Americans With Disabilities Act

Lingering fog shrouds the Venice boardwalk midday as Thomas Mundy rolls past ice cream vendors, T-shirt shacks and falafel stands, a discerning eye trained on the warrens of beach-themed kitsch and quick nibbles. He's not looking for leather thong pendants or Jamaican trinkets in memory of Bob Marley, or to commune with the manic crowd of in-line skaters and street artists.

In a decision with potential implications for the nation's 24 million diabetics, a federal appeals court ruled Friday that a Type 2 diabetes patient may be entitled to the protections of the Americans With Disabilities Act. A lower court was wrong to dismiss a case brought by Larry Rohr of Mesa, Ariz. -- who alleged that his public-utility employer discriminated against the disabled in pushing him out of his job -- on the grounds that his disease did not constitute a disability, the U.S.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who died Tuesday night at age 77, left a legislative legacy that will be hard to match in Washington's increasingly partisan atmosphere. He played a key role in shaping national policy on a wide range of issues, especially health, education, civil rights and labor, during nearly 47 years in the Senate. More than 550 of his bills were signed into law, his office says. "He changed the circumstances of tens of millions of Americans," said Vice President Joe Biden, a former Senate colleague.

Civil rights advocates asserted in federal court Wednesday that California's highway agency has denied people with disabilities equal access to sidewalks throughout the state by failing to install wheelchair ramps and warnings for the blind at street corners. The class-action lawsuit, which went to trial before U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong in Oakland, alleges that Caltrans has violated the 1992 Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal law that requires improvements in accessibility whenever sidewalks and roads are built or undergo major repairs.

United Artists Entertainment agreed Tuesday to make its theaters more accessible to the disabled in a lawsuit settlement that federal authorities hope will become a model for industry compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act. The company, which with its 2,300 screens is one of the nation's largest theater owners, agreed to modify existing theaters to add parking spaces, access ramps and toilet facilities, as well as certain features to give the disabled better access to concessions.

When Bob Dole, man with disability, runs for president in 1996, the ailment is old, but the discussion of it is new. The old reminders: He rarely eats in public; it is too hard. He does not shake hands; his right arm, shattered in World War II, does not work. He autographs copies of his new book for just a few moments, then hands out hundreds of pre-signed tomes. The new embrace: He talks about the Americans With Disabilities Act with greater frequency and increasing pride.

Pressed by the Justice Department, a Virginia funeral home agreed Thursday to stop charging extra for embalming bodies of people who die of AIDS or its complications. It was the first settlement under the Americans With Disabilities Act involving funeral home discrimination on the basis of AIDS. The Fisher Funeral Home of Portsmouth, Va., also agreed to reimburse and pay damages to nine families that Justice Department investigators found were charged $300 extra each for embalming.

A federal judge ruled Friday that California prisons must comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act, a decision that could force the state to provide better wheelchair access, interpreters for deaf inmates and possibly special education for inmates with learning disabilities. The ruling is the most far-reaching application to date of the 1990 federal law as it affects a state prison system, lawyers for the state and prisoners said.

Many of Valley College's 140 disabled students are protesting their lack of access to a fitness center--not because of wheelchair ramps or heavy doors but because of campus policy. Disabled students say that four years after the school opened a spacious new athletic center with state-of-the-art equipment and piped-in music, they remain segregated in a makeshift gym nearby, a crowded old classroom lacking even the barest of amenities.

On the fifth anniversary of a law prohibiting discrimination against the disabled, the Safeway supermarket chain agreed to clear away barriers that block wheelchairs from some of its stores. Advocates for the disabled called Wednesday's agreement a milestone for the Americans With Disabilities Act. The settlement covers all 835 Safeway stores in 16 states and the District of Columbia, making it the most sweeping access case yet under the disability law.