Winter 2026

From ocean and land conservation to solutions easing the nation's housing shortage, Pew worked tirelessly last year to improve people's lives and help communities thrive. A historic United Nations treaty to protect the high seas received its 60th ratification in September, allowing it to enter into force at the beginning of 2026. The Philadelphia Tax Reform Commission issued a report in February with findings and recommendations from its review of the city’s tax structures at a time of major shifts in the local economy and in federal aid.

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The Outback sun is boring holes in us, but the Martu people—whose ancestors roamed these desert lands for more than 50,000 years—seem unbothered. Together with six Martu Indigenous Australians and two Pew colleagues, I’m walking through brittle brush and wildflowers on an August day in Matuwa Kurrara Kurrara, a new national park some 70 miles north of the tiny town of Wiluna, Western Australia, which sits more than 500 miles northeast of Perth.

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Over the past half century, Ken Burns has become America’s storyteller. His documentaries provide a history of the nation through biographies, sports, music, and other subjects. His most recent film, “The American Revolution,” which was supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, premiered in November on PBS. He spoke about it with Pew recently in his barn office in New Hampshire.

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Two hundred and fifty years later, the American Revolution is as relevant as ever. The values and the ideas discussed, debated, argued over, and ultimately written down in the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution as 13 North American colonies broke from British rule in the 18th century remain essential to how we think about government today. Five prominent historians and filmmakers reflected on the war’s epic impact in a wide-ranging conversation at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia in September that then aired as a national PBS special supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts in November.

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In the Brazilian Pantanal, a vast and rugged wetland rife with jaguars, caimans, giant river otters, venomous snakes, and kaleidoscopic birds, one animal holds the key to the future: the humble cow. Which means that cattle ranchers will play an outsized role in determining whether the Pantanal’s dazzling biodiversity will survive the 21st

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