Have you heard the good news?
Missouri just removed the law that trapped pregnant women in their marriages, Michigan progressives swept nearly every seat in a historic Democratic Party election, and Brighton just announced Europe's first football stadium built for women.
Let's dive into all the wins and stories worth celebrating this week:
Missouri Finally Lets Pregnant Women Divorce: For decades, a 1970s Missouri law trapped pregnant women in their marriages by discouraging courts from finalizing divorces before a baby was born — leaving survivors of domestic violence with no exit. Republican Governor Mike Kehoe signed House Bill 1908 into law, finally removing that barrier. This came after Republican State Rep. Cecelie Williams shared her own harrowing personal story of being silenced by the very law she fought to repeal.
Virginia Governor Signed Right to Contraception: Abigail Spanberger signed the Right to Contraception Act into law, making it a legal right in Virginia to access birth control and barring state and local governments from restricting contraceptive access. She also signed the Paid Family and Medical Leave legislation, making Virginia the first state in the South to guarantee up to 12 weeks of paid leave for workers welcoming a child, caring for a sick family member, or recovering from a serious health condition.
Virginia Ended 76 Years of Confederate Subsidies: Governor Spanberger signed HB167, stripping tax-exempt status from six Confederate-linked organizations, including the United Daughters of the Confederacy, ending subsidies that dated to 1950. The United Daughters of the Confederacy's headquarters had been avoiding an estimated $50,000 a year in property taxes. Moving forward, that money will go back to supporting state infrastructure, schools, and communities.
Content Creator Takes Down Congressman: A content creator on Tik Tok, @mrs.frazzled, interviewed California Congressman Eric Swalwell, then spent months collecting, documenting, and corroborating stories from women who reached out to her, detailing accounts of sexual assault by him. She partnered with career journalists at CNN and the San Francisco Chronicle to ensure the survivors' stories were told with full credibility, and within 48 hours of publication, Swalwell suspended his gubernatorial campaign and resigned from Congress. This is what it looks like when a woman uses her platform with intention.
Hungary Just Voted Out Trump's Favorite Authoritarian: In a historic election with the highest voter turnout in Hungary's post-communist history, opposition leader Péter Magyar defeated Viktor Orbán, who had held power for over 16 years and had the full endorsement of Donald Trump. Magyar's party won in a landslide, securing two-thirds of parliamentary seats, giving the new government the power to make sweeping changes with minimal resistance.
Michigan Progressives Sweep Special Elections: In a special set of Democratic Party elections in Michigan, progressive candidates won every single seat except one. They defeated candidates backed by corporate interests, including DTE Energy and AIPAC, in a sweep that has never happened before. The Democratic establishment kept the elections quiet by design, but organizers showed up anyway, and the results sent an unmistakable message about what's possible when regular people participate in elections.
NYC Is Getting City-Owned Grocery Stores: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, joined by Senator Bernie Sanders, announced that the city will open five publicly owned grocery stores — one in each borough — fulfilling a campaign promise to use government to fight food insecurity directly. The first store is set to open next year, with all five slated to open before the end of Mamdani's first term, offering affordable food to working families in a city where the cost of living has become crushing.
Billionaire Connie Ballmer Just Dropped $80 Million on NPR: After the Trump administration pressured Congress to slash $1.1 billion in already-approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, billionaire philanthropist Connie Ballmer donated $80 million to NPR, becoming the largest living donor in the organization's history. An anonymous donor added another $33 million to strengthen NPR's network of over 240 local member stations, with NPR's CEO saying the combined gifts "provide catalytic support" to set the network up for the next 50 years.
Brighton Is Building Europe's First Women's Football Stadium: Brighton and Hove Albion released plans for a £75-80 million purpose-built stadium exclusively for their women's team, set to open for the 2030-31 season, making it the first of its kind in Europe, and only the third in the world. Located at Bennett's Field, the ground will include breastfeeding rooms, buggy parks, elite recovery spaces, and social areas designed specifically for women players, staff, and supporters.
Olivia Pichardo Just Made History on the Mound: Brown University's Olivia Pichardo — already the first woman to play Division I baseball — became the first woman to ever pitch at the Division I level. Pichardo, a senior from Queens, New York, has now appeared in six games for the Bears across her college career, breaking barrier after barrier in a sport that has historically been entirely male at this level.
Goldman Environmental Prize Goes to an All-Women Cohort: The "Green Nobel" awarded its 2026 prizes exclusively to women for the first time in its 37-year history, honoring six activists from the UK, Alaska, South Korea, Colombia, Papua New Guinea, and Nigeria who are leading grassroots movements against fossil fuels, mining, and industrial pollution. The prize's executive director noted that while each winner was selected on merit alone, the all-women cohort reflects a long-overlooked reality: women have always been at the center of environmental action.
