Breaking news and publications from Direct Action Everywhere.
Media inquiry? Please email press@dxe.io.
TOP PRESS
October 24, 2025
The Guardian
I asked Rosenberg what outcome she was hoping for. “My ideal outcome is honestly just whatever is best for the animals,” she said. “An acquittal wouldn’t set an actual legal precedent, but it would set a social precedent, to some extent, and send an important message.”
TOP PRESS
October 24, 2025
The Guardian
PRESS
March 27, 2024
Press Democrat
“Our key volunteers are all local,” [supporter Kristina] Garfinkel said. “As a local myself, this is such an important issue. I’m from Santa Rosa. I drive by these CAFOs every day and smell the air. We do have support from other regional partners. CAFOs are a ubiquitous problem, so of course it will draw interest from other groups.”
PRESS
March 27, 2024
Press Democrat
PRESS
March 21, 2024
The Bulwark
[Defendant Wayne Hsiung said] the dismissal affirmed something he and his co-defendants “always knew to be true,” namely: “If a jury of our peers heard testimony and saw the videos from inside Ridglan Farms, they would revolt against the notion that we’re the ones who have committed crimes, rather than the company.”
PRESS
March 18, 2024
WKOW.com
"I think most Americans, most people in Wisconsin, want dogs to be protected from torture," said beagle rescuer Wayne Hsiung. "That's not happening right now."
TOP PRESS
March 15, 2024
The New Yorker
Instead of planning actions, many activists now spend their time litigating microaggressions and small disputes within their ranks... As a response, [DxE co-founder Wayne] Hsiung has tried to promote a maxim of "braver spaces, not safer spaces," which encourages the animal rights community to put aside their individual concerns, if possible, and do things like risk felony jail time for the cause.
TOP PRESS
March 15, 2024
The New Yorker
PRESS
March 13, 2024
KRON4
“I find it very frustrating. Honestly, I was very excited to go before a jury and let them hear the facts of the case,” said Berkeley native and Defendant Paul Darwin Picklesimer in an interview with KRON4. “It was absolutely shocking and disgusting to see what we saw. You walk in, and you get hit with a stench of all the fecal matter and the lights that are on in the middle of the night. You see that these poor dogs are just in these wire cages, spending their whole life there until they’re sold into experimentation."
PRESS
March 12, 2024
Daily Californian
DxE Director of Communications Cassie King alleged that Golden Gate Fields crowds animals together in stables with “poor conditions” for the majority of the day. She added that DxE believes this treatment is “out of touch” with the surrounding community’s values.
PRESS
March 12, 2024
Daily Californian
PRESS
March 9, 2024
El Diario
“Los perros se tenían que sentar sobre sus propias heces y orines, incapaces de escapar de sus residuos. Estaban tan desesperados que se golpeaban contra las paredes, estiraban las patas a través de los barrotes y mordisqueaban las jaulas”, relata Hsiung. “Sus gritos eran tan fuertes que nos veíamos obligados a gritar nosotros también para comunicarnos, incluso cuando sólo estábamos a un palmo de distancia unos de otros”.
PRESS
March 9, 2024
El Diario
PRESS
March 8, 2024
Common Dreams
The prosecution evidently, "prefers to let the defendants walk free than allow the world to see the dire conditions of dogs at Ridglan and the state trying to jail activists for a heroic act of compassion," said Chris Carraway, an attorney with the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project.
PRESS
March 8, 2024
Common Dreams
PRESS
March 8, 2024
Isthmus
[Defendant Wayne Hsiung] expressed his frustration that “the public still does not know what is happening in research facilities like Ridglan,” which the trial may have shed light on. He said the dismissal left unaddressed some “incredibly important legal and moral issues,” including whether “people have the freedom of conscience to help animals when they’re suffering.”
TOP PRESS
March 9, 2023
LA Times
“We published this video within an hour with both my name and Alicia Santurio’s name attached to it because we believe what we’re doing is legal and morally right,” Paul said in an interview with The Times.
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.”
BLOG
October 27, 2025
Updates and summaries from Week 7 of the Perdue Rescue Trial
BLOG
October 20, 2025
Updates and summaries from Week 6 of the Perdue Rescue Trial
BLOG
October 13, 2025
Updates and summaries from Week 5 of the Perdue Rescue Trial
BLOG
October 6, 2025
Updates and summaries from Week 4 of the Perdue Rescue Trial
BLOG
September 29, 2025
Updates and summaries from Week 3 of the Perdue Rescue Trial
BLOG
September 22, 2025
Updates and summaries from Week 2 of the Perdue Rescue Trial
BLOG
September 15, 2025
Updates and summaries from Week 1 of the Perdue Rescue Trial
BLOG
September 12, 2025
The Perdue Rescue Trial begins on Monday, September 15th at the Sonoma County Superior Court in Santa Rosa, California.
BLOG
July 31, 2025
Trader Joe’s is known as “America’s most reputable brand,” and I’m learning firsthand that this might be because they relentlessly silence their critics and go to great lengths to protect their image from public scrutiny.
PRESS RELEASE
January 27, 2024
Playing with characters and plot elements from the new film Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget, the protest featured “Zoe Rosenbird” coming to the rescue of sick, injured chickens and transforming the operation that tortured them into an animal sanctuary.
PRESS RELEASE
November 30, 2023
The University of Denver’s Animal Activist Legal Defense Project is working on the appeal. Attorney Chris Carraway said, “I often hear courts describe trials as a search for the truth. Mr. Hsiung’s trial was anything but. The press had limited access; trial participants were unconstitutionally gagged from the beginning; and the court bent over backwards to prevent the defense from detailing the chronic animal cruelty found which informed the intent behind the actions."
PRESS RELEASE
October 19, 2023
“The thousands of signatures we’ve collected this summer are a testament to how enthusiastic the people of Berkeley are about disassociating with these cruel industries that run counter to our values,” says Berkeley resident and DxE organizer Kitty Jones. “It is high time we move past a system of industrialized exploitation of animals.”
PRESS RELEASE
September 5, 2023
Activists say voter enthusiasm is high for a ban on factory farms in Berkeley after submitting more than 4,900 signatures to the Berkeley city clerk today, a large overshoot beyond the 3,000 required to get the measure on the ballot.
PRESS RELEASE
August 1, 2023
"The vast majority of Berkeley voters that we've talked to care about animals and the planet and are eager to sign on to this initiative,” says Almira Tanner, lead organizer of DxE.
PRESS RELEASE
July 17, 2023
“This closure is a win for horses and for vulnerable humans who are taken advantage of by the gambling industry,” says Rocky Chau, a DxE activist who was arrested during a protest on the GGF track in March 2021.
PRESS RELEASE
June 13, 2023
Hundreds are gathered outside the slaughterhouse calling on the Sonoma County District Attorney to prosecute Petaluma Poultry for documented criminal animal cruelty and infectious diseases that are endangering public health
PRESS RELEASE
June 10, 2023
While hundreds rallied in support of the right to rescue animals from abuse, a few activists delivered “feeder” mice and suffering betta fish to safety.
PRESS RELEASE
May 31, 2023
Recent similar trials in St. George, UT and Merced, CA resulted in groundbreaking acquittals for open rescuers.
