Donald Trump granted clemency to 237 people during his administration. Some of the pardons--particularly those related to drug offenses--fit within the norms of the office. But a much larger portion were favors done for wealthy people who could access Trump through top-dollar lawyers, golf clubs, rich South Floridian social circles, and family. We revisited these pardons four years later to see what they could tell us about Trump's 2024 campaign. The biggest takeaway had to do with the shadowy political operatives--including Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, and Roger Stone--who have spent the past four years pushing dangerous and wild election conspiracy theories in hopes they will be rewarded once more.

Now that OpenAI is becoming a for-profit company, it's making a tidy profit in the process. The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI has raised 6.6 billion in new funding from investors, nearly doubling its value to 157 billion. The new funding also makes it the largest venture capital deal in history. The new investors jumped on board after the artificial intelligence startup planned to switch from a charitable non-profit to a for-profit, product-focused company. If OpenAI fails to make the move to for-profit, investors have the right to pull their funding, according to Axios.

Former federal prosecutor Trey Gowdy gives his take on the Alex Murdaugh trial and Hunter Biden's attorney calling for criminal probe of the laptop on'The Story.' High-profile lawyer Abbe Lowell again entered the national spotlight this week representing Hunter Biden in the legal battle involving his infamous laptop, and Lowell's hiring signals how seriously Biden is taking his situation, an attorney tells Fox News Digital. "Abbe is not cheap, and you don't bring in Abbe unless you want to go to war or prevent one," said the source who's worked with Lowell. He hasn't been charged with anything, but they're trying to prevent that because that would be bad for [President] Biden and Hunter." Lowell made a splash this week with letters urging prosecutors to launch state and federal investigations into John Paul Mac Isaac, who he accused of "unlawfully" accessing the younger Biden's personal data on his laptop after it was left at his repair shop in 2019. Former President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon and other notable Biden critics were also listed in the lawsuit for their role in disseminating the information to the public. Mac Isaac chose to work with President Donald Trump's personal lawyer to weaponize Mr. Biden's personal computer data against his father, Joseph R. Biden, by unlawfully causing the provision of Mr. Biden's personal data to the New York Post," Lowell wrote Wednesday.

To create engagement, you have to have a story. In the metaverse, the creators will create the community, and the stories they tell will create the community, just like at the beginning of time. The king's storyteller kept people engaged, Shakespeare kept people engaged,

There is a revolution in how marketers are using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to help execute intelligent strategies and campaigns at scale. One important area where AI and ML can be put to good use is in market data management. "This is basically turning AI and ML into a useful tool for marketing itself," said Theresa Kushner, head of North American Innovation Center, NTT DATA Services, at The MarTech Conference. In this way, businesses can better understand all the data streaming in that relates to what's being done in markets, including who is buying products and other important buying trends. "AI and ML can help you sort through, organize that information and present it to you in a way that makes it more digestible within your marketing program," Kushner said.

The rapid pace of AI adoption in business could be heading for some major speed bumps. According to Gartner experts presenting at the Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference in June 2022, half of all AI deployments are expected to be postponed between now and 2024, as companies face barriers to upscaling AI in-house. AI governance and how enterprises are going to monitor and control the use of data in their AI platforms are emerging as significant snags. AI governance is a relatively new concept, as AI itself is still only in the early stages of development, but there are already complications emerging. For some companies, the governance of AI applications is included in data or model governance structures.

Dara Khosrowshahi, the chief executive of Uber, has attempted to limit the damage after calling the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi "a mistake" similar to a fatal accident that occurred during tests of his company's self-driving car. Khashoggi, a Saudi national resident in the US, and a severe critic of the Saudi regime who wrote for the Washington Post, was murdered in Istanbul last year after visiting the Saudi Arabian consulate there. His body was dismembered and disposed of. His death has been described by Agnès Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, as a "deliberate, premeditated execution" that warrants further investigation into the responsibility of the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. The prince is a key US ally close to Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law and chief adviser.

Crunchbase News has covered the U.S. FinTech space a great deal since the start of the quarter. From looking at FinTech's early-stage stars of 2017 and 2018 to NYC's growing fintech scene, to traveling down south to Atlanta, which has a FinTech startup scene of its own. To get a hold on the space in Q1 2018, we take a look at venture dollar invested into U.S.-based FinTech startups quarter by quarter since 2016. Crunchbase News's definition of FinTech encompasses a broad range of startups that leverage deep learning technology and big data in order to streamline tax processes, make paying friends easier, and provide better insurance options.1 Since 2016, more than $15.6 billion has been invested in seed, early, and late-stage U.S.-based FinTech startups. Total dollar volume saw an increase of 25 percent year over year from 2016 to 2017.