law to help cities defray some costs.

    Advocates for Chicago’s blind residents say they pushed the city for years to add APS with little success before taking legal action.

    Kathy Austin, a community engagement specialist at Second Sense — a downtown organization serving blind residents — recalls a meeting in 2017 or 2018 in which she and others in the blind community presented a list of the most dangerous intersections, only to be told by city officials that APS was too difficult to install in many of those places.

    “There was a laundry list of excuses,” Austin said.

    Blind residents know from their mobility training to wait to hear the sounds of parallel traffic before crossing a street. That’s often difficult in noisy downtowns like Chicago’s with its overhead L trains stations and other ambient noises. Then, when the pandemic hit and downtown traffic steeply declined, they encountered the opposite problem — not enough vehicles or even people around to help decipher when to walk or stop.

    “Sometimes I would stand at an intersection for like half a minute and no car would come by,” Gleichman said. “So you either ask somebody walking by, ‘Do I have the light?’ or you just go out in the road and hope you don’t get hit.”

    London-based Waymap, which created a smartphone navigation app for blind pedestrians that Washington, D.C.’s subway system uses as an accessibility tool, found in a study that blind people average just 2.5 regular routes — such as from home to the office or grocery store and back — if they use a cane or 3.5 if they use a guide dog. Celso Zuccollo, Waymap’s chief operating officer, said the study found that people who lack independent mobility were far more likely to experience depression.

    Maureen Reid, a job-placement counselor at The Chicago Lighthouse, said she feels more comfortable than many of her blind friends moving about the city because of her familiarity with its sidewalks and the help of her guide dog, Gaston. But she acknowledges there’s room for numerous safety improvements — including more tactile strips at pedestrian crosswalks and transit stations. Her previous dog slipped off a platform edge at an L station and dangled from his harness over the commuter train track as Reid yelled for help. The dog was unharmed.

    San Francisco voluntarily entered a settlement with blind residents nearly two decades ago to add APS, and numerous other U.S. cities as well as the state of Maryland require it, said Torie Atkinson, senior staff attorney with Disability Rights Advocates, which represents plaintiffs in both the New York and Chicago cases.

    Matt Baker, vice president of sales and marketing at Greenville, Texas-based Polara, a leading manufacturer of APS products, said the Chicago market has been one of the toughest to crack — with just a few intersections equipped with Polara devices. Baker said that could change due to the court ruling and expectations that the federal board reviewing public right-of-way issues will eventually require APS at most new or rebuilt signalized intersections nationwide.

    Either way, Chicago will almost certainly be compelled to include the technology in future construction. Atkinson said the Chicago verdict expanded on the New York ruling in several key areas, reinforcing the need for Chicago to equip all its signalized intersections with APS.

    “I would genuinely hope these lawsuits are a wake-up call,” Atkinson said.

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  • Listen both ways: Blind walkers winning safer road crossings

    Listen both ways: Blind walkers winning safer road crossings

    [ad_1]

    CHICAGO — After a retinal disease left him legally blind, architect John Gleichman was struck by a taxicab while walking home near Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo — at the same intersection where a 4-year-old girl was killed by a hit-and-run driver years earlier.

    Although Maya Hirsch’s death in 2006 ignited a citywide crusade for pedestrian safety improvements, almost all the electronic upgrades since then have been for people who can see. Nearly 3,000 Chicago intersections are now equipped with visual crossing signals, yet fewer than three dozen include audible cues.

    A federal judge ruled in March that such disparity in the nation’s third-largest city violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, a second landmark victory for blind residents who challenged the accessibility of a major city’s signalized crosswalks.

    “Every time I go out to go downtown for a meeting, I have to think I could get hit today and not make it home,” said Gleichman, 65, who has been struck four times times by vehicles while navigating the city with his white cane since being diagnosed as legally blind in 2005. He considers himself fortunate to have escaped serious injury each time.

    Future court proceedings could decide how many audible crossing signals Chicago must install, but a similar case in New York City suggests it could be substantial. A federal judge there appointed an independent monitor and in December 2021 gave officials a decade to gradually make at least 10,000 of its approximately 13,000 signalized intersections accessible to blind pedestrians. It’s already well ahead of schedule.

    “It’s been huge progress. It’s a game-changer to the blind and visually impaired community,” said Terence Page, president of the Greater New York Council of the Blind. “As new cities begin to build infrastructure, we want accessibility to not be an afterthought but work in parallel with the upgrades.”

    Accessible pedestrian signals, known as APS, have been around for decades, though the technology has evolved.

    Many of Chicago’s few APS-equipped intersections — including on a busy street outside The Chicago Lighthouse, which provides services to blind and low-vision residents — still rely on beeps or cuckoo chirps to announce when it’s safe to cross. Newer models actually speak the words “walk” or “don’t walk,” and feature tactical buttons to clarify directions so blind pedestrians don’t stray into traffic. Some also convey the time remaining before the light turns red.

    Sandy Murillo, a lifelong Chicago-area resident who was born with glaucoma and lost her sight at age 2, said she didn’t even know about APS until she heard a strange voice say “walk” during a childhood family trip to Southern California.

    “That kind of made it dawn on me,” said Murillo, who produces a radio show for The Chicago Lighthouse and writes a blog on issues facing the blind community. “I thought, ‘Oh, so that’s what it is. They’re there for people like me.’”

    Chicago’s Department of Transportation declined to comment on the judge’s ruling, citing the ongoing litigation. But spokesperson Erica Schroeder told The Associated Press in an email that APS devices are installed at 35 intersections and “under construction, in design, or in procurement” at more than 150 others.

    The department estimates a $50,000 to $200,000 price tag per intersection to install APS. Grant money is available through the 2021 federal infrastructure law to help cities defray some costs.

    Advocates for Chicago’s blind residents say they pushed the city for years to add APS with little success before taking legal action.

    Kathy Austin, a community engagement specialist at Second Sense — a downtown organization serving blind residents — recalls a meeting in 2017 or 2018 in which she and others in the blind community presented a list of the most dangerous intersections, only to be told by city officials that APS was too difficult to install in many of those places.

    “There was a laundry list of excuses,” Austin said.

    Blind residents know from their mobility training to wait to hear the sounds of parallel traffic before crossing a street. That’s often difficult in noisy downtowns like Chicago’s with its overhead L trains stations and other ambient noises. Then, when the pandemic hit and downtown traffic steeply declined, they encountered the opposite problem — not enough vehicles or even people around to help decipher when to walk or stop.

    “Sometimes I would stand at an intersection for like half a minute and no car would come by,” Gleichman said. “So you either ask somebody walking by, ‘Do I have the light?’ or you just go out in the road and hope you don’t get hit.”

    London-based Waymap, which created a smartphone navigation app for blind pedestrians that Washington, D.C.’s subway system uses as an accessibility tool, found in a study that blind people average just 2.5 regular routes — such as from home to the office or grocery store and back — if they use a cane or 3.5 if they use a guide dog. Celso Zuccollo, Waymap’s chief operating officer, said the study found that people who lack independent mobility were far more likely to experience depression.

    Maureen Reid, a job-placement counselor at The Chicago Lighthouse, said she feels more comfortable than many of her blind friends moving about the city because of her familiarity with its sidewalks and the help of her guide dog, Gaston. But she acknowledges there’s room for numerous safety improvements — including more tactile strips at pedestrian crosswalks and transit stations. Her previous dog slipped off a platform edge at an L station and dangled from his harness over the commuter train track as Reid yelled for help. The dog was unharmed.

    San Francisco voluntarily entered a settlement with blind residents nearly two decades ago to add APS, and numerous other U.S. cities as well as the state of Maryland require it, said Torie Atkinson, senior staff attorney with Disability Rights Advocates, which represents plaintiffs in both the New York and Chicago cases.

    Matt Baker, vice president of sales and marketing at Greenville, Texas-based Polara, a leading manufacturer of APS products, said the Chicago market has been one of the toughest to crack — with just a few intersections equipped with Polara devices. Baker said that could change due to the court ruling and expectations that the federal board reviewing public right-of-way issues will eventually require APS at most new or rebuilt signalized intersections nationwide.

    Either way, Chicago will almost certainly be compelled to include the technology in future construction. Atkinson said the Chicago verdict expanded on the New York ruling in several key areas, reinforcing the need for Chicago to equip all its signalized intersections with APS.

    “I would genuinely hope these lawsuits are a wake-up call,” Atkinson said.

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  • Listen both ways: Blind walkers winning safer road crossings

    Listen both ways: Blind walkers winning safer road crossings

    [ad_1]

    CHICAGO — After a retinal disease left him legally blind, architect John Gleichman was struck by a taxicab while walking home near Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo — at the same intersection where a 4-year-old girl was killed by a hit-and-run driver years earlier.

    Although Maya Hirsch’s death in 2006 ignited a citywide crusade for pedestrian safety improvements, almost all the electronic upgrades since then have been for people who can see. Nearly 3,000 Chicago intersections are now equipped with visual crossing signals, yet fewer than three dozen include audible cues.

    In a landmark victory for blind residents challenging the accessibility of a major city’s signalized crosswalks, a federal judge in March ruled in a class-action lawsuit that such disparity in the nation’s third-largest city violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.

    “Every time I go out to go downtown for a meeting, I have to think I could get hit today and not make it home,” said Gleichman, 65, who has been struck four times times by vehicles while navigating the city with his white cane since being diagnosed as legally blind in 2005. He considers himself fortunate to have escaped serious injury each time.

    A future hearing could decide how many audible crossing signals Chicago must install, but a similar case in New York City suggests it could be substantial. A federal judge there appointed an independent monitor and in December 2021 gave officials a decade to gradually make at least 10,000 of its approximately 13,000 signalized intersections accessible to blind pedestrians. It’s already well ahead of schedule.

    “It’s been huge progress. It’s a game-changer to the blind and visually impaired community,” said Terence Page, president of the Greater New York Council of the Blind. “As new cities begin to build infrastructure, we want accessibility to not be an afterthought but work in parallel with the upgrades.”

    Accessible pedestrian signals, known as APS, have been around for decades, though the technology has evolved.

    Many of Chicago’s few APS-equipped intersections — including on a busy street outside The Chicago Lighthouse, which provides services to blind and low-vision residents — still rely on beeps or cuckoo chirps to announce when it’s safe to cross. Newer models actually speak the words “walk” or “don’t walk,” and feature tactical buttons to clarify directions so blind pedestrians don’t stray into traffic. Many also convey the time remaining before the light turns red.

    Sandy Murillo, a lifelong Chicago-area resident who was born with glaucoma and lost her sight at age 2, said she didn’t even know about APS until she heard a strange voice say “walk” during a childhood family trip to southern California.

    “That kind of made it dawn on me,” said Murillo, who produces a radio show for The Chicago Lighthouse and writes a blog on issues facing the blind community. “I thought, ‘Oh, so that’s what it is. They’re there for people like me.’”

    Chicago’s Department of Transportation declined to comment on the judge’s ruling, citing the ongoing litigation. But spokesperson Erica Schroeder told The Associated Press in an email that APS devices are installed at 35 intersections and “under construction, in design, or in procurement” at more than 150 others.

    The department estimates a $50,000 to $200,000 price tag per intersection to install APS, although grant money is available through the 2021 federal infrastructure law to help cities defray some costs.

    Advocates for Chicago’s blind residents say they pushed the city for years to add APS with little success before taking legal action.

    Kathy Austin, a community engagement specialist at Second Sense — a downtown organization serving blind residents — recalls a meeting in 2017 or 2018 in which she and others in the blind community presented a list of the most dangerous intersections, only to be told by city officials that APS was too difficult to install in many of those places.

    “There was a laundry list of excuses,” Austin said.

    Blind residents know from their mobility training to wait to hear the sounds of parallel traffic before crossing a street. That’s often difficult in noisy downtowns like Chicago’s with its overhead “El” train stations and other ambient noises. Then, when the pandemic hit and downtown traffic steeply declined, they encountered the opposite problem — not enough vehicles or even people around to help decipher when to walk or stop.

    “Sometimes I would stand at an intersection for like half a minute and no car would come by,” Gleichman said. “So you either ask somebody walking by, ‘Do I have the light?’ or you just go out in the road and hope you don’t get hit.”

    London-based Waymap, which created a smartphone navigation app for blind pedestrians that Washington, D.C.’s subway system uses as an accessibility tool, found in a study that blind people average just 2.5 regular routes — such as from home to the office or grocery store and back — if they use a cane or 3.5 if they use a guide dog. Celso Zuccollo, Waymap’s chief operating officer, said the study found that people who lack independent mobility were far more likely to experience depression.

    Maureen Reid, a job-placement counselor at The Chicago Lighthouse, said she feels more comfortable than many of her blind friends moving about the city because of her familiarity with its sidewalks and the help of her guide dog, Gaston. But she acknowledges there’s room for numerous safety improvements — including more tactile strips at pedestrian crosswalks and transit stations. Her previous dog slipped off a platform edge at an “El” station and dangled from his harness over the commuter train track as Reid yelled for help. The dog was unharmed.

    San Francisco voluntarily entered a settlement with blind residents nearly two decades ago to add APS, and numerous other U.S. cities as well as the state of Maryland require it, said Torie Atkinson, senior staff attorney with Disability Rights Advocates, which represents plaintiffs in both the New York and Chicago cases.

    Matt Baker, vice president of sales and marketing at Greenville, Texas-based Polara, a leading manufacturer of APS products, said the Chicago market has been one of the toughest to crack — with just a few intersections equipped with Polara devices. Baker said that could change due to the court ruling and expectations that the federal board reviewing public right-of-way issues will eventually require APS at most new or rebuilt signalized intersections nationwide.

    Either way, Chicago will almost certainly be compelled to include the technology in future construction. Atkinson said the Chicago verdict expanded on the New York ruling in several key areas, reinforcing the need for Chicago to equip all its signalized intersections with APS.

    “I would genuinely hope these lawsuits are a wake-up call,” Atkinson said.

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  • Netflix keeps ‘Love Is Blind’ fans waiting for live reunion

    Netflix keeps ‘Love Is Blind’ fans waiting for live reunion

    [ad_1]

    LOS ANGELES — Love isn’t patient, love isn’t kind — at least if you ask the fans of Netflix‘s “Love Is Blind.” Viewers had to wait more than an hour to watch the Season 4 reunion special set to stream live Sunday — Netflix’s second-ever live event on its own platform.

    “Love Is Blind: The Live Reunion,” hosted by Vanessa and Nick Lachey, was to stream from Los Angeles starting at 5 p.m. Pacific. Netflix subscribers were able to join a waiting room for the show 10 minutes before the start time — and those who did were still there an hour later. The show finally started airing — seemingly live — at around 6:16 p.m. Pacific, although some Netflix users still reported difficulties accessing the content.

    “We are sorry we’re late,” Vanessa Lachey said, the sole acknowledgment of the delay at the top of the broadcast.

    “To everyone who stayed up late, woke up early, gave up their Sunday afternoon… we are incredibly sorry that the Love is Blind Live Reunion did not turn out as we had planned,” Netflix tweeted at 6:29 p.m. Pacific. “We’re filming it now and we’ll have it on Netflix as soon as humanly possible. Again, thank you and sorry.”

    A request for comment from Netflix was not immediately returned. Netflix’s first live streaming event, “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage,” did not feature any apparent technical difficulties.

    On Twitter, Netflix had acknowledged the delay without offering explanation. At two minutes past the initial start time, it promised the special would be in on in 15 minutes. Seven minutes later, the company tweeted: “Promise #LoveIsBlindLIVE will be worth the wait….” along with a picture of one of the season’s “villains.”

    The last activity from the account was a retweet of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez making a joke about the delay. With the original end time of the special approaching, nothing had been posted since — and it remained that way even once the show started airing for some, until the apology tweet.

    Before the show finally aired, Vanessa Lachey had taken to Instagram — briefly live, perhaps ironically — from the set to try to entice viewers to stay on, indicating the delay was a technical issue in a post thanking fans for being patient and captioned: “Apparently we broke the internet!”

    “This is so 2023,” she said.

    Cast members from the Seattle-based season also took to the social media platform to joke about the delay. Marshall Glaze posted a picture of a man studying an array of wires: “I’m trying yall,” he tweeted.

    Competing streamers and networks also made hay of the drama.

    “We would never keep you waiting for a Reunion,” BravoTV — home of many a chaotic reunion special — tweeted with a winky face.

    “Hmm,” read a screencap featuring Kerry Washington tweeted by Hulu.

    While the chaos dominated Twitter’s trending topics, the end of the hour brought a significant threat to the Netflix’s dominance of the discourse: the latest episode of HBO’s “Succession” was now streaming.

    ___

    Associated Press journalists Beatrice Dupuy, Alicia Rancilio and Mallika Sen contributed to this report.

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  • Netflix keeps ‘Love Is Blind’ fans waiting for live reunion

    Netflix keeps ‘Love Is Blind’ fans waiting for live reunion

    [ad_1]

    LOS ANGELES — Love isn’t patient, love isn’t kind — at least if you ask the fans of Netflix‘s “Love Is Blind.” Viewers had to wait more than an hour to watch the Season 4 reunion special set to stream live Sunday — Netflix’s second-ever live event on its own platform.

    “Love Is Blind: The Live Reunion,” hosted by Vanessa and Nick Lachey, was to stream from Los Angeles starting at 5 p.m. Pacific. Netflix subscribers were able to join a waiting room for the show 10 minutes before the start time — and those who did were still there an hour later. The show finally started airing — seemingly live — at around 6:16 p.m. Pacific, although some Netflix users still reported difficulties accessing the content.

    “We are sorry we’re late,” Vanessa Lachey said, the sole acknowledgment of the delay at the top of the broadcast.

    “To everyone who stayed up late, woke up early, gave up their Sunday afternoon… we are incredibly sorry that the Love is Blind Live Reunion did not turn out as we had planned,” Netflix tweeted at 6:29 p.m. Pacific. “We’re filming it now and we’ll have it on Netflix as soon as humanly possible. Again, thank you and sorry.”

    A request for comment from Netflix was not immediately returned. Netflix’s first live streaming event, “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage,” did not feature any apparent technical difficulties.

    On Twitter, Netflix had acknowledged the delay without offering explanation. At two minutes past the initial start time, it promised the special would be in on in 15 minutes. Seven minutes later, the company tweeted: “Promise #LoveIsBlindLIVE will be worth the wait….” along with a picture of one of the season’s “villains.”

    The last activity from the account was a retweet of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez making a joke about the delay. With the original end time of the special approaching, nothing had been posted since — and it remained that way even once the show started airing for some, until the apology tweet.

    Before the show finally aired, Vanessa Lachey had taken to Instagram — briefly live, perhaps ironically — from the set to try to entice viewers to stay on, indicating the delay was a technical issue in a post thanking fans for being patient and captioned: “Apparently we broke the internet!”

    “This is so 2023,” she said.

    Cast members from the Seattle-based season also took to the social media platform to joke about the delay. Marshall Glaze posted a picture of a man studying an array of wires: “I’m trying yall,” he tweeted.

    Competing streamers and networks also made hay of the drama.

    “We would never keep you waiting for a Reunion,” BravoTV — home of many a chaotic reunion special — tweeted with a winky face.

    “Hmm,” read a screencap featuring Kerry Washington tweeted by Hulu.

    While the chaos dominated Twitter’s trending topics, the end of the hour brought a significant threat to the Netflix’s dominance of the discourse: the latest episode of HBO’s “Succession” was now streaming.

    ___

    Associated Press journalists Beatrice Dupuy, Alicia Rancilio and Mallika Sen contributed to this report.

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