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WASHINGTON — PresidentBiden’s plan to celebrate “inde-pendence from the virus” on theFourth of July is running into anunpleasant reality: Less than halfthe country is fully vaccinatedagainst the coronavirus, and thehighly contagious Delta variant isthreatening new outbreaks.

The president and Jill Biden,the first lady, have invited 1,000military personnel and essentialworkers to an Independence Daybash on the South Lawn of theWhite House. Mr. Biden and hisadvisers, eager to claim credit forthe virus’s retreat in the UnitedStates, are talking about a “sum-mer of joy and freedom.”

Mr. Biden will visit Traverse

City, Mich., on Saturday as part ofwhat the White House calls the“America’s Back Together” cele-bration. Dr. Biden will also take tothe road, as will Vice President

Kamala Harris, her husband,Doug Emhoff, and various cabinetofficials who will attend festivals,parades and cookouts around thenation.

But public health experts fearthat scenes of cross-country cele-brations — including a WhiteHouse party with a liberationtheme — will send the wrong mes-

Biden Declares ‘Independence’ From the Virus, to Some DismayBy SHERYL GAY STOLBERG Fourth of July Festivities

as a Variant Spreads

Continued on Page A11

MARK HUMPHREY/ASSOCIATED PRESS

In Surfside, Fla., officials face a delicate decision of when to turn rescue into recovery. Page A15.Still Searching for a Miracle DUAL MESSAGES Despite its

departure, the U.S. says it will notabandon Afghanistan. PAGE A7

KABUL, Afghanistan — Withhis military crumbling, PresidentAshraf Ghani of Afghanistan fireda crucial part of his commandstructure and brought in a newone. He created a nebulous “su-preme state council,” announcedmonths ago, that has hardly met.And as districts fall to the Talibanacross the country, he has in-stalled a giant picture of himselfoutside the airport’s domestic ter-minal.

On Friday, U.S. officials an-nounced the definitive closure ofBagram Air Base, the nerve cen-ter of 20 years of American mili-tary operations in Afghanistan, in

the functional end of the Americanwar here. As the last troops andequipment trickle out of Afghani-stan, an atmosphere of unrealityhas settled over the governmentand Kabul, the capital.

Americans have not been a visi-ble presence in the city for years,so the U.S. departure has not af-fected surface normality: Mar-kets bustle and streets are

jammed with homeward-boundcivil servants by midafternoon. Atnight, the corner bakeries contin-ue to be illuminated by a singlebulb as vendors sell late into theevening.

But beneath the surface there isunease as the Taliban creep stead-ily toward Kabul.

“There’s no hope for the future,”said Zubair Ahmad, 23, who runs agrocery store on one of the KhairKhana neighborhood’s main boul-evards. “Afghans are leaving thecountry. I don’t know whether Iam going to be safe 10 minutesfrom now.”

The government passport of-fice has been jam-packed in recent

In Kabul, High Tension and an Air of UnrealityBy ADAM NOSSITER As Taliban Draw Near,

Afghan GovernmentSeems Frozen

Continued on Page A6

WASHINGTON — There weretwo very different SupremeCourts in the term that just ended.

For much of the last ninemonths, the court seemed to havedefied predictions that the newlyexpanded conservative majorityof six Republican appointeeswould regularly steamroll theirthree liberal colleagues.

Rather than issuing polarizeddecisions split along ideologicallines, the court was fluid and un-predictable. There was no longer asingle swing justice whose votewould often decide close cases, asJustice Anthony M. Kennedy haduntil he retired in 2018, or as ChiefJustice John G. Roberts Jr. did inthe term that ended last summer.

Instead, the center of the courtcame to include four conservative

justices who in various combina-tions occasionally joined thecourt’s three-member liberal wingto form majorities in dividedcases.

But on Thursday, in rulings thatgave states new latitude to re-strict voting rights and limiteddisclosure requirements for bigdonors to charities, the courtmade clear that the conservativesupermajority is still there, per-haps to emerge in a more as-sertive way in the term that startsin October, when the justices willtake up blockbuster cases onabortion and gun rights.

An Unpredictable Court TermEnds With a Turn to the Right

By ADAM LIPTAK

Continued on Page A16

Roberts’s Influence as aSwing Vote Declines

Dee Dee Patten, 57, hadn’tplanned to retire early. But whenthe coronavirus-induced lock-down took hold in 2020 and busi-ness dried up at the mechanicalrepair shop that she and her hus-band, Dana, owned in Platteville,Colo., they decided to call it quits.

Mildred Vega, 56, had even lesschoice in the matter. Soon aftershe lost her job because of a re-structuring at a Pfizer office inVega Baja, P.R., the pandemicforeclosed other options.

Mrs. Vega and the Pattens arethree of the millions of Americanswho have decided to retire sincethe pandemic began, part of asurge in early exits from the workforce. The trend has broad impli-cations for the labor market and isa sign of how the pandemic hastransformed the economic land-scape.

For a fortunate few, the decisionwas made possible by 401(k) ac-counts bulging from record stockvalues. That wealth, along with asurge in home values, has offeredsome the financial security to stopworking well before Social Securi-ty and private pensions kick in.

But most of the early retire-ments are occurring amonglower-income workers who weredisplaced by the pandemic andsee little route back into the jobmarket, according to Teresa Ghi-larducci, a professor of economicsand policy analysis at the NewSchool for Social Research in NewYork City.

“They might call themselves re-tired, but basically they are unem-ployed and in a precarious state,”Ms. Ghilarducci said. Economicdownturns typically induce morepeople to leave the work force, butthere has been a faster wave of de-partures this time than during the2008-9 recession, she said.

After analyzing data from theBureau of Labor Statistics and theUniversity of Michigan Healthand Retirement Study, Ms. Ghilar-ducci found that among peoplewith incomes at or below the na-tional median, 55 percent of retire-ments recently were involuntary.

By contrast, among the top 10percent of earners, only 10 per-cent of exits were involuntary.“It’s a tale of two retirements,” Ms.Ghilarducci said.

For the Pattens, most of theircompany’s revenue came from in-specting school buses in thenorthern part of Colorado. Whenschools pivoted to remote learn-ing in March 2020, the businessstopped receiving its usual traffic.

“On average, we had 10 to 20

Many RetireesDid Not Plan

An Early Exit

Sign of How PandemicHas Altered Country

By NELSON D. SCHWARTZand CORAL MURPHY MARCOS

Continued on Page A14

Anxieties over a lag in hiringlifted on Friday as the govern-ment reported that employersadded 850,000 workers in June,the largest monthly gain since Au-gust.

Wages jumped for the thirdmonth in a row, a sign that em-ployers are trying to attract appli-cants with higher pay and thatworkers are gaining bargainingpower.

Rising Covid-19 vaccinationrates and a growing appetite fortravel, dining out, celebrationsand entertainment gave a particu-lar boost to leisure and hospitalitybusinesses. The biggest chunk ofJune’s gains — 343,000 — could befound there.

“I think it’s a very solid andstrong report,” said Kathy Bost-jancic, chief U.S. financial econo-mist for Oxford Economics.

The economic healing from thepandemic is, however, far fromfinished. The unemployment raterose slightly, to 5.9 percent, andthe share of the working-age pop-ulation active in the labor forcewas unchanged at 61.6 percent,showing that millions whodropped out have yet to return. Anaccelerated rate of early retire-ments means that some of thoseworkers will never come back.

“Today there are more job open-ings than before the pandemicand fewer people in the laborforce,” said Becky Frankiewicz,president of the staffing company

HIRING INCREASESAND WAGES JUMPAS U.S. REBOUNDS

BEST GAINS SINCE AUGUST

More Job Openings anda Smaller Labor Force

Test the Economy

By PATRICIA COHEN

Source: Bureau ofLabor Statistics

THE NEW YORK TIMES

–6.8 millionjobs sinceFeb. 2020

Cumulative change in jobssince before the pandemic

APRIL

JUNE

SEPT.

June+850,000

JAN. ’21

152.5 million jobs in February 2020

–5 MIL.

–10

–15

–20

Continued on Page A14

After their swift defeat, thousands ofcaptured troops were paraded throughthe regional capital of Tigray. PAGE A4

INTERNATIONAL A4-9

A Decisive Win Over EthiopiaTrees can lower urban temperatures by10 degrees, scientists say. So why aren’tcities protecting their canopy? PAGE A10

NATIONAL A10-17

Leafy, and Lifesaving, TooThe top U.S. female sprinter, Sha’CarriRichardson, faces a monthlong suspen-sion after testing positive for marijuanaat the track and field trials. PAGE B8

SPORTSSATURDAY B8-10

An Olympic Dream in Peril

The country once known as Swazilandhas been ruled by high-living kings fordecades. Citizens say, enough. PAGE A8

Protests Overtake EswatiniAlvin Bragg, set to be the next Manhat-tan district attorney, would lead theinquiry into the ex-president. PAGE A17

A New Thorn for Trump As America’s 250th birthday ap-proaches, some scholars are wonderingif the spirit of 1776 can survive thehistory wars of 2021. PAGE C1

Battles Over the U.S. Story

Months before Andrea Constand’smemoir about the Bill Cosby case is tobe published, a court overturned thecomedian’s conviction. PAGE C1

Frustration Follows a Verdict

The actor Sam Richardson fights along-side Chris Pratt in the film “The Tomor-row War,” quite a change from his com-edy turn on TV in “Veep.” PAGE C1

ARTS C1-6

A Large Range of RolesIn-person dining is returning to restau-rants, but many are adjusting to thepossibility that services like DoorDashand Uber Eats will become a perma-nent part of their business. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-7

Delivering a New Normal

Sales are climbing for automakers rightas they are struggling to produceenough cars. A shortage of semiconduc-tors is a big reason. Ford has beenparticularly hard hit. PAGE B3

A Shortage in Showrooms

Barbara McQuade PAGE A19

OPINION A18-19

KABUL, Afghanistan — Ameri-can troops and their Western al-lies have departed the U.S. mili-tary base that coordinated thesprawling war in Afghanistan, of-ficials said on Friday, effectivelyending major U.S. military opera-tions in the country after nearlytwo decades.

For generations of Americanservice members, the militaryhub, Bagram Air Base, was a gate-way to and from a war that cutacross constant changes on thebattlefield and in presidential ad-ministrations. But the final with-drawal overnight on Thursday oc-curred with little fanfare and nopublic ceremony, and in an atmos-phere of grave concern over theAfghan security forces’ ability tohold off Taliban advances acrossthe country.

The American exit was com-pleted quickly enough that somelooters managed to get into thebase before being arrested, Af-ghan officials said.

The quiet leave-taking from thebase weeks before the plannedwithdrawal of American troops inmid July, and months ahead ofPresident’s Biden announcedSept. 11 departure, highlightsWashington’s efforts to signal twodifferent messages: one to theU.S. public that its longest foreignwar is ending, and another to theAfghan government that theUnited States is not abandoning

U.S. DEPARTS LAST AFGHANISTAN BASE,EFFECTIVELY ENDING 20 YEARS OF WAR

Fight Continues, butAmericans Won’t

Be a Part of It

By THOMAS GIBBONS-NEFF

An Afghan soldier standing guard on Friday at the gate of the Bagram Air Base after the American military had withdrawn.MOHAMMAD ISMAIL/REUTERS

Continued on Page A6

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX . . . . No. 59,108 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2021

Today, mostly cloudy, showers andthunderstorms, high 67. Tonight,mostly cloudy, evening showers, low61. Tomorrow, partly sunny, show-ers, high 77. Weather map, Page B12.

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