Many Deaf people in the United States recently spoke out in frustration on social media regarding the lack of screen time of the ASL signers at the recent Super Bowl. Prior to the game, the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) advertised that three Deaf signers would perform at the Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas, Nevada on February 11, 2024, to provide access to the pregame festivities and the halftime show. The three selected performers were announced to be Daniel Durant, Angel Piñero, and Shaheem. Despite the minor controversy around Shaheem’s selection, the Deaf community looked forward to having ASL representation and watching the signers live on screen. However, as Daily Moth’s Alex Abenchuchan describes it, the Super Bowl was “a frustrating experience” for Deaf viewers. Abenchuchan explains that NAD’s efforts to ensure access to the ASL signers at the Super Bowl each year was proving to be an annual disaster, as the broadcaster platform CBS had failed to show the ASL performers during the live broadcast of the Super Bowl. 

The president of the Turkish Deaf Sports Federation, Kerim Vural, is proud to be hosting the 20th Winter Deaflympics in Erzurum, Turkey, during March 2nd to 12th. He says that the event is a big moment for Turkey as he expects a bigger turnout from the 23rd Summer Deaflympic Games, which was also hosted in Turkey in 2017. Vural expects approximately 1,000 athletes from 36 countries around the world to travel to Turkey and compete in six different games in the Winter Deaflympics happening this week. Vural explains that while a great number of athletes from various countries around the world are participating, the USA and Canada are not attending due to security concerns associated with Turkey's vocal opposition to Israel’s actions in Palestine. Turkey’s position and safety concerns also led to the withdrawal of Israel’s Deaf athletes. Despite this, Vural believes that Turkey is a safe place to host such events and looks forward to welcoming Deaf athletes. The six different sports that will occur during the Winter Deaflympics this week include alpine skiing, chess, cross-country skiing, curling, futsal, and snowboarding. 

Rachel Soudakoff leads the world’s only Deaf-owned adventure company in New Zealand, called Deaf Adventures. Originally from Los Angeles, USA, Soudakoff grew up traveling the world with her Deaf family. Her experience and love for travel were her initial motivation for setting up her business. However, in her move to New Zealand, she learned that the tourism industry was not accessible for Deaf people, which motivated her to advocate for equal access. Since Deaf Adventures was established in 2021, Rachel has worked with multiple companies within the tourism industry and has successfully led 10 accessible adventure tours in New Zealand. 

In Buenos Aires Mariano and Hugo are two hard of hearing friends who set up CaféLSA, which is an establishment where, in addition to communicating only with signs, they offer workshops for those who wish to learn the language. However, to be able to open this establishment, they need collaboration. The idea was born 10 years ago, but for various reasons, they had not been able to materialize it until the long-awaited dream led them to seek the opportunity to open CaféLSA. The acronym that closes the name defines their venture: Argentine Sign Language.

In Bogotá city, Colombia, the Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) announced the update of regulated systems in Colombia which allows the Deaf and hard of hearing community to access television content through sign language interpretation, closed captioning, and always-visible subtitles. According to current regulations, open TV channels must have closed captioning for 100% of their programming between 6:00 a.m. and 11:59 p.m., while specific percentages are required for self-produced channels on closed TV—by subscription and community.