Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Friday. |
 | | An Afghan soldier standing guard on Friday at Bagram Air Base.Zakeria Hashimi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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1. The U.S. ended major military operations in Afghanistan after nearly two decades. |
American troops and their Western allies departed Bagram Air Base, once the military's nerve center. It was handed over to the Afghans with little fanfare as the Taliban sweeps through the country's northern provinces. |
The departure comes at a perilous time for Afghanistan. Some U.S. intelligence estimates predict that Kabul could fall to the Taliban in six months to two years. A return to the fractious era of warlords has long been feared. More than a quarter of the country's 421 districts have been seized by the Taliban since early May. |
 | | Groups dine at Mission Taco Joint in St. Louis in June.Whitney Curtis for The New York Times |
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2. The jobs report showed the strongest gain in 10 months. |
Hiring leapt up in June as employers added 850,000 workers, a fresh sign that the labor market's recovery is gaining momentum. Service industries led the surge. |
The unemployment rate rose slightly to 5.9 percent, and wages grew strongly in June — evidence that workers have the power to demand more in the reopening economy. But the labor force participation rate, which tracks the share of people who are working or seeking work, did not budge, a sign that slack persists. |
Separately, the labor market could get even tighter: About 2.5 million Americans have retired in the 15 months of the pandemic, about twice the number who retired in 2019, reversing a long-running trend. |
 | | President Biden returned to the White House on Tuesday from La Crosse, Wis.Kenny Holston for The New York Times |
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3. President Biden wants to celebrate "independence from the virus." Too soon? |
He and Jill Biden have invited 1,000 military personnel and essential workers to an Independence Day bash on Sunday on the South Lawn of the White House. But public health experts fear it will send the wrong message as wide swaths of the population remain vulnerable and the highly contagious Delta variant is spreading. |
The U.S. as a whole will miss Biden's July 4 goal of 70 percent of adults at least partially vaccinated. Twenty states, Washington, D.C., and two territories have exceeded the threshold; 16 are below 60 percent, with Mississippi in last at 46 percent. Vaccination rates in the U.S. military and V.A. hospitals are causing concerns. |
 | | A memorial stands behind the Champlain Towers South collapse site.Scott McIntyre for The New York Times |
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4. Search crews returned to the Surfside condo collapse site. But maybe not for long. |
The search was paused for about 14 hours on Thursday amid fears that the rest of the condo building in Florida could fall. It could be complicated by Hurricane Elsa, which could batter the Caribbean this weekend. Tropical storm-force winds could reach South Florida as early as Sunday evening. |
 | | Curt Freed, left, and his husband, Robert Ingersoll, sued the florist, Barronelle Stutzman, in 2013.Elaine Thompson/Associated Press |
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5. The Supreme Court let stand a gay couple's victory against a florist. |
The move left open a question the court last considered in 2018, when a similar dispute between a Colorado baker and a gay couple failed to yield a definitive ruling. |
The court agreed to hear a case on whether Maine may exclude religious schools that offer sectarian education from a state tuition program. The court also decided not to take up a libel case brought by the son of a former prime minister of Albania. But in a dissent from that decision, two justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, called for the court to reconsider New York Times v. Sullivan, the longstanding standard for public officials. |
 | | Sha'Carri Richardson, left, running the 100 meters at the Olympic trials in Eugene, Ore., in June.Chang W. Lee/The New York Times |
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Richardson, a 21-year-old sprinter, dominated the opening weekend of the U.S. track and field trials with her speed and charisma. She blamed the positive test on her use of marijuana as a way to cope with the unexpected death of her biological mother while she was in Oregon for the trials. Here's why it's prohibited. |
She accepted a suspension of one month, which could clear her in time to run in the 4x100 meter relay at the Tokyo Games in July. But her positive test invalidated her result from the trials in the 100-meter race, making her ineligible for that marquee event. Many athletes have struggled with mental health in the delayed run-up to the Olympics. |
 | | Workers with Trees Forever, an Iowa nonprofit, preparing to water trees.Rachel Mummey for The New York Times |
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7. In a heat wave, trees save lives. |
They can lower temperatures in city neighborhoods by 10 lifesaving degrees, while reducing electricity demand for air-conditioning, helping avoid potentially catastrophic power failures. |
But American cities and towns lose the canopy of 36 million trees every year, according to an urban forestry study. At the same time, American cities are facing a heat crisis: The largest ones are warming at twice the rate of the planet as a whole. |
"It's hard for us to think of trees as actual infrastructure rather than an amenity, and because of that, we don't allocate sufficient funds," a professor of environmental planning said. |
Another potential improvement? Replacing air-conditioners with heat pumps. |
 | | A takeout order leaves Grand Lake Kitchen in Oakland, Calif.Kelsey McClellan for The New York Times |
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8. People are going out again, but delivery isn't going away. |
In a recent survey, 71 percent of consumers said they would continue to order delivery as much as they had during the pandemic, if not more. In markets that reopened earlier than most places, DoorDash said its order volume decreased about 20 percent from the pandemic's height. Uber Eats also dipped, but its revenue still rose 230 percent annually. |
So restaurant groups are pressing for ways to deal financially with the new reality. Last week, San Francisco's board of supervisors voted unanimously for a permanent 15 percent cap on delivery fees. Similar measures are under consideration in Chicago and other cities. |
 | | Tony Cenicola/The New York Times |
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9. Try the dark side of rosé. |
Pale pinks are fashionable — and heading in the opposite direction of the crowd is often an excellent strategy for finding value in wine. But dark rosés can also be astoundingly good and age well, our wine critic writes. Here are three affordable options. |
 | | Susan Reynolds sells earrings and necklaces made from the wings of dead cicadas.Susan Reynolds |
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10. And finally, cicadas as fashion. |
Sometimes inspiration smacks you in the face, like the cicada that hit Susan Reynolds in the head, died and fell at her feet. She picked it up, took it home, and became fascinated by the shape and intricate veining of its wings. Almost two decades later, she's still making cicada-wing earrings. Her neighbors leave dead cicadas for her in a box by her front door. |
This year, as her customers celebrate Brood X — the cicada cohort that emerges every 17 years — she incorporated flowers, leaves and birds cut from vintage postcards. The results look like tiny panels of stained glass. |
"I want to make jewelry that looks like a fairy flew into an elderly woman's room and started snatching things off her dressing table," Reynolds said. |
We're off on Monday for the holiday weekend and will return on Tuesday. |
| Lance Booth compiled photos for this briefing. |
Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. |
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