content=”https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https%3A%2F%2Farc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2FAJOQBT2KVNEDBIQORS7O4ELCZY_size-normalized.jpg&w=1200″
Of all the history former Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder witnessed during Tuesday night’s election returns, nothing struck him like what he saw from Mississippi. A Black man, Scott Colom (D), appeared close to winning a U.S. Senate seat in a state with an ugly, violent record on civil rights.
“As an old man, with a weakened heart already — I had to hold myself down when I started seeing what was happening,” Wilder, 95, said in an interview Thursday. He made history himself in 1989 when Virginia voters chose him as the first African American elected governor of any state since Reconstruction.
The grandson of enslaved people, Wilder was 24 when White Mississippians lynched Emmett Till, at age 14, for being Black and allegedly whistling at a White woman. “He was killed!” Wilder said, his voice rising. “And nothing was done about it!”
And now, that same state was on the verge of sending a Black man to the Senate. “Good lord, I can’t believe it,” he said.
Not to mention that five other states elected Black governors Tuesday, including Maryland’s Wes Moore (D) winning a second term. There’s a lot of work to be done in the United States, Wilder said, not only on matters of civil rights but also dealing with inflation, data centers, war and so much more.
“I still believe we are in search of ourselves in America,” he said. “But we can be the beacon of light for the rest of the world. … It’s a new day.”
Additional Coverage
When her husband came out as bisexual right after the honeymoon, his wife wrote to The Washington Post asking: “Where do we go from here?”
“Do I leave?” she asked. “Are there trust exercises that would help?”
That letter became the basis of this week’s Life Hax podcast episode. And you can hear how hosts Carolyn Hax and Shane O’Neill tackled that question on the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube.
Then there’s this hypothetical, which Shane posed in the episode: If a husband realizes he’s attracted to men but he never acts on it, does he have to tell his wife?
“I don’t believe secrets like that sit comfortably,” Carolyn replied. “I think you’re always holding a part of yourself locked away.”
To hear more, follow the Life Hax show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have your own question to ask, email [email protected].
Tesla will wind down production of the Cybertruck in its Texas Gigafactory around the middle of 2027 to “make room” for increased production of Cybercabs, CEO Elon Musk said Friday.
The electric pickup truck, Tesla’s first foray into the truck market, debuted in 2019 demonstration with a futuristic angular design and a sleek exoskeleton designed to eliminate damage and long-term corrosion.
But it was beset by issues from the start, including when Musk invited someone to hurl a ball at a supposedly unbreakable window on stage, and the glass shattered.
The customer launch was delayed until 2023 amid supply chain issues and competition from other automakers. The Cybertruck has also been subject to recalls, and regulator intervention after reports that its power-operated doors did not work in emergencies.
Musk did not elaborate Friday on whether production of the Cybertruck would cease or be moved elsewhere. Tesla did not immediately respond to an overnight request for comment.
Cybercab is Tesla’s autonomous robotaxi which was unveiled in 2024 and hit the streets this September. Regulators opened an investigation into how Tesla certified that the vehicle meets federal safety standards.
Three states carried out the death penalty on Thursday, marking the second time in 2026 that three executions were carried out on the same day.
Jeffrey Weisheit, convicted of killing two children in a house fire, was pronounced dead in Indiana at 12:45 a.m. Gov. Mike Braun (R) had denied his lawyers’ request to change the sentence to life in prison.
Jesse Guardado, who had pleaded guilty to a fatal stabbing, was executed in Florida at 6:13 p.m. In his final statement, he apologized to the victim’s family, the AP reported.
Michael Taylor, who killed an elderly couple when he was 19, was executed an hour later in Alabama. Death penalty opponents had called for his sentence to be commuted given his young age at the time.
The executions came the same day California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said he would move to commute the sentences of all 548 state death row prisoners to life in prison.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) criticized Newsom’s decision in a statement to the AP, saying: “California may let their criminals escape justice, but not Alabama.”
The death penalty remains a divisive issue nationally, and executions have come under renewed scrutiny following Tennessee’s botched attempt to execute Christa Pikein September.
Attitudes about the value of a college education have soured for years mostly due to the price tag, but overall cost is actually lower than it was 10 years ago.
After factoring in student aid and inflation, the average cost of attendance (including tuition, housing and food) for in-state freshmen in 2026 is estimated at $21,660, a 14 percent drop from a decade ago, according to an annual report released Thursday by the College Board. At private nonprofits, the net cost of $38,540 this year is 9 percent lower than 2016.
The reasons vary.
Soaring tuition increases that defined the early years of the century have slowed amid greater state support for public colleges and competition for a declining pool of high school graduates. Average sticker prices at public colleges — what students pay before financial aid is applied — have crept up but at a rate that is less than inflation, according to the annual Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid report.
Tuition and fees rose less than 3 percent between 2025 and 2026 at public universities for in-state students, and 3.7 percent for private four-year nonprofit colleges, the data showed.
The College Board, which collected data from 2,913 schools, said grants and scholarships that colleges, states and the federal government provide are also significantly reducing what students pay.
Good morning. It’s Friday, Nov. 6, and it’s been quite a week. May I suggest relaxing this weekend with what Screens Critic Monica Hesse calls the most perimenopausal show on TV.
Speculation over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s future leads today’s edition of The 7 morning briefing. Yesterday, Hegseth posted a defiant video after calls for his removal mounted among his critics. They blame him and the unpopular war in Iran for heavy Republican losses this week.
Sticking with the midterms, two Senate races remain too close to call in Mississippi and Alaska. Democrats yesterday held narrow leads in both, but legal challenges could be on the horizon.
The briefing also includes a setback for President Donald Trump’s planned arch, emerging research on heart disease in women and unwelcome news for anyone who puts creamer in coffee.
Read today’s edition of The 7 briefing here.
Paraguay’s president, Santiago Peña, resigned Thursday after millions of his country’s citizens lost access to their bank accounts because of the implosion of a digital lender to which he had until recently been tied.
Ueno Bank had rapidly grown in recent years to claim nearly 3 million people, or about 60 percent of the country’s adult population, as customers. But the bank collapsed earlier this week when Paraguay’s Central Bank seized it, saying that it — in breach of the law — had nowhere near the level of capital to sustain its losses.
Peña, an ally of President Donald Trump, until 2025 held a stake in a holding company that controlled Ueno, he said, but denied any direct connections to the bank itself.
A former Ueno executive, Carlos Carvallo, who had been tapped by Peña to run the country’s central bank, resigned earlier this week at Peña’s request. Ueno managed hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds, which authorities are trying to recover.
The bank’s collapse has triggered a political crisis and street protests in the South American country and left Paraguayans rushing to recover savings and pension payments. Several Ueno executives have been detained.
Lawmakers, including in Peña’s own party, began to call for the president’s impeachment. He announced Thursday he would step down, calling it “one of the most difficult moments” of his life but necessary to maintain stability in the country and to preserve its democratic institutions.
“I am convinced that no public office can take precedence over the well-being of Paraguay,” he said. “I would like to apologize to the people if I have ever failed them.”
Moments after Peña announced his resignation, Paraguay’s lower house voted unanimously to impeach him.
The post A history-making Black governor can’t believe Mississippi’s Senate election appeared first on Washington Post.
