Another new model of yellow cabs could hit city streets before the much ballyhooed “Taxi of the Future” arrives.

Hundreds of mentally ill people who have been confined to nursing homes, sometimes in prisonlike conditions, would move to apartments or other housing within three years under a legal settlement with New York State.

Emergency evacuation decisions are tougher for people with disabilities because they need to be sure they are fleeing to shelters that they can get in and out of and use. In the wake of Hurricane Irene, there are allegations today that the City Office of Emergency Management (OEM) fell short on promises that people being ordered out of “Zone A” would be evacuated to “accessible shelters.”

Starbucks Coffee Company has agreed to pay $75,000 and provide other significant relief to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today. The EEOC had charged Starbucks Coffee Company with unlawfully denying a reasonable accommodation to a barista with dwarfism at one of its El Paso stores and firing her because of her disability.

Moving to end the state’s lax oversight of the developmentally disabled, the Cuomo administration on Wednesday announced an agreement with the State Police to establish guidelines for reporting possible crimes against the disabled to law enforcement authorities.

With a white cane in hand and a guitar slung over his shoulder, Frank Strong Jr. is touring Iowa in support of local bus service.

I SPOKE at an AIDS conference not long ago, and after the talk, someone asked me how I had contracted H.I.V. “Well,” I replied, “sexually.” Staring at my crutches, which I have used since I got polio as a child, she exclaimed, “But how?”

Zoltan Hirsch, a double amputee in a wheelchair, says he’s trying to make New York City more handicapped accessible one lawsuit at a time. But some wonder whether Hirsch — who has filed 87 federal claims in the last year seeking damages and legal fees — is crusader or con man.

Legislation that could require parents of blind or deaf children to pay additional school fees is causing a stir amongst advocates for those with special needs.

Jonathan Carey did not die for lack of money.
New York State and the federal government provided $1.4 million annually per person to care for Jonathan and the other residents of the Oswald D. Heck Developmental Center, a warren of low-rise concrete and brick buildings near Albany.