Kevin Hart and Mark Cuban shared their regrets over passing on the chance to invest in the early days of Uber — a move that haunts Hart “until this day.”

Chatting on a recent episode of Hart’s talk show, Hart to Heart, the actor and comedian said he scoffed at investing in the ride-sharing business because the idea of strangers picking up strangers and driving them places sounded “like Murderville” to him at the time.

“This makes me so mad,” he told Cuban, reflecting on his decision not to invest $50,000-75,000 into Uber (NYQ:UBER) — which he claims would now be worth more than $100 million.

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Cuban had it even worse. The American businessman and investor was approached by Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick to invest in the early stages of the company — but Cuban thought the initial valuation of $10 million was too high. He offered to invest at a $5 million valuation, but never heard back from Kalanick.

Both men regret their decisions. Uber now operates in more than 10,000 cities worldwide, with a market cap of over $90 billion. Cuban moaned: “If I [had] given him $250,000 on a $5 million or $10 million valuation, it’d be [worth] billions.”

Getting the inside track on private, early-stage golden investment opportunities is often only available to high-profile investors or celebrities like Hart and Cuban.

Here are three tips that every retail investor (whether you’re a beginner or more experienced) can make the most of — and while they might not make you billions, they can set you on a positive path.

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Don’t be afraid to seek advice

Unlike investing juggernauts Hart and Cuban, everyday investors don’t typically get tips from business leaders that could grow into millions of dollars.

But you can work with a professional financial adviser to get a leg up on the hottest deals.

Financial advisers can answer your questions, help you to understand complex investing terms and provide you with reliable information on the stock market and the wider economy. Their advice expands beyond investing to wider financial planning and money management.

If you don’t want to work directly with an adviser, there are lots of investing apps and online platforms that will do much of the work for you — and some only require a small investment to get started.

Read more: Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you can now use $100 to cash in on prime real estate — without the headache of being a landlord. Here’s how

Diversify with index funds

One of the first things that many financial professionals tell beginner investors is to diversify your portfolio with different types of assets and exposure to different sectors.

One easy way to do this is to invest in index funds. An index fund is a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund that tracks the performance of a specific market index, such as the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The fund includes a representative sample of stocks or bonds from the index it tracks rather than hand-selecting them. They’re typically less expensive to invest in than actively managed mutual funds.

A fund that tracks the S&P 500, for instance, is supposed to give you exposure to 500 different companies — but your investment will be skewed towards the firm with the largest market caps, meaning you could be more exposed to certain sectors, like technology, than you might realize.

Generally, index funds have performed well in the past. From 1957 through Dec. 31, 2022, the S&P 500 delivered an average annual growth rate of 10.15%, according to Official Data. This has been excellent for long-term investors — but as with all things investing, it’s important to remember that past performance is not an indication of future returns.

Maximize retirement accounts

When building your wealth and planning for your financial future, you should consider using tax-friendly investment vehicles like a 401(k) account if your employer offers one.

A 401(k) retirement savings plan will allow you to steer a portion of your pay into an account where you can invest and grow your money — and get a tax break.

If you don’t have access to a 401(k), you might consider opening a traditional individual retirement account (IRA), where you can contribute pretax income and grow it tax-free until you make withdrawals in retirement.

You’re allowed to contribute up to $7,500 in a 401(k) and up to $1,000 in an IRA in 2023.

Another option is a Roth IRA, where your contributions are taxed upfront so that your withdrawals are tax-free in retirement. Roth IRAs are popular for their advantages and flexibility, but they do have certain rules and limitations and you can face penalties if you withdraw your earnings too soon.

The good thing about all of these accounts is they allow you to grow your wealth and put your money to work by investing, giving you needed cash flow in your golden years.

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This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A former federal prosecutor who helped investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe said Wednesday she left the team because of concerns with then-Attorney General William Barr’s public comments about the case and because she strongly disagreed with a draft of an interim report he considered releasing before the election.

“I simply couldn’t be part of it. So I resigned,” Nora Dannehy told Connecticut state legislators during her confirmation hearing as a nominee to the state Supreme Court. It marked the first time Dannehy has spoken publicly about her sudden resignation from the probe overseen by former special counsel John Durham.

Durham, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, was appointed in the spring of 2019 by Barr to investigate potential wrongdoing by government officials and others in the early days of the FBI probe into ties between the Trump 2016 presidential campaign and Russia. Trump expected the investigation to expose what he and his supporters alleged was a “deep state” conspiracy to undermine his campaign, but the slow pace of the probe – and the lack of blockbuster findings – contributed to a deep wedge between the president and Barr by the time the attorney general resigned in December 2020.

The investigation concluded last May with underwhelming results: A single guilty plea from a little-known FBI lawyer, resulting in probation, and two acquittals at trial by juries.

Dannehy, who was the first woman to serve as U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, told Connecticut lawmakers that politics had “never played a role” in how she was expected to carry out her job as a federal prosecutor and “that was the Justice Department I thought I was returning to” when she ultimately joined Durham’s team.

“I had been taught and spent my entire career at Department of Justice conducting any investigation in an objective and apolitical manner,” she said. “In the spring and summer of 2020, I had growing concerns that this Russia investigation was not being conducted in that way. Attorney General Barr began to speak more publicly and specifically about the ongoing criminal investigation. I thought these public comments violated DOJ guidelines.”

Dannehy said Barr’s comments were “certainly taken in a political way by reports. Whether he intended that or not, I don’t know.”

She declined to detail what happened during her time with the investigation because it involved highly classified information.

While Durham’s report did identify significant problems with the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe, including major errors and omissions in wiretap applications targeting a former Trump campaign official, many of the findings had already been revealed by the Justice Department inspector general. And though Trump had looked to the report to malign the FBI as prejudiced against him, Durham concluded that the FBI’s mistakes were mostly a result of “confirmation bias” rather than partisanship or outright political bias.

Durham would not answer questions about Dannehy’s resignation during a June appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, saying the issue was not part of the report that he had been summoned to talk about.

Dannehy, a 62-year-old Connecticut native, served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut from 2008 to 2010. She later was appointed deputy attorney general for the state of Connecticut before taking a job with United Technologies Corporation as associate general counsel for global ethics and compliance.

Her nomination cleared the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee by a vote of 30-4 on Wednesday. The full General Assembly is scheduled to vote next week.

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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker reported from Washington, D.C.

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma executed an inmate Thursday for the 1996 killing of a University of Oklahoma dance student, in a case that went unsolved for years until DNA from the crime scene was matched to a man serving prison time for burglary.

Anthony Sanchez, 44, was pronounced dead at 10:19 a.m. following a three-drug injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Even though he maintained that he had nothing to do with the killing of 21-year-old Juli Busken, he took the unusual step of opting not to present a clemency application to the state’s Pardon and Parole Board, which many viewed as the last chance to spare his life.

“I’m innocent,” Sanchez said as he was strapped to a gurney inside the death chamber. “I didn’t kill nobody.”

Sanchez criticized his former attorneys and thanked his supporters, including his spiritual adviser who was in the chamber with him and the anti-death penalty group Death Penalty Action.

The lethal drugs, beginning with the sedative midazolam, were administered starting at around 10:08 a.m.

At one point during the execution, a member of the execution team entered the chamber and reattached an oxygen monitor that prison officials said had malfunctioned during the procedure.

Shortly before he was put to death, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request for a stay of execution submitted by his new lawyer, Eric Allen, of Columbus, Ohio. Allen had said he needed more time to go through the case evidence.

Sanchez was convicted of raping and murdering 21-year-old Juli Busken, a Benton, Arkansas, native who had just completed her last semester at the university when she was abducted on Dec. 20, 1996, from the parking lot of her Norman apartment complex. Her body was found that evening near Lake Stanley Draper in far southeastern Oklahoma City. She had been bound, raped and shot in the head.

Busken had performed as a ballerina in several dance performances during her tenure at OU and was memorialized at the campus with a dance scholarship in her name at the College of Fine Arts.

Years later, Sanchez was serving time for a burglary conviction when DNA from sperm on Busken’s clothing at the crime scene was matched to him. He was convicted and sentenced to die in 2006.

None of Busken’s family attended Thursday’s execution, but state Attorney General Gentner Drummond said he had spoken to them several times in recent months.

“Juli was murdered 26 years, nine months and one day ago. The family has found closure and peace,” Drummond said.

Sanchez has long maintained his innocence and did so again in a phone call to The Associated Press earlier this year from death row. “That is fabricated DNA,” Sanchez said. “That is false DNA. That is not my DNA. I’ve been saying that since day one.”

He told the AP that he declined to ask for clemency because even when the five-member Pardon and Parole Board takes the rare step of recommending it, Gov. Kevin Stitt has been unlikely to grant it. “I’ve sat in my cell and I’ve watched inmate after inmate after inmate get clemency and get denied clemency,” Sanchez said. “Either way, it doesn’t go well for the inmates.”

Drummond maintained that the DNA evidence unequivocally linked Sanchez to Busken’s killing.

A sample of Anthony Sanchez’s DNA “was identical to the profiles developed from sperm on Ms. Busken’s panties and leotard,” Drummond wrote last month in a letter to a state representative who had inquired about Sanchez’s conviction. Drummond added there was no indication either profile was mixed with DNA from any other individual and that the odds of randomly selecting an individual with the same genetic profile were 1 in 94 trillion among Southwest Hispanics.

“There is no conceivable doubt that Anthony Sanchez is a brutal rapist and murderer who is deserving of the state’s harshest punishment,” Drummond said in a recent statement.

A private investigator hired by an anti-death penalty group contended that the DNA evidence may have been contaminated and that an inexperienced lab technician miscommunicated the strength of the evidence to a jury.

Former Cleveland County District Attorney Tim Kuykendall, who was the county’s top prosecutor when Sanchez was tried, has said that while the DNA evidence was the most compelling at trial, there was other evidence linking Sanchez to the killing, including ballistic evidence and a shoe print found at the crime scene.

“I know from spending a lot of time on that case, there is not one piece of evidence that pointed to anyone other than Anthony Sanchez,” Kuykendall said recently. “I don’t care if a hundred people or a thousand people confess to killing Juli Busken.”

Sanchez is the third inmate put to death in Oklahoma this year and the 10th since the state resumed carrying out the death penalty in 2021, ending a six-year moratorium brought on by concerns about its execution methods. The state had one of the nation’s busiest death chambers until problems arose in 2014 and 2015. Richard Glossip was hours away from being executed in September 2015 when prison officials realized they received the wrong lethal drug. It was later learned the same wrong drug had been used to execute an inmate in January 2015.

Oklahoma’s next scheduled execution is Nov. 30, when Phillip Hancock is set to receive a lethal injection for killing two men in Oklahoma City in 2001.

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For more AP coverage of death penalty cases: https://apnews.com/hub/executions