Braille is everywhere, but most blind kids can’t read it. A competition hopes to change that

LOS ANGELES — The challenger sat alone at a square folding table in the center of her teacher’s immaculate living room, stockinged feet whispering against the plush, white carpet, hands poised over a blue Perkins Brailler — something like a manual typewriter crossed with a court reporter’s steno machine. To say the Brailler is loud is an understatement. The force required to emboss Braille paper produces a noise less like typing and more like repeatedly firing a BB gun.

Editorial: Tubman bill is long overdue

It looks as though a likeness of famed abolitionist Harriet Tubman finally will appear on American currency, resurrecting a plan that has been stalled for nearly five years.