After a splashy debut at last month's first Republican presidential debate, Vivek Ramaswamy has gone from an unknown to a contender who's now facing questions about his youth and lack of political experience, especially given his position as the first millennial to run for the Republican presidential nomination. He's being vetted over how he made his millions at the biotech company he started in his late 20s and frequent shifts in his foreign policy platform. He's also facing questions about how he would, if elected, enact his agenda and defend it from legal challenges.

A new federal student loan repayment plan known as SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education) could lower monthly payments for millions of borrowers. Use CNN's calculator to see how much your monthly payment would be this year if you're enrolled in SAVE.

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A grief author accused of poisoning her husband with a fentanyl-laced cocktail has claimed a damning letter found in her jail cell is merely an excerpt from her new book. Kouri Richins, 33, is facing charges of aggravated murder and three counts of drug possession with intent to distribute over the March 2022 death of her husband Eric Richins. Ms Richins allegedly killed her husband of seven years and father of her children by slipping a lethal dose of fentanyl into a Moscow Mule he later drank. Before her arrest earlier this year, Ms Richins self-published a children’s book about grief based on her children’s experiences after they lost their father. Last week, the 33-year-old was charged with witness tampering after a letter was found in her cell in which she allegedly asked her brother to “falsely” testify that her husband died after ordering drugs and pills from Mexico. But now, in a phone call to her mother, Ms Richins has claimed the incriminating letter was simply part of a fictional book she is writing about her stay in a Mexican prison, according to court documents. “When I first got in here I was telling you how I was writing a book … those papers were not a letter to you guys, they were part of my freaking book … I was writing this fictional mystery book,” Ms Richins says in the call, according to a court filing. “I go to Mexico and I’m like trying to find these drugs … I’m writing about Dad … like me and Dad went to Mexico to find these drugs … you can very much tell that the whole thing is very much a story … then I get in the Mexican prison … I said have Skye sneak me in some white strips because my teeth are getting yellow because all we do is drink coffee in the Mexican prison.” In the jailhouse letter, Ms Richins told her mother to instruct her brother, Ronald Darden, to testify that her husband got fentanyl from Mexico. “Here is what I’m thinking but you have to talk to Ronney,” Ms Richins wrote in the letter. “A year prior to Eric’s death, Ronny was over watching football and Eric and Ronny were chatting about Mexico trips. Eric told Ronny he gets painkillers [and] fentanyl from Mexico.” Ms Richins went on to write that Mr Darden “would probably have to testify to this but it’s super short not a lot to it”. She also said in the letter Mr Darden could take some liberties with the narrative as long as he got the point across. Prosecutors have previously said there is no evidence suggesting Mr Richins bought the fentanyl that killed him. In a request to the court filed on Tuesday, prosecutors said Ms Richins’ motion about the letter “contains factual errors and legal misunderstandings, rendering it unpersuasive at best”. Prosecutors have claimed that Ms Richins had previously tried to poison her husband after he consulted a divorce attorney on learning that his wife was $2m in debt. Ms Richins had also reportedly taken out at least four life insurance policies on her husband before allegedly poisoning him. Ms Richins has denied all the allegations against her. If convicted, she faces between 25 years to life in prison. Read More Grief author accused of killing husband with fentanyl allegedly asked brother to lie in letter found in cell Mother accused of killing husband with fentanyl-laced cocktail ‘misses her children’ in prison, lawyer says Utah woman who allegedly sold author Kouri Richins fentanyl used to poison husband appears in court

Charles Q Brown, who was nominated by President Joe Biden, became the first Black chief of the US military in 2020

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A researcher has figured out that the Earth’s first continent was formed 3bn years ago, in a new paper that sheds fresh light on the early stages of the planet’s life. Jane Greaves, an astronomy professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University in Wales, was examining continent formation on distant stars and planets. It is thought that exoplanets with continents that formed in a similar way to Earth’s are more likely to be habitable, and perhaps even contain alien life. In the process, she calculated when several distant planets’ continents were born, as well as those a little closer to home. Continents on Earth sit on top of the planet’s hot, viscous mantle. Heat from the inner core stops the mantle from solidifying. The reason the core is hot is because it contains radioactive elements that came from neutron star collisions billions of years ago such as forms of Uranium, Thorium and Potassium. By analysing how many materials like this are present on Earth and on other planets, we are also able to estimate when the continents formed. On Earth, that was about 9.5 billion years since the beginning of the universe. Meanwhile, in Greaves' sample, the first continents appeared 2bn years before Earth’s on the exoplanets of younger, so-called thin disk stars. Older, thick disk stars analysed in her work produced rocky planets with continents that appeared even earlier: about 4 to 5bn years before Earth’s. “The outlook seems very promising for finding rocky exoplanets with continents, given that nearby Sun-like stars have already produced a few candidate hosts,” she wrote. The study, “When were the First Exocontinents?” is published in Research Notes of the American Astronomical SocietySign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Patrice Huntley was taking his family members out for ice cream to celebrate a new job offer at the time of the crash