Breaking news and publications from Direct Action Everywhere.
Media inquiry? Please email press@dxe.io.
PRESS
May 12, 2026
Los Angeles Times
In late February, animal rights activists flew a drone over a calf ranch in the Central Valley and watched as workers kicked and punched the animals. Footage reviewed by The Times shows a worker pulling a calf by the nose with pliers.
PRESS
May 12, 2026
Los Angeles Times
PRESS RELEASE
October 1, 2026
Factory farm investigators with the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) just confirmed that Valadao Dairy, owned by Congressman David Valadao's family, sends newborn dairy calves to Grimmius Cattle Company, California's largest calf-raising operation where DxE investigators have recorded sick baby cows being dragged from a trailer and shot in the head.
PRESS
September 28, 2026
The E'ville Eye
Participants carried signs reading “Save the Dogs,” distributed hundreds of leaflets urging California members of Congress to co-sponsor the legislation and were accompanied by several rescued laboratory beagles.
PRESS
September 28, 2026
The E'ville Eye
PRESS RELEASE
September 26, 2026
With the group were several rescued lab beagles. The demonstration, which was organized by the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), aimed to raise awareness about the COMPACT Act (H.R.10522), a bipartisan bill that was introduced on Wednesday to end federal funding for experiments on dogs and cats.
PRESS RELEASE
September 26, 2026
PRESS
September 23, 2026
The San Francisco Chronicle
“I have really, really wrestled with this,” Trevino told the court, according to a transcript shared by defense attorneys. Trevino said he’d reviewed the defense’s motion to reduce the charges before the hearing and was “persuaded” by private conversations with attorneys. In their motion, the activist’s attorney shared a photo allegedly showing two dozen dead goats and their young kids in an open-air pile in the dirt.
PRESS
September 23, 2026
The San Francisco Chronicle
PRESS RELEASE
September 23, 2026
At a hearing last month, Judge Jim Trevino reduced all of the felony charges to misdemeanors after reviewing a defense filing detailing evidence of significant animal cruelty at the dairy, calling the filing persuasive. After today’s judicial diversion, all charges will be dismissed following completion of 40 hours of community service and 5 months probation.
PRESS RELEASE
September 23, 2026
PRESS RELEASE
September 21, 2026
Workers at California's largest dairy operation were recorded hitting and kicking young calves in the face in July. In another part of the facility, footage shows a worker whipping adult cows to move them toward the milking barn.
PRESS RELEASE
September 21, 2026
PRESS RELEASE
September 18, 2026
The drone footage shows workers pushing and pulling newborn calves from a trailer, kicking them to make them stand, and throwing them into small, individual crates, which are a common form of intensive confinement used in the calf-raising industry.
PRESS
September 9, 2026
The Tenderloin Voice
In a sun-drenched patch of grass at Union Square, a flock of pigeons gathers around Carla Cabral. She is half-crouched and her gaze is fixed on a spot right in front of her toes. I only realize she’s made a move when the flock explodes into flight — she has darted out her arms, moving faster than I thought humanly possible, and when she straightens, she’s holding a bird. Her grip appears gentle, but secure.
PRESS
September 9, 2026
The Tenderloin Voice
PRESS
September 8, 2026
The Intercept
The FAA has launched an investigation of an animal rights activist whose group’s videos of conditions at California cattle ranches sparked outrage, with the agency simultaneously proposing new rules that could prevent the pilots’ flyovers altogether.
TOP PRESS
February 14, 2023
New York Times
In any context other than factory farming, treating animals the way we see chickens treated in the Foster Farms slaughterhouse videos would be considered blatant cruelty. Many would also consider it cruel to stand by while someone else handled animals this way. “If there’s someone in my neighborhood watching me boil birds alive, we’d say this is monstrous behavior,” Wayne Hsiung, a founder of DxE, told me.
TOP PRESS
February 9, 2023
San Francisco Chronicle
The message the pigs conveyed in the gas chamber footage is clear: They are in extreme pain, and they want to live. You don’t need the Agriculture Department to tell you that. You can see and hear it for yourself.
TOP PRESS
February 2, 2023
New York Times
“It was horrible cruelty to the pigs inside the chambers,” Jim Reynolds told me. “It’s a violation of federal law.” Reynolds is one of 90 veterinarians who signed an open letter saying that the process shown in the videos probably violates federal law on humane slaughter.
TOP PRESS
January 18, 2023
Wired
Animal rights activists have captured the first hidden-camera video from inside a carbon dioxide “stunning chamber” in a US meatpacking plant.
TOP PRESS
October 25, 2022
Vox
The pigs’ essentially zero value is baked into the meat industry’s business model... 15 percent of piglets die before they’re finished weaning. The pork industry may slaughter over 125 million pigs a year, but they breed far more, knowing many will die from disease and injury.
TOP PRESS
October 18, 2022
New York Times
During the closing statements in the trial, in which I represented myself, I told jurors that a not-guilty verdict would encourage corporations to treat animals under their care with more compassion and make governments more open to animal cruelty complaints.
TOP PRESS
October 11, 2022
Democracy Now!
In a major victory for animal rights, a jury in Utah has acquitted two animal rights activists who each faced up to five and a half years of prison time for rescuing two sick piglets from Smithfield’s Circle Four Farms, one of the world’s largest pig farms.
TOP PRESS
October 8, 2022
The Intercept
“Whenever I think about the condition Lily was in and the desperation we felt when we saw her there, struggling and so small and so sick, a little baby in such a horrible, awful, brutal place,” Hsiung said in a video posted to Instagram, “we just wanted to get her out.” Animal rescue “is not the worst part of us as human beings. It’s the best of us.”
TOP PRESS
October 8, 2022
New York Times
Many animal welfare advocates viewed the trial as a display of corporate power, and a test of whether the meat industry can legally prevent the public from seeing the sometimes unsavory aspects of modern mass food production.
BLOG
July 5, 2022
Our signs read “Expose Smithfield’s Deathstar” referring to Smithfield’s Circle Four Farms in Milford, Utah, the largest pig farm in the country. While many criticized the tackiness and absurdity of the action, it garnered much needed media attention.
BLOG
July 2, 2022
Here's what this could mean.
BLOG
June 25, 2022
The protest occurred after yet another horse was killed at the horse racing track that spans Berkeley and Albany.
BLOG
June 25, 2022
Senator Booker spoke about the need for nonviolent direct action and for "not being spectators in democracy!"
BLOG
June 14, 2022
As happy as I am to see Smithfield leave California, they should not be allowed to simply cut and run. They must adequately compensate their workers, provide appropriate care for their pigs, and clean up the damage done to the surrounding community and to the L.A. river.
BLOG
May 20, 2022
Over the last few decades, the Central Valley of California has become plagued by the crisis of dirty drinking water contaminated with nitrates. Latino communities have been disproportionately affected. In the heart of the valley lies Tulare County, a majority Latino district and the largest dairy producing county in the nation.
BLOG
May 5, 2022
This is a response to a recent study by Faunalytics regarding the impacts of protest on diet change.
BLOG
April 14, 2022
High profile sporting events pose a significant opportunity to get eyeballs on a topic– if one is bold enough to risk criminal charges and bodily harm. And it's a tactic that has been used throughout history.
BLOG
February 2, 2022
Tip #1: You need an organizational system that you understand and use every day.
PRESS RELEASE
October 1, 2026
Factory farm investigators with the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) just confirmed that Valadao Dairy, owned by Congressman David Valadao's family, sends newborn dairy calves to Grimmius Cattle Company, California's largest calf-raising operation where DxE investigators have recorded sick baby cows being dragged from a trailer and shot in the head.
PRESS RELEASE
September 26, 2026
With the group were several rescued lab beagles. The demonstration, which was organized by the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), aimed to raise awareness about the COMPACT Act (H.R.10522), a bipartisan bill that was introduced on Wednesday to end federal funding for experiments on dogs and cats.
PRESS RELEASE
September 23, 2026
At a hearing last month, Judge Jim Trevino reduced all of the felony charges to misdemeanors after reviewing a defense filing detailing evidence of significant animal cruelty at the dairy, calling the filing persuasive. After today’s judicial diversion, all charges will be dismissed following completion of 40 hours of community service and 5 months probation.
PRESS RELEASE
September 21, 2026
Workers at California's largest dairy operation were recorded hitting and kicking young calves in the face in July. In another part of the facility, footage shows a worker whipping adult cows to move them toward the milking barn.
PRESS RELEASE
September 18, 2026
The drone footage shows workers pushing and pulling newborn calves from a trailer, kicking them to make them stand, and throwing them into small, individual crates, which are a common form of intensive confinement used in the calf-raising industry.
PRESS RELEASE
September 5, 2026
Protesters entered the store with signs reading “Someone Not Something” and “Stop Selling Animals,” as well as trash cans overflowing with plush parakeets, rubber snakes, and rubber mice to represent how Petco treats animals like trash, based on images from multiple recent investigations of breeders that sell to Petco.
PRESS RELEASE
August 25, 2026
The ruling comes in response to a filing earlier this month detailing evidence of significant animal cruelty at the dairy. The judge also ordered that the District Attorney’s office disclose evidence of DA Sarah Hacker’s relationship with the owners of the dairy farm property involved in the prosecution against these animal rescuers.
PRESS RELEASE
August 22, 2026
The protest featured a 10-foot-tall milk carton prop modeled after Meyenberg packaging, but with an image of the dead pile of goats documented at Meyenberg’s Vera Goat Dairy and with red streamers symbolizing the animals’ blood flowing out from the top of the carton.
PRESS RELEASE
August 11, 2026
Today, defense attorneys for four goat rescuers charged in Kings County filed evidence with the court of animal cruelty at the Whole Foods-supplying goat dairy at the heart of the case. They have submitted a motion requesting that Judge Jim Trevino reduce the felony charges to misdemeanors.
