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5 richest man in the philippines ClickHouse annuncia un accordo di collaborazione strategica con AWS per promuovere l'analisi dei dati in tempo reale e l'innovazione dell'IA generativaLok Sabha Speaker Om Birla Hails Contribution Of Hindi In 'Nation-Building' & Development Of SocietyINLD supports farmers: Abhay

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Whatever 2025 holds for world markets, talk of an end to business cycle investing eerily reflects past periods of hubris and makes all the persistent bullishness seem slightly reckless. The years since 2020 have been extraordinary, with pandemic-distorted supply and demand patterns that are still playing out. Serial geopolitical shocks and mega trends in technology and green energy have followed. Amidst all that, inflation in Western economies recorded its biggest spike in 40 years, and central banks scrambled to snuff it out with the most brutal credit tightening in decades. But setting aside the deep but brief pandemic-induced economic contraction in early 2020, the United States has managed to avoid a recession. And few if any forecasters see one unfolding next year. For BlackRock, the world's biggest asset manager, it is simply different this time. "We've argued since 2020 that we are not in a business cycle," it said in its 2025 outlook. "Historical trends are being permanently broken in real time as mega forces, like the rise of artificial intelligence, transform economies." Ignoring the business cycle is a big call and certainly a brave one at this stage. Yet, looking at the United States over the past few years, it's hard to argue against it. Previously near foolproof bellwethers of cyclical downturns, such as the inverted yield curve or the 'Sahm Rule' on when rising joblessness presages a downturn -- have flashed bright red, but to no avail. US real GDP has expanded continuously since a one-quarter contraction in the first three months of 2022 and as 2024 comes to a close, growth rates are still well above trend at more than 3%. If anything, that looks set to be underscored by both lower interest rates and tax cuts next year. Even the most dogged bears on Wall Street have thrown in the towel, seemingly assured that the services-dominated US economy can sail on unfettered. Most of the big brokers expect further punchy gains for Wall Street stocks in 2025. The already expensive S&P 500, still led mostly by a narrow group of mega-cap tech giants, is set to record its second consecutive year of 25%-plus gains for the first time since 1998. RESONATING MILESTONES All the same, comparisons to the late 1990s should ring some alarm bells. The final years on the last century were certainly different to today but there are also uncanny parallels with the present, including mounting euphoria about a US-dominated technology, a turbulent world economy and seemingly Teflon US growth. The end of the Cold War had given rise to many hubristic books, most famously Francis Fukuyama's bestseller The End of History and the Last Man on the durable triumph of liberal democracy. By the end of the decade, the internet bubble gave vent to endless talk about business cycle being transcended in the face of transformative technology and US exceptionalism. What's more, there were also a few hesitant Federal Reserve interest rate cuts that kept the expansion going before eventually being reversed as the economy dodged turbulence abroad and the domestic bubble grew bigger. The upshot? A tech-led bubble burst in 2000, ushering in three years of consecutive S&P 500 losses -- the longest series of annual downturns since World War II. It took seven years to recover the peaks of 2000, just before the banking crash hit. To be sure, anyone who stuck with durable tech names that survived the dot.com bust made a fortune over the past 20 years. But the business and investment cycle was far from ending. TEFLON ECONOMY So what could go wrong now? Even if there is a cogent argument for continued US economic and market outperformance next year, it's hard to see how America remains entirely insulated if there is significant economic weakness overseas. Asset managers' 2025 outlooks all dwell heavily on the uncertainties surrounding the incoming administration of US president-elect Donald Trump. And they all acknowledge that some type of trade war is in the offing, with China, Europe and even US neighbours Canada and Mexico all in the crosshairs. A global economic hit from tit-for-tat tariff salvos and investment curbs could come back to haunt the United States if it stymies world demand or lifts US prices, causing the Fed to halt or reverse its policy easing. BlackRock's view, for the record, is that the US and global economies may well experience bouts of turbulence in the coming year. But their conclusion is that such moves would only impact tactical trades and that major investment decisions should stay focused on multi-year big themes, such as artificial intelligence and green energy. But even if the United States can remain an "oasis of prosperity", in the words of another famed phrase from the late 1990s, financial distortions could eventually sow the seeds of an eventual fall. Monetary easing around the world has already accelerated, potentially in response to trade fears. This is buoying the dollar and holding down US Treasury yields, too, as investors rotate into what's now become a high-yielding "safe asset". Some argue that inappropriately low US long-term borrowing rates could, by themselves, catalyse a downfall by overheating the economy and further inflating asset bubbles. That scenario suggests that any downturn likely wouldn't come next year. But the rumoured death of the business cycle may yet prove to be greatly exaggerated. Reuters Mike Dolan is Reuters editor-at-large for finance & markets.

AP Business SummaryBrief at 12:45 p.m. ESTThe closer a Prince Rupert woman looked at the deer in her yard, the stranger things became for her. “It was the first time I’ve seen anything like that; it was pretty bizarre,” said Joan Dudoward. Dudoward is a senior residing on 11th Avenue East in Prince Rupert. A flash of movement caught her eye as she scrubbed her breakfast plates on a typical Wednesday morning. Peeking out the window above her sink, she gasped— a majestic buck with massive antlers stood gracefully in her yard. “As soon as I noticed the huge buck, I ran and grabbed my camera to photograph it. I’ve been taking photos since I was a teenager...I photograph everything,” she said. She says he cozied up to lie on the grass and stayed for about half an hour. “He was wiggling his ears so I zoomed in and noticed a tag clipped on him,” she said. “I thought, why is this dear clipped? I got very concerned.” Dudoward, driven by her curiosity, noted that one side of the clip was labelled “BC WILDLIFE 06-529,” while the other read “CALL RAP: 877-952-7227.” It was suspicious because the number displayed is very similar but different from the official number of B.C.’s Conservation Officer Service, which is 1-877-952-7277. Also, the legitimate acronym for their hotline, Report All Poachers and Polluters, is “RAPP,” not “RAP,” as indicated on the tag. She called the number on the neon green tag to inquire about the buck, but reached a woman who spoke to her very hurriedly, she said. The woman, who identified herself as Jessica, wanted to send Dudoward a “free medical alert device” that she could wear around her neck. “We’re very excited to tell you about a special promotion for select callers,” Dudoward recalls the woman saying. She was then asked questions such as her age to check eligibility. Jessica then explained that as a senior, the device would help her in emergencies, such as falls, by alerting her immediate contacts. To proceed with delivery, she said she needed some personal information from Dudoward, such as her address. Then, Dudoward was abruptly transferred to another agent who continued the call. But when she tried to ask her about the buck and why the agency had clipped its number on his ear, they wouldn’t respond but instead continued to promote their products “That’s just cruelty to animals. They are targeting seniors for sure, and hurting the deer in the process,” said Dudoward. She wondered how they must have handled the wild animal to dart him. She questioned, “Did they sedate him? What exactly happened there?” She was absolutely shocked. Dudoward couldn’t comprehend why B.C. Wildlife, a legitimate organization, would have put this company’s number on the buck’s ear. The incident reminded her of this continued pattern of companies attempting to target elderly and vulnerable individuals. “I also have my mother’s old number, and it gets scam calls all the time,” she said. “How can they do that? Especially to seniors. They are trying to decide if they should pay the rent or get medication,” said Dudoward in frustration. She proceeded to contact the legitimate conservation officer’s number, who, like the local RCMP, didn’t pay much heed to her situation, she said. The next day, Dudoward called the agency’s number on the tag again, and the conversation took a completely different turn. Now, the agent asked if she was 18 and was promoting products aimed at youth. They informed her that she needed to pay $3 through a call paywall to proceed to the next step, during which she would be directed to the free products for which she was eligible. “The message keeps changing; this is so strange,” said Dudoward. The Northern View investigated the call and found that it was an intricately designed AI automated voice call. The system guides the caller through different phases by detecting both their spoken responses and the number keys they press. Contrary to Dudoward’s initial belief, it wasn’t a live human speaking to her, but a pre-recorded one. In fact, similar cases of fraud involving medical alert devices have happened in the U.S. before, prompting the New York State Department of State and the Minnesota Attorney General to issue cautionary alerts for consumers regarding these “robocalls.” The authorities advised seniors to immediately hang up, not press any keys when prompted, and avoid sharing personal information. “Fraud is the number one crime against older Canadians. Though people of all ages can be victims of fraud, older people get targeted more than others,” states the Canadian Government on its website. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) says that there have been 40,623 reports of fraud this year up to Oct. 31, resulting in a loss of $503 million. Vishing is a social engineering technique that uses voice communication technology. It involves fraudulent phone calls to trick the victim into revealing personal data. The CAFC advises caution during phone calls. They urge people not to hesitate to say no if something feels off and not to feel pressured by urgency or time limits. They also encourage taking enough time to research before sharing personal information. The Northern View contacted the B.C. Wildlife Federation for a comment regarding the tag on the buck. “The Conservation Officer Service darted this deer Nov. 5 to remove wires wrapped around its antlers. The tag is legitimate, but unfortunately has the wrong number on it for RAPP. The new versions of the tag have the correct number and COS will stop using these older tags,” said Jesse Zeman, executive director at B.C. Wildlife Federation. Although the exact cause of this mistake is unclear, anyone who suspects fraud should contact CAFC at 1-888-495-8501 or their local police.Stocks wavered on Wall Street in afternoon trading Thursday, as gains in tech companies and retailers helped temper losses elsewhere in the market. The S&P 500 was down less than 0.1% after drifting between small gains and losses. The benchmark index is coming off a three-day winning streak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 6 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 1:52 p.m. Eastern time. The Nasdaq composite was down less than 0.1%. Trading volume was lighter than usual as U.S. markets reopened after the Christmas holiday. Chip company Broadcom rose 2.9%, Micron Technology was up 1% and Adobe gained 0.8%. While tech stocks overall were in the green, some heavyweights were a drag on the market. Semiconductor giant Nvidia, whose enormous valuation gives it an outsize influence on indexes, slipped 0.1%. Meta Platforms fell 0.7%, Amazon was down 0.6%, and Netflix gave up 1.1%. Tesla was among the biggest decliners in the S&P 500, down 1.9%. Health care stocks helped lift the market. CVS Health rose 1.7% and Walgreens Boots Alliance rose 3% for the biggest gain among S&P 500 stocks. Several retailers also gained ground. Target rose 2.8%, Best Buy was up 2.2% and Dollar Tree gained 2.7%. Retailers are hoping for a solid sales this holiday season, and the day after Christmas traditionally ranks among the top 10 biggest shopping days of the year, as consumers go online or rush to stores to cash in gift cards and raid bargain bins. U.S.-listed shares in Honda and Nissan rose 4% and 16%, respectively. The Japanese automakers announced earlier this week that the two companies are in talks to combine. Traders got a labor market update. U.S. applications for unemployment benefits held steady last week , though continuing claims rose to the highest level in three years, the Labor Department reported. Treasury yields turned mostly lower in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.57% from 4.59% late Tuesday. Major European markets were closed, as well as Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia. Trading was expected to be subdued this week with a thin slate of economic data on the calendar. Still, U.S. markets have historically gotten a boost at year’s end despite lower trading volumes. The last five trading days of each year, plus the first two in the new year, have brought an average gain of 1.3% since 1950. So far this month, the U.S. stock market has lost some of its gains since President-elect Donald Trump’s win on Election Day, which raised hopes for faster economic growth and more lax regulations that would boost corporate profits. Worries have risen that Trump’s preference for tariffs and other policies could lead to higher inflation , a bigger U.S. government debt and difficulties for global trade. Even so, the U.S. market remains on pace to deliver strong returns for 2024. The benchmark S&P 500 is up roughly 26% so far this year and remains near its most recent all-time high it set earlier this month — its latest of 57 record highs this year. Wall Street has several economic reports to look forward to next week, including updates on pending home sales and home prices, a report on U.S. construction spending and snapshots of manufacturing activity. AP Business Writers Elaine Kurtenbach and Matt Ott contributed.

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WASHINGTON — The House shut down Democrats’ efforts Thursday to release the long-awaited ethics report into former Rep. Matt Gaetz, pushing the fate of any resolution to the yearslong investigation of sexual misconduct allegations into further uncertainty. The nearly party-line votes came after Democrats had been pressing for the findings to be published even though the Florida Republican left Congress and withdrew as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general. Republicans have argued that any congressional probe into Gaetz ended when he resigned from the House. Speaker Mike Johnson also requested that the committee not publish its report, saying it would be a terrible precedent to set. While ethics reports have previously been released after a member’s resignation, it is extremely rare. Shortly before the votes took place, Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., who introduced one of the bills to force the release, said that if Republicans reject the release, they will have “succeeded in sweeping credible allegations of sexual misconduct under the rug.” Gaetz has repeatedly denied the claims. Earlier Thursday, the Ethics panel met to discuss the Gaetz report but made no decision, saying in a short statement that the matter is still being discussed. It’s unclear now whether the document will ever see the light of day as lawmakers only have a few weeks left before a new session of Congress begins. It’s the culmination of weeks of pressure on the Ethics committee’s five Republicans and five Democrats who mostly work in secret as they investigate allegations of misconduct against lawmakers. The status of the Gaetz investigation became an open question last month when he abruptly resigned from Congress after Trump’s announcement that he wanted his ally in the Cabinet. It is standard practice for the committee to end investigations when members of Congress depart, but the circumstances surrounding Gaetz were unusual, given his potential role in the new administration. Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., the committee chairman, said Wednesday that there is no longer the same urgency to release the report given that Gaetz has left Congress and stepped aside as Trump’s choice to head the Justice Department. “I’ve been steadfast about that. He’s no longer a member. He is no longer going to be confirmed by the Senate because he withdrew his nomination to be the attorney general,” Guest said. The Gaetz report has also caused tensions between lawmakers on the bipartisan committee. Pennsylvania Rep. Susan Wild, the top Democrat on the panel, publicly admonished Guest last month for mischaracterizing a previous meeting to the press. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing and said last year that the Justice Department’s separate investigation against him into sex trafficking allegations involving underage girls ended without federal charges. His onetime political ally Joel Greenberg, a fellow Republican who served as the tax collector in Florida’s Seminole County, admitted as part of a plea deal with prosecutors in 2021 that he paid women and an underage girl to have sex with him and other men. The men were not identified in court documents when he pleaded guilty. Greenberg was sentenced in late 2022 to 11 years in prison.10 Most Affordable Cities in India to Buy a House The Pros and Cons of Investing in Value Stocks Most Visited Monuments in India Investing in Small-Cap Stocks: Top 10 Tips for Absolute Beginners 10 Ways to Earn Money Online by Selling Physical Products Richest Cricket Players Across the World 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Warren Buffett’s Investment Process Top 10 Benefits of Investing in Small-Cap Stocks Priyanka Chopra Net Worth: Know How Rich is Global Actress How to Make Money Online With Writing and Blogging? Financial calculators A SIP calculator is a simple tool that allows individuals to get an idea of the returns on their This financial tool allows one to resolve their queries related to Public Provident Fund account. When investing in a fixed deposit, the amount you deposit earns interest as per the prevailing... The National Pension System or NPS is a measure to introduce a degree of financial stability... Mutual Funds are one of the most incredible investment strategies that offer better returns...

The Ministry of Labour (MoL), in collaboration with Microsoft, announced the launch of MOL360 Initiative, on Wednesday. This marks a key milestone in the Ministry's digital transformation journey and a significant step towards achieving the goals of the Qatar National Vision 2030. This strategic collaboration underscores the MoL's commitment to revolutionizing labour market operations and setting new standards for excellence in public sector innovation. By leveraging Microsofts state-of-the-art cloud and AI technologies, including the advanced capabilities of Azure OpenAI, the MOL360 Initiative will introduce a comprehensive, secure platform designed to provide unprecedented insights into the labour market. Furthermore, enabling data-driven decision-making and forecasting future trends will enhance workforce planning, improve employment services, and promote transparency across Qatar's labour sector. Assistant Undersecretary for Migrant Labour at the Ministry of Labour, Sheikha Najwa al-Thani, emphasized that the MOL360 initiative represents a significant milestone in the journey toward digital excellence and innovation, underlining that by leveraging the latest technological advancements in collaboration with Microsoft, MoL is empowering Qatar's labour market with the tools to drive efficiency, enhance transparency, and foster informed decision-making. This initiative also aligns with Qatar's broader vision for digital transformation and reaffirms our commitment to building a sustainable and future-ready workforce. The MOL360 Initiative includes the implementation of the 360 Platform, a unified system designed to seamlessly integrate internal and external services for ministry employees and clients. This platform will enable ministry employees to manage their daily tasks more efficiently, including human resources, IT support, and correspondence, all within a centralized system. It will also provide personalized services tailored to the unique needs of individuals and organizations, offering features such as real-time communication with the ministry via live chat and surveys, as well as automated reminders for critical requirements such as Qatarisation levels. Additionally, the platforms advanced analytics capabilities will deliver valuable insights into the labour market, empowering organizations to make data-driven decisions. To safeguard sensitive information, Microsoft has implemented robust privacy and security measures, ensuring strict compliance with international best practices and local regulatory requirements, she highlighted. General Manager of Microsoft Qatar, Lana Khalaf, said she is thrilled to collaborate with MoL on the MOL360 initiative, emphasizing that this groundbreaking platform harnesses the power of Microsoft's latest cloud and AI technologies to revolutionize labour market operations in Qatar. Additionally, by providing a secure and data-driven environment, MOL360 will empower MoL to make informed decisions, enhance service delivery, and create a more agile and responsive labour market. This initiative aligns perfectly with Qatar's National Vision 2030 and the National Digital Agenda, setting new standards for excellence in public sector innovation. Strategic Planning and Digital Transformation Advisor at the Ministers Office, Salim al-Barami, explained that this initiative represents a transformative approach to conceptualizing and implementing government portals, placing human experience at the centre. He noted that by harnessing cutting-edge technologies such as Large Language Models (LLMs) and graph knowledge, the solution caters to a wide spectrum of users, including Ministry employees, citizens aspiring to join the private sector, and expatriates managing or owning businesses. The 360 Platform personalizes its services to each users role and needs, ensuring a seamless, user-centric experience that fosters innovation, inclusivity, and efficiency. Related Story Microsoft unveils new features to increase Edge’s Overall PerformanceSouth Korean finance chief says recession fears following botched martial law are ‘excessive’

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Oracle Q3 results miss estimates; share dip in afterhours tradingAI agents are supposed to be the next big thing in AI, but there isn’t an exact definition of what they are. To this point, people can’t agree on what exactly constitutes an AI agent. At its simplest, an AI agent is best described as AI-fueled software that does a series of jobs for you that a human customer service agent, HR person or IT help desk employee might have done in the past, although it could ultimately involve any task. You ask it to do things, and it does them for you, sometimes crossing multiple systems and going well beyond simply answering questions. For example, Perplexity last month released an AI agent that helps people do their holiday shopping (and it’s not the only one ). And Google last week announced its first AI agent, called Project Mariner , which can be used to find flights and hotels, shop for household items, find recipes, and other tasks. Seems simple enough, right? Yet it is complicated by a lack of clarity. Even among the tech giants, there isn’t a consensus. Google sees them as task-based assistants depending on the job: coding help for developers; helping marketers create a color scheme; assisting an IT pro in tracking down an issue by querying log data. For Asana, an agent may act like an extra employee , taking care of assigned tasks like any good co-worker. Sierra, a startup founded by former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor and Google vet Clay Bavor, sees agents as customer experience tools, helping people achieve actions that go well beyond the chatbots of yesteryear to help solve more complex sets of problems. This lack of a cohesive definition does leave room for confusion over exactly what these things are going to do, but regardless of how they’re defined, the agents are for helping complete tasks in an automated way with as little human interaction as possible. Rudina Seseri, founder and managing partner at Glasswing Ventures, says it’s early days and that could account for the lack of agreement. “There is no single definition of what an ‘AI agent’ is. However, the most frequent view is that an agent is an intelligent software system designed to perceive its environment, reason about it, make decisions, and take actions to achieve specific objectives autonomously,” Seseri told TechCrunch. She says they use a number of AI technologies to make that happen. “These systems incorporate various AI/ML techniques such as natural language processing, machine learning, and computer vision to operate in dynamic domains, autonomously or alongside other agents and human users.” Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO at Box, says that over time, as AI becomes more capable, AI agents will be able to do much more on behalf of humans, and there are already dynamics at play that will drive that evolution. “With AI agents, there are multiple components to a self-reinforcing flywheel that will serve to dramatically improve what AI Agents can accomplish in the near and long-term: GPU price/performance, model efficiency, model quality and intelligence, AI frameworks and infrastructure improvements,” Levie wrote on LinkedIn recently. That’s an optimistic take on the technology that assumes growth will happen in all these areas, when that’s not necessarily a given. MIT robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks pointed out in a recent TechCrunch interview that AI has to deal with much tougher problems than most technology, and it won’t necessarily grow in the same rapid way as, say, chips under Moore’s law have. “When a human sees an AI system perform a task, they immediately generalize it to things that are similar and make an estimate of the competence of the AI system; not just the performance on that, but the competence around that,” Brooks said during that interview. “And they’re usually very over-optimistic, and that’s because they use a model of a person’s performance on a task.” The problem is that crossing systems is hard, and this is complicated by the fact that some legacy systems lack basic API access. While we are seeing steady improvements that Levie alluded to, getting software to access multiple systems while solving problems it may encounter along the way could prove more challenging than many think. If that’s the case, everyone could be overestimating what AI agents should be able to do. David Cushman, a research leader at HFS Research, sees the current crop of bots more like Asana does: assistants that help humans complete certain tasks in the interest of achieving some sort of user-defined strategic goal. The challenge is helping a machine handle contingencies in a truly automated way, and we are clearly not anywhere close to that yet. “I think it’s the next step,” he said. “It’s where AI is operating independently and effectively at scale. So this is where humans set the guidelines, the guardrails, and apply multiple technologies to take the human out of the loop — when everything has been about keeping the human in the loop with GenAI,” he said. So the key here, he said, is to let the AI agent take over and apply true automation. Jon Turow, a partner at Madrona Ventures, says this is going to require the creation of an AI agent infrastructure, a tech stack designed specifically for creating the agents (however you define them). In a recent blog post, Turow outlined examples of AI agents currently working in the wild and how they are being built today. In Turow’s view, the growing proliferation of AI agents — and he admits, too, that the definition is still a bit elusive — requires a tech stack like any other technology. “All of this means that our industry has work to do to build infrastructure that supports AI agents and the applications that rely upon them,” he wrote in the piece. “Over time, reasoning will gradually improve, frontier models will come to steer more of the workflows, and developers will want to focus on product and data — the things that differentiate them. They want the underlying platform to ‘just work’ with scale, performance, and reliability.” One other thing to keep in mind here is that it’s probably going to take multiple models, rather than a single LLM, to make agents work, and this makes sense if you think about these agents as a collection of different tasks. “I don’t think right now any single large language model, at least publicly available, monolithic large language model, is able to handle agentic tasks. I don’t think that they can yet do the multi-step reasoning that would really make me excited about an agentic future. I think we’re getting closer, but it’s just not there yet,” said Fred Havemeyer, head of U.S. AI and software research at Macquarie US Equity Research. “I do think the most effective agents will likely be multiple collections of multiple different models with a routing layer that sends requests or prompts to the most effective agent and model. And I think it would be kind of like an interesting [automated] supervisor, delegating kind of role.” Ultimately for Havemeyer, the industry is working toward this goal of agents operating independently. “As I’m thinking about the future of agents, I want to see and I’m hoping to see agents that are truly autonomous and able to take abstract goals and then reason out all the individual steps in between completely independently,” he told TechCrunch. But the fact is that we are still in a period of transition where these agents are concerned, and we don’t know when we’ll get to this end state that Havemeyer described. While what we’ve seen so far is clearly a promising step in the right direction, we still need some advances and breakthroughs for AI agents to operate as they are being envisioned today. And it’s important to understand that we aren’t there yet. This story was originally published July 13, 2024, and was updated to include new agents from Perplexity and Google.

Dwarfed by China in shipbuilding, US looks to build its defense base to fend off warLOS ANGELES — Democrats are still reeling and reflecting on what went so wrong for their party this year. But at the Democratic governors’ annual gathering in California, they were in full agreement that something has to change in order for their party — and, in their eyes, hopefully one of them — to have a real shot at the White House in 2028. “We can worry later about who we run for president [in 2028], or policy tweaks,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told NBC News, adding that for now, Democrats need to “build the foundation, build the infrastructure, elect a DNC chairman who is committed to doing just that.” And amid a pitch to rededicate the party to a focus on improving voters’ everyday lives, addressing key issues such as inflation, health care, infrastructure, transportation and education, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear warned Democrats about a key obstacle to their ambitions for redefinition: President-elect Donald Trump. In the last Trump administration, people focused “too much on Trump and what was happening in D.C. and not enough on [Democratic] priorities,” Beshear said. “Don’t fall into us versus them,” he added. “It’s not a winning strategy.” At other levels of the party — including among some of the “resistance” activist groups that gained prominence during Trump’s first term — there’s already broad agreement that Democrats can’t react to Trump in the same ways they did eight years ago. But some of the most prominent governors, who happen to be among those mentioned as potential presidential candidates, quickly leaned into setting up their states as bulwarks against Trumpism after his election. California Gov. Gavin Newsom called a special legislative session , while Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker talked about how to “ shore up ” his state against Trump. Others in purple and red states have taken less aggressive postures. At the Democratic Governors Association meetings, Beshear and fellow red-state Democratic governor Laura Kelly of Kansas said they’d look for room to work with Trump in areas that would benefit their constituents. “Really, we have no idea what’s, what’s coming down the pike,” Kelly told reporters Saturday. “So we’ll evaluate it as it comes to us, and if it’s — we will always look for ways to work together.” “You know, that’s my job as governor, is to do what I need to do to get what we need in the state of Kansas. So we are very open to working with the Trump administration,” she added. Beshear said he would be in favor of pro-Trump policies when they’re good for Kentuckians and anti-Trump pushback when the new presidential administration takes actions that are bad for the people in his state. Beshear said that reacting to the daily slog of Trump’s news of the day could be detrimental to Democrats, echoing Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who told NBC News last month that Democrats need to stop "freaking out" at everything Trump says, comparing members of his party to cats and Trump to "the guy with the laser pointer." "You’re going to be chasing it around the whole room," Fetterman said. It could be an early theme to watch as Democrats position themselves in the governor's race in New Jersey, where a pair of Democratic House members, Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill, are part of a crowded primary for the chance to succeed Murphy, who is term-limited. The primary field also includes Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop. After the primary, the Democratic nominee will have to face off against a Republican nominee in a state in which Trump made significant gains in 2024. After losing New Jersey by 16 percentage points in 2020, Trump ran just 6 points beh i nd Vice President Kamala Harris i n 2024 . Murphy said he thought that Harris’ campaign made significant missteps: “I’m of the opinion that it wasn’t one thing, but that there were 12 to 15 things — including some very smart moves by Trump and his team — that all went against us.” In the immediate future, Democrats face their first path to defining the future of their party in February, when the party will elect a new chair of the Democratic National Committee. “I want to see someone who focuses on what we as Democrats far too often take for granted or view as mundane and that is party infrastructure, the ‘50 State Strategy 2.0,’” Murphy said, calling on Democrats to “present ourselves and ask for the order, even if it’s in a red, red town, county or state.” For now, Murphy and Beshear say, Democrats need to focus on defining what they stand for with voters and looking ahead to the 2026 midterms, which will be the first nationwide test of Democrats’ post-2024 rebuild. “As much as we need to be sober and reflective, it’s also not, therefore, the end of the Democratic Party, the end of the world,” Murphy said. “We will live to fight again. In that part, I’m highly confident.” Beshear predicted that Trump will continue to move to the right in his second administration, meaning “the common sense and the middle ground is open” for Democrats if they wish to take it. “The best thing for Democrats to do ahead of [the 2028 presidential election] is to win widely in the 2026 midterms,” he added.

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