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A BLIND INTERNATIONAL interpreter who says he was dragged off a Belgium-bound flight, arrested and held in custody in Philadelphia for hours without food or water faces an arraignment Thursday. His crime: He questioned why his U.S. Airways flight was delayed nearly two hours. Nicola Cantisani, 61, of Brussels, Belgium, a professional translator who has been blind since birth, was charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, police said. "This is taking airplane security to a new and ridiculous level," said his attorney, A. Charles Peruto Jr. "It's pretty crazy." Cantisani and his wife, Paola, were returning to Brussels April...

FENTON, Mo. - A legally blind man was credited with saving a woman after authorities said a 45-year-old man broke into her apartment on Saturday night. Authorities said the man, a convicted rapist, was waiting for the woman to return home from work. A neighbor who asked to be identified only as Jerry heard noises coming from the apartment. Jerry is blind in his left eye and has about 25 percent vision in his right eye. Jerry told KTVI-TV that he went to the apartment and kicked open the door, surprising the would-be attacker, who locked the door. The woman...

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Ameneh Bahrami is certain that one day she'll meet someone, fall in love and get married. But when her wedding day comes, her husband won't see her eyes, and she won't see her husband. Bahrami is blind, the victim of an acid attack by a spurned suitor. If she gets her way, her attacker will suffer the same fate. The 31-year-old Iranian is demanding the ancient punishment of "an eye for an eye," and, in accordance with Islamic law, she wants to blind Majid Movahedi, the man who blinded her. ...

Aquanetta Gordon knew that her remarkable son's life on Earth soon would be over. "You can let go," she told him. "You can go home. When you get to heaven, tell Jesus to save that spot right next to you. That's for your mother." Hours later, Ben Underwood, the blind Elk Grove teenager who dazzled people all over the world with his ability to "see" with sound, died at home with his family surrounding him. Ben would have turned 17 on Monday. Instead, friends and relatives will be gathering on that day for his funeral. The service is scheduled for...

Chances are you've seen a blind person accompanied by a guide dog. But what about a guide horse, a service parrot or a monkey trained to help an agoraphobic? These are just a few of the nontraditional service animals that are used across the country to help people with disabilities and psychological disorders. As their uses are expanding, however, the government is considering a proposal that would limit the definition of "service animal" to "a dog or other common domestic animal."

Guide Horses have shown great promise as a mobility option, and people who have tried Guide Horses report that the Guide Horses perform exceptionally well at keeping their person safe. These friendly horses provide an experimental alternative mobility option for blind people. People who have tried Guide Horses report that the horses demonstrate excellent judgment and are not easily distracted by crowds and people.

Blind band will be Rose Parade's first Tuesday, October 21, 2008 3:12 AM By Jennifer Smith Richards THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH The entire student body had been herded into the gym to sing The Star-Spangled Banner, which was video- recorded for a school project. That was pretty cool, in itself -- several of the roughly 120 students at the Ohio State School for the Blind have perfect pitch, so it wasn't your average school-choir rendition. What happened next was even cooler: Music director Carol Agler's cell phone rang and the crowd went quiet. She held the microphone to the phone's earpiece...

She went to a Brooklyn emergency room suffering from what she thought was just a kidney stone, but a medical nightmare left her partly blind and a quadruple amputee. Tabitha Mullings claims doctors at Brooklyn Hospital Center failed to diagnose an infection that has literally eaten her alive. RELATED: BOY WITH GIANT LIMB GIVEN $200G FIXUP "Sometimes I can't believe it's me laying here," the mother of three told the Daily News Wednesday from her bed in the very hospital she blames for her ravaged body.  Wiping tears with a bandaged stump, Mullings struggled to explain how in a...

The human mind can be mystifying in its capacity to accommodate both disability and genius in the same person, as 60 Minutes found in a little boy named Rex. Rex was born blind, with brain damage so severe it looked as though he would never walk, talk, or do much of anything. And yet he has a talent few of us can imagine. To understand Rex’s brain would be to unlock mysteries of language, memory, and music. Correspondent Lesley Stahl has followed Rex and his mother, Cathleen, for several years now; she first met them in 2003.

Reporting from Sacramento -- California has often been tagged as the "nanny state" for passing laws that some people say interfere with citizens' lives. But now it has earned the label for a whole different reason, thanks to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Republican governor announced this week that he had appointed a nanny -- his own children's nanny, in fact -- as a part-time state regulator on the Board of Guide Dogs for the Blind. Lindsay Ann Schnaidt, 32, a Democrat from Hermosa Beach who has worked for the Schwarzenegger family for seven years, will be paid $100 a day...

Four Australian teenagers were charged Thursday with attacking an almost blind greater flamingo that is believed to be the oldest bird of its kind in the world, police and zoo officials said. The flamingo's head and beak were injured and it was bleeding from an eye after the attack at Adelaide Zoo that left it in a critical condition, zoo staff said. "The bird arrived at the zoo in 1933 and was a mature bird at that stage," a spokeswoman for the zoo told AFP. "So although we don't know it's exact age it is at least 75 years old...

After months of work by The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), guide dog Vargo has become the first guide dog in the UK to enter a mosque after the Islamic Shari’ah Council issued a historic fatwa11 stating “a blind person, in the light of Shariah Law, will be allowed to keep a guide dog to help him and if required to take him to the mosque for his prayers2”. In this momentous event today (on Wednesday 24 September), Vargo accompanied his 18-year-old owner Mahomed-Abraar Khatri to his local mosque in Leicester, seen...

ST. PETERSBURG — Before dawn on Wednesday, Virginia Zinn heard a crash. She sighed, peeked out the door and saw a familiar scene. Here we go again, she thought. For at least the seventh time, a vehicle crashed into Zinn's home on 12th Street S. This time it was a school bus. At 6 a.m. The bus, heading west on Ninth Place S — an unpaved 10-foot-wide alley a toe from Zinn's place — struck the overhanging roof of her home as it tried to turn onto 12th Street S. Police estimated the damage at about $800, to be paid...

DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) - Family members are angry and speaking out after Dayton police used a stun gun on a woman who is blind and suffering from cancer. Police said they were looking for a suspect when they knocked on Denise Harris's door Thursday morning. But according to both police and witnesses, things quickly got out of hand and Harris was tased. "She was able to force herself down on to the floor and not be cooperative, grabbing on to the detective. A taser was dry stunned onto her arm to control her hand movement, then she was cuffed," said...

<p>Moscow, July 14: Dozens of young revellers were blinded by a laser show at a dance and music festival near Moscow last week and doctors fear the damage may be irreparable, the Kommersant daily reported on Monday.</p> <p>"More than 30 people between the ages of 16 and 30 have ended up in hospitals in the capital with the same diagnosis-- damaged retinas - since July 7," the report said, quoting doctors.</p>

A BRITISH airport has advertised for an air traffic controller - and offered those interested an application pack in braille. The website for St Mary's Airport on the Isles of Scilly, off the southwest tip of England, says controllers need to be able to keep a close eye on the changeable weather as their work "is not over-dependent upon very costly and sophisticated electronic equipment". But applicants for the job could still ask for an application pack in large type, braille or audio format, newspapers said. A spokesman for the local council said the wording was included on all job...

iZumi Bio has agreed to license some patents from the J. David Gladstone Institutes as they begin to work together on new adult stem cell technology involved in devising cardiovascular therapies. ReportStem cell transplants were used to restore the sight of six blind patients at a London hospital. StorySome 2,500 delegates attended the recent International Society for Stem Cell Research in Philadelphia. And insiders say that the development of induced pluripotent stem cells has clearly energized the entire field. ReleaseIn a new study regarding age-related diseases, researchers identified two key regulatory pathways that control how well adult stem cells...

The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has announced that it is funding a new adult stem-cell treatment that could treat diabetes-induced retinal damage, a leading cause of blindness. Forbes Magazine says that Pfizer is funding the creation of a San Diego biotech company named EyeCyte to develop stem-cell treatments for eye diseases. The company will base its work upon Scripps Research Institute ophthalmologist Martin Friedlander’s research involving stem-cells from blood and bone marrow. EyeCyte will receive about $3 million from Pfizer, which in return has the right of first refusal regarding the new company’s products. In animal experiments, adult stem-cells have shown...

WASHINGTON - The U.S. discriminates against blind people by printing paper money that makes it impossible for them to distinguish among the bills’ varying values, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

DES MOINES, Iowa -- A blind Iowa man scored a perfect 300 game at the Century Lanes bowling alley on Saturday, The Storm Lake Times reported. The Times said Dale Davis, 78, of Alta, called the game "quite a thrill." He rolled 12 back-to-back strikes, the first-ever perfect game at the Century Lanes, The Times reported. Excitement throughout the building grew as the crowd watched Davis roll ball after ball down the lanes. "When I got to the tenth frame, I said ‘Lord, let me throw three more good balls,’ Davis told The Times. Davis had given up his passion...