内容摘要：Instead of providing a daily sprinkle that does not penetrate the soil deeply enough to encourage deep, healthy roots, opt for longer, less frequent watering sessions.

Instead of providing a daily sprinkle that does not penetrate the soil deeply enough to encourage deep, healthy roots, opt for longer, less frequent watering sessions.

Employment gaps for disabled people have been an issue across the federal and private sectors for years. When the Labor Department began recording disability status in its employment trends in the Current Population Survey in 2009, just 30% of disabled people between ages 16 and 64 were working at least part time. That’s compared with 71% of people without a disability.Last year, employment rates for disabled people hit a record high of 38%, but the decades-old disparities still persisted: 75% of people without disabilities were employed that year.

Disability hiring in the federal government became a prominent effort in the 1970s, shortly after the passing of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits disability discrimination in federal agencies. Expectations to hire disabled people expanded from there.In 2014, Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration began requiring that federal contractors meet specific goals related to hiring disabled people.Three years later, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission updated rules under the Rehabilitation Act. The new rules required federal agencies to set hiring goals for people with disabilities and create plans to help them get jobs and promotions.

Anupa Iyer Geevarghese worked as a disability policy adviser at the EEOC when officials updated the regulations. She said it increased progress in ensuring that disabled people had equitable opportunities in the federal workforce. She now worries that progress will be undone as the Trump administration shows little interest in continuing inclusion efforts.“I think, unfortunately, there are still perceptions about the knowledge, skill and abilities of people with disabilities,” she said. “As a whole, we’re still, as a community, still perceived as people who can’t do their jobs, are unqualified, who are uneducated and are incapable … we thought we had combated it, but we are still fighting that fight.”

Abby Tighe, a former public health adviser at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, was among thousands of

in February. Tighe, 30, has a progressive form of muscular dystrophy, which may eventually affect her ability to walk independently.“We don’t know what to expect. That’s what makes this so cool,” he said.

There will be no communications with Lucy during the flyby as the spacecraft turns its antenna away from Earth in order to track the asteroid. Levison expects to have most of the science data within a day.Lucy’s next stop — “the main event,” as Levison calls it — will be the Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit around the sun. Swarms of Trojans precede and follow the solar system’s largest planet as it circles the sun. Lucy will visit eight of them from 2027 through 2033, some of them in pairs of two.

Lucy’s first asteroid flyby was in 2023 when it swept past little Dinkinesh, also in the main asteroid belt. The spacecraft discovered a mini moon around it.The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.