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
April 26, 2023
Salt Lake Tribune
“I feel that this company has a lot of power over this town,” Vollmar said of Smithfield Foods, which up until layoffs last year employed one of every four workers in the county according to local statistics, including Mayor Matt Robinson. “There’s probably a lot of political pressure to convict me at this court."
PRESS
April 26, 2023
Salt Lake Tribune
PRESS RELEASE
April 25, 2023
A Beaver County Judge convicted Curtis Vollmar of criminal trespass and disorderly conduct for talking to members of the public about Smithfield Foods.
PRESS RELEASE
April 25, 2023
PRESS RELEASE
April 24, 2023
The “Right to Rescue” is a hot topic after a California jury acquitted two activists who removed sick birds from a Foster Farms slaughter truck. Jurors, defendants, attorneys, and law professors gathered to discuss the verdict's meaning for laws related to corporate animal abuse, animal rescue, and animal personhood.
PRESS RELEASE
April 24, 2023
PRESS
April 23, 2023
Salt Lake Tribune
If Beaver County officials are so fixated on silencing activists raising concerns and asking questions about a corporation, what is this corporation trying to hide? What is the incentive for the Beaver officials to silence people? Should international multi-billion-dollar corporations have this much control in rural Utah?
PRESS
April 22, 2023
Our Hen House
After their acquittal of petty theft charges for rescuing two sick chickens, the activists describe the importance of shedding light on the cruelty in animal agriculture through court trials and the "necessity defense" as it relates to animals in the eyes of the law.
PRESS
April 22, 2023
Our Hen House
PRESS
April 20, 2023
St George News
“Smithfield Foods is weaponizing the police to silence people who oppose factory farming,” [activist Curtis] Vollmar told St. George News in an email. “As this issue gains more attention and more people speak up for animals and the planet, we need our First Amendment right to be protected.”
PRESS
April 20, 2023
St George News
BLOG
April 18, 2023
We're touring 12 cities in two weeks to talk about DxE's recent groundbreaking victories for the Right to Rescue. Join us in a city near you!
BLOG
April 18, 2023
We're touring 12 cities in two weeks to talk about DxE's recent groundbreaking victories for the Right to Rescue. Join us in a city near you!
PRESS
April 17, 2023
KALW Public Media
The protest was in tribute to the unconsenting athletes whose extreme stress, horrific injuries, and frequent deaths are, according to activists, downplayed by the profit-driven racing industry.
PRESS
April 17, 2023
KALW Public Media
PRESS RELEASE
April 16, 2023
A California jury found two women “not guilty” for rescuing sick birds from a Foster Farms slaughter truck.
TOP PRESS
October 9, 2024
The Intercept
Videos shared with The Intercept prior to the report’s public release show, among other scenes, lambs with their throats slit hanging upside down and thrashing on the slaughter line; one animal with an internal organ that has been torn inside-out and left dangling behind it as it heads to slaughter; injured lambs being led to slaughter; workers laughing, spanking animals, and engaging in simulated sex acts with nearby machinery as lambs are having their throats slit; and the apparent use of so-called Judas sheep — adult sheep kept alive at the facility and used to lead the young sheep to slaughter.
TOP PRESS
August 30, 2024
San Francisco Chronicle
In dimly lit indoor aisles at Weber Family Farms in Petaluma, hundreds of thousands of white chickens live out their 90 weeks of life. They fly from perch to perch. They dust bathe in the bedding. They nip at water dispensers. They lay egg after egg. And they never leave. These barns are at the heart of a bitter fight that Mike Weber and Samantha Faye are waging for the future of local farming.
TOP PRESS
April 4, 2024
Los Angeles Times
Lewis Bernier, an animal rights activist supporting the initiative, said he has visited several factory farms across the country, documenting inhumane treatment, and one farm in Sonoma County stands out as having “the worst and most systemic animal cruelty that I’ve ever seen.”
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
January 30, 2024
The Guardian
If successful in Berkeley, a liberal San Francisco Bay Area town that’s often been at the forefront of US environmental policy, the method can be replicated elsewhere, [activists] say. “We can pave the path to abolishing factory farming,” said Cassie King, an organizer with Direct Action Everywhere, one of the groups that pushed for the measure.
TOP PRESS
November 9, 2023
Vox
Hsiung’s trial and conviction show the extraordinary difficulty of trying to discuss what happens to animals on factory farms in a legal system that only sees them as property. At both factory farms in this case, DxE had documented gruesome conditions prior to their open rescue actions and had submitted animal cruelty complaints to authorities (though no action was taken by legal officials, King said). Yet it was the activists, not the farm owners, who were criminally charged and had to explain themselves to a jury.
TOP PRESS
November 8, 2023
Wired
For the first time, guerrilla animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere reveals a guide to its investigative tactics and toolkit, from spy cams to night vision and drones. Bernier says that DxE decided to publicly release its guide, even in the wake of Hsiung’s conviction, to help activists who are already committed to carrying out covert investigations do their work more safely and effectively.
TOP PRESS
November 4, 2023
The Intercept
Hsiung’s defense was in many ways stymied from the jump. The judge barred almost all photo and video evidence of animal cruelty from the trial, as has been the case in a number of previous DxE trials. As I’ve previously noted, the decision to disallow such evidence is usually made to benefit a defendant — not showing gruesome images of a murder victim, for example. Such logic has been flipped in DxE cases, including Hsiung’s most recent, to the benefit of powerful agribusiness.
TOP PRESS
August 7, 2023
National Geographic
These crusaders are part of the so-called “open rescue” movement, in which animal rights activists brazenly take animals from factory farm operations. Direct Action Everywhere—better known as DxE—is at the forefront of this movement in the United States...
BLOG
August 12, 2021
Humans want to be on the winning team. Winning also gives those involved in the struggle a boost of motivation and efficacy.
BLOG
June 22, 2021
Bloomberg columnist Adam Minter recently penned an article titled “Covid Almost Caused a Meat Crisis,” sounding the alarm about potential meat shortages. But the meat industry is itself a perpetual crisis, and Minter’s diagnosis of both problem and solution get it exactly wrong.
BLOG
June 15, 2021
The Tennessee legislature has passed a bill that would include farms in the definition of critical infrastructure. But at what cost?
BLOG
May 26, 2021
Research indicates that likely the best tactic to reduce the impact of imposter syndrome is talking about it.
BLOG
April 20, 2021
New investigation into Land O'Lakes shows routine violations of own animal welfare standards
BLOG
April 1, 2021
PRESS RELEASE
September 20, 2025
"I believe Zoe did the right thing by taking sick animals to the vet," said Sharon Loren of Penngrove, who joined the march. "Compassion should never be a crime, but it's on trial here in Sonoma County."
PRESS RELEASE
September 15, 2025
Zoe Rosenberg, 23, is charged with felony conspiracy and 3 misdemeanors for rescuing chickens from Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse
PRESS RELEASE
August 30, 2025
Activists use Trader Joe’s nautical theme to urge the company to follow its moral compass and steer away from Petaluma Poultry
PRESS RELEASE
August 16, 2025
Dozens of activists with the animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) protested outside the Trader Joe's store at 1885 University Avenue in Berkeley, after an Alameda County judge partially denied Trader Joe's requested temporary restraining order against DxE on Tuesday.
PRESS RELEASE
July 26, 2025
Around thirty animal rights activists with Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) held a peaceful protest outside the home of Scott Fitzpatrick, the Live Production Manager for Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry, after Sonoma County Judge Patrick Broderick denied Fitzpatrick’s application for a temporary restraining order on Friday, citing “insufficient evidence.”
PRESS RELEASE
July 23, 2025
Scott Fitzpatrick, Live Production Manager for national poultry giant Perdue Foods, filed a lawsuit Tuesday to stop public protests by Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) over documented animal cruelty.
PRESS RELEASE
July 3, 2025
Ani Kandada superglued down inside Trader Joe's original store in Pasadena asking the retailer to stop selling chickens from Perdue's Petaluma Poultry, just hours after another animal rights activist was arrested for supergluing her hand inside Trader Joe's Headquarters in Monrovia, CA.
PRESS RELEASE
July 3, 2025
Carla Cabral remained superglued to the desk from approximately 10AM to approximately 11AM, while she demanded a meeting with company executives about documented animal cruelty at Trader Joe's chicken supplier, Petaluma Poultry, which is a subsidiary of national agribusiness giant Perdue Foods.
PRESS RELEASE
June 10, 2025
Animal rights activists with DxE disrupted multiple events at the Summer Board Meeting of the California Poultry Federation, a trade association representing commercial chicken and turkey producers across the state. Among CPF's twenty board members are three executives from Petaluma Poultry, the California subsidiary of national poultry giant Perdue Foods, where DxE investigators have documented widespread violations of animal cruelty laws since 2018.
