Kamala Harris will deliver a post-election message to Maryland students

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Kamala Harris will deliver a post-election message to Maryland students

2024-12-17 19:44 Last Updated At：19:51

WASHINGTON (AP) — Kamala Harris will deliver a speech to students in Maryland on Tuesday in what will likely be her most extensive remarks since losing the election to Donald Trump.

A White House official said the Democratic vice president would focus on how politicians should present an optimistic vision for the future, something she talked about frequently on the campaign trail.

It’s unclear what Harris’ next steps will be after her term ends. Harris could try to position herself as a leader of the anti-Trump opposition. There’s also speculation that she could run for governor in her home state of California, where the next election is in 2026.

At 60 years old, Harris likely has another act or two in public life, maybe even another run for the presidency. But she could face stiff competition from other Democratic politicians and weariness from voters who want to move on after a dispiriting campaign ended with Trump's victory.

With Republicans taking control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, Democrats are still trying to figure out the best way forward for their party.

Judging by the plans for her Tuesday speech in Prince George's County, Harris envisions a path that's very similar to the message from her candidacy and vice presidency. While serving under President Joe Biden, Harris toured college campuses and focused on issues that resonate with students, like gun violence and climate change. She also made sure to meet with young people overseas in Africa and Asia as she worked on U.S. diplomatic efforts.

During the presidential campaign, Harris often talked about her love of Generation Z and the importance of rising leaders. It was one of the ways she tried to draw a contrast with Trump, who is 78 years old.

However, Harris did worse with young people this year than Biden did four years ago. According to AP VoteCast, a survey of the electorate, she won 51% of voters ages 18 to 29, down from 61% for Biden.

A bomb killed a Russian general in Moscow. A Ukrainian official says secret service was behind it

2024-12-17 19:41 Last Updated At：19:51

A senior Russian general was killed Tuesday by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow, a day after Ukraine’s security service leveled criminal charges against him. A Ukrainian official said the service carried out the attack.

Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed as he left for his office. Kirillov’s assistant also died in the attack.

Kirillov, 54, was under sanctions from several countries, including the U.K. and Canada, for his actions in Moscow’s war in Ukraine. On Monday, Ukraine’s Security Service, or SBU, opened a criminal investigation against him, accusing him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons.

An official with the SBU said the agency was behind the attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information, described Kirillov as a “war criminal and an entirely legitimate target.”

The SBU has said it recorded more than 4,800 occasions when Russia used chemical weapons on the battlefield since its full-scale invasion in February 2022. In May, the U.S. State Department said that it had recorded the use of chloropicrin, a poison gas first deployed in World War I, against Ukrainian troops.

Russia has denied using any chemical weapons in Ukraine and, in turn, has accused Kyiv of using toxic agents in combat.

Kirillov, who took his current job in 2017, was one of the most high-profile figures to level those accusations. He held numerous briefings to accuse the Ukrainian military of using toxic agents and planning to launch attacks with radioactive substances — claims that Ukraine and its Western allies rejected as propaganda.

The bomb used in Tuesday's attack was triggered remotely, according to Russian news reports. Images from the scene showed shattered windows and scorched brickwork.

Russia’s top state investigative agency said it's investigating Kirillov’s death as a case of terrorism, and officials in Moscow vowed to punish Ukraine.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council chaired by President Vladimir Putin, described the attack as an attempt by Kyiv to distract public attention away from its military failures and vowed that its “senior military-political leadership will face inevitable retribution.”

Over the past year, Russia has been on the front foot in the war in Ukraine, grinding deeper into the eastern region of Donetsk region despite heavy losses. Ukraine tried to change the dynamic with an incursion into Russia's Kursk region, but it has continued to slowly lose ground on its own territory.

Since Russia invaded, several prominent figures have been killed in targeted attacks believed to have been carried out by Ukraine.

Darya Dugina, a commentator on Russian TV channels and the daughter of Kremlin-linked nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, died in a 2022 car bombing that investigators suspected was aimed at her father.

Vladlen Tatarsky, a popular military blogger, died in April 2023, when a statuette given to him at a party in St. Petersburg exploded. A Russian woman, who said that she presented the figurine on orders of a contact in Ukraine, was convicted in the case and handed a 27-year sentence.

In December 2023, Illia Kiva, a former pro-Moscow Ukrainian lawmaker who fled to Russia, was shot and killed near Moscow. The Ukrainian military intelligence lauded the killing, warning that other “traitors of Ukraine” would share the same fate.

On Dec. 9, an explosive device was placed under a car in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Donetsk, reportedly targeting Sergei Yevsyukov, the former head of the Olenivka Prison where dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war died in a missile strike in July 2022. One other was injured in the blast. Russian authorities said they detained a suspect in the attack.

Associated Press writer Illia Novikov contributed from Kyiv, Ukraine.