AP News in Brief at 11:02 p.m. EDT

Kabul airport attack kills 60 Afghans, 13 US troops

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport Thursday, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. The attacks killed at least 60 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops, Afghan and U.S. officials said.

The U.S. general overseeing the evacuation said the attacks would not stop the United States from evacuating Americans and others, and flights out were continuing. Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said there was a large amount of security at the airport, and alternate routes were being used to get evacuees in. About 5,000 people were awaiting flights on the airfield, McKenzie said.

The blasts came hours after Western officials warned of a major attack, urging people to leave the airport. But that advice went largely unheeded by Afghans desperate to escape the country in the last few days of an American-led evacuation before the U.S. officially ends its 20-year presence on Aug. 31.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the killings on its Amaq news channel. The IS affiliate in Afghanistan is far more radical than the Taliban, who recently took control of the country in a lightning blitz. The Taliban were not believed to have been involved in the attacks and condemned the blasts.

In an emotional speech from the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden said the latest bloodshed would not drive the U.S. out of Afghanistan earlier than scheduled, and that he had instructed the U.S. military to develop plans to strike IS.

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Biden vows to finish Kabul evacuation, avenge US deaths

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden vowed Thursday to complete the evacuation of American citizens and others from Afghanistan despite the day’s deadly suicide bomb attack at the Kabul airport. He promised to avenge the deaths of 13 U.S. service members killed in the attack, declaring to the extremists responsible: “We will hunt you down and make you pay.”

Speaking with emotion from the White House, Biden said the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate was to blame for the attacks that killed the Americans and many more Afghan civilians. He said there was no evidence they colluded with the Taliban, who now control the country.

He asked for a moment of silence to honor the service members, bowing his head, and ordered U.S. flags to half-staff across the country.

As for the bombers and gunmen involved, he said, “We have some reason to believe we know who they are … not certain.” He said he had instructed military commanders to develop plans to strike IS “assets, leadership and facilities.”

Gen. Frank McKenzie, the U.S. Central Command chief, said more attempted attacks were expected.

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Supreme Court allows evictions to resume during pandemic

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority is allowing evictions to resume across the United States, blocking the Biden administration from enforcing a temporary ban that was put in place because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The court’s action late Thursday ends protections for roughly 3.5 million people in the United States who said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to Census Bureau data from early August.

The court said in an unsigned opinion that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which reimposed the moratorium Aug. 3, lacked the authority to do so under federal law without explicit congressional authorization. The justices rejected the administration’s arguments in support of the CDC’s authority.

“If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it,” the court wrote.

The three liberal justices dissented. Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the three, pointed to the increase in COVID-19 caused by the delta variant as one of the reasons the court should have left the moratorium in place. “The public interest strongly favors respecting the CDC’s judgment at this moment, when over 90% of counties are experiencing high transmission rates,” Breyer wrote.

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Capitol Police officers sue Trump, allies over insurrection

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Capitol Police officers who were attacked and beaten during the Capitol riot filed a lawsuit Thursday against former President Donald Trump, his allies and members of far-right extremist groups, accusing them of intentionally sending a violent mob on Jan. 6 to disrupt the congressional certification of the election.

The suit in federal court in Washington alleges Trump “worked with white supremacists, violent extremist groups, and campaign supporters to violate the Ku Klux Klan Act, and commit acts of domestic terrorism in an unlawful effort to stay in power.”

The suit was filed on behalf of the seven officers by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. It names the former president, the Trump campaign, Trump ally Roger Stone and members of the extremist groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who were present at the Capitol and in Washington on Jan. 6.

Two other similar cases have been filed in recent months by Democratic members of Congress. The suits allege the actions of Trump and his allies led to the violence siege of the Capitol that injured dozens of police officers, halted the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s electoral victory and sent lawmakers running for their lives as rioters stormed into the seat of American democracy wielding bats, poles and other weapons.

A House committee has started in earnest to investigate what happened that day, sending out requests Wednesday for documents from intelligence, law enforcement and other government agencies. Their largest request so far was made to the National Archive for information on Trump and his former team.

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Virus surge breaks hospital records amid rising toll on kids

Kentucky and Texas joined a growing list of states that are seeing record numbers of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in a surge that is overwhelming doctors and nurses and afflicting more children.

Intensive care units around the nation are packed with patients extremely ill with the coronavirus — even in places where hospitalizations have not yet reached earlier peaks.

The ICU units at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Georgia typically have room for 38 patients, and doctors and nurses may have only two or three people who are very sick, said Dr. Jyotir Mehta, medical director of the ICU. On Wednesday, the ICU had 50 COVID-19 patients alone, roughly half of them relying on ventilators to breathe.

“I don’t think we have experienced this much critical illness in folks, so many people sick at the same time,” Mehta said.

He said talking to family members is difficult. “They are grasping for every hope and you’re trying to tell them, ’Look, it’s bad,’” he said. “You have to tell them that your loved one is not going to make it.”

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Explainer: How dangerous is Afghanistan’s Islamic State?

The Islamic State offshoot that Americans blame for Thursday’s deadly suicide attacks outside the Kabul airport coalesced in eastern Afghanistan six years ago, and rapidly grew into one of the more dangerous terror threats globally.

Despite years of military targeting by the U.S.-led coalition, the group known as Islamic State Khorasan has survived to launch a massive new assault as the United States and other NATO partners withdraw from Afghanistan, and as the Taliban return to power.

President Joe Biden cited the threat of Islamic State attacks in sticking with a Tuesday deadline for pulling U.S. forces out of Afghanistan. Biden blamed the group for Thursday’s attacks, which included a suicide bomber who slipped into the crowds of Afghans outside airport gates controlled by U.S. service members.

The group has built a record of highly lethal attacks in the face of its own heavy losses. A look at a deadly group influencing the course of the Kabul airlifts and U.S. actions:

WHAT IS ISLAMIC STATE KHORASAN?

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Apple loosens app store payment rules in lawsuit settlement

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — Apple has agreed to let developers of iPhone apps email their users about cheaper ways to pay for digital subscriptions and media by circumventing a commission system that generates billions of dollars annually for the iPhone maker.

The concession announced late Thursday, which covers emailed notifications but does not allow in-app notifications, is part of a preliminary settlement of a nearly 2-year-old lawsuit filed on behalf of iPhone app developers in the U.S. It also addresses an issue raised by a federal court judge who is expected to soon rule on a separate case brought by Epic Games, maker of the popular video game Fortnite.

Apple announced the news in a “background” briefing with reporters in which it insisted on anonymity for participating executives and would not allow any direct quotations.

Under long-standing Apple rules, makers of iPhone apps were forbidden to email users with information on how to pay for services outside the app, which would circumvent Apple commissions of 15% to 30%.

The concession now opens one way for app developers to more aggressively encourage its users to pay in other ways, so long as the companies obtain consumer consent.

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Gunmen release students in northern Nigeria 3 months later

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Gunmen have released some of the children kidnapped from a school in northern Nigeria back in May, some of whom were as young as 5 years old, the school’s head teacher said late Thursday.

Abubakar Garba Alhassan told The Associated Press that the freed students were on their way to the state capital, Minna, but added he could not confirm the exact number freed.

Authorities have said that 136 children were abducted along with several teachers when gunmen on motorcycles attacked the Salihu Tanko Islamic School in Niger state. Other preschoolers were left behind as they could not keep pace when the gunmen hurriedly moved those abducted into the forest.

Alhassan did not provide details of their release, but parents of the students have over the past weeks struggled to raise ransoms demanded by their abductors. There was no immediate comment from police of the Niger governor’s office.

The release, though, came a day after local media quoted one parent as saying six of the children had died in captivity.

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Time’s Up CEO Tina Tchen resigns in wake of Cuomo scandal

NEW YORK (AP) — The chief executive of the sexual harassment victims’ advocacy group Time’s Up resigned Thursday amid outrage over revelations that its leaders advisedformer New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration after he was first accused of misconduct last year.

Time’s Up CEO and president Tina Tchen said in a statement that she’s “spent a career fighting for positive change for women” but was no longer the right person to lead the #MeToo-era organization.

“I am especially aware that my position at the helm of TIME’S UP has become a painful and divisive focal point, where those very women and other activists who should be working together to fight for change are instead battling each other in harmful ways,” she wrote.

The group’s chief operating officer, Monifa Bandele, will serve as interim CEO.

Tchen’s resignation comes after the Aug. 9 departure of the organization’s chair, Roberta Kaplan. Both women had been the target of ire from Time’s Up supporters over the idea they had offered any help to Cuomo, who resigned Monday, three weeks after an investigation overseen by New York’s attorney generalconcluded he sexually harassed at least 11 women.

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Al Capone’s favorite gun, personal items head to auction

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Al Capone is infamous for having been a ruthless mob boss, but one of his granddaughters says his softer side will shine through when the family auctions the Prohibition-era gangster’s personal items — including diamond-encrusted jewelry with his initials, family photographs and his favorite handgun.

Capone’s three granddaughters will also auction a letter he wrote to their father and his only child, Albert “Sonny” Capone, from Alcatraz, where the mobster served an 11-year sentence following his 1934 tax evasion conviction. In the letter written in pencil, Al Capone refers to Sonny as “son of my heart.”

He was called Public Enemy No. 1 after the 1929 “Valentine’s Day Massacre” of seven members of a rival bootlegger gang in Chicago by his associates.

But his granddaughter Diane Capone describes him differently.

“He was very loving, very devoted to family, very generous, and the letter that we have is such a poignant, beautiful letter from a father to his son. These are things that the public doesn’t know about,” said Diane Capone, 77.