Breaking news and publications from Direct Action Everywhere.
Media inquiry? Please email press@dxe.io.
PRESS
June 3, 2025
Wired Magazine
Hundreds of emails and internal documents reviewed by WIRED reveal top lobbyists and representatives of America’s agricultural industry led a persistent and often covert campaign to surveil, discredit, and suppress animal rights organizations for nearly a decade, while relying on corporate spies to infiltrate meetings and functionally serve as an informant for the FBI.
PRESS
June 3, 2025
Wired Magazine
PRESS
September 2, 2025
Capital Daily
The Empress Hotel—and the entire Fairmont chain—is going fur-free, much to the satisfaction of a local animal rights group that has been calling for the policy changes... for the past three years, fellow members of the Victoria chapter of Direct Action Everywhere staged monthly protests by the Empress and wrote chalk messages on the sidewalk in front of the hotel.
PRESS
September 2, 2025
Capital Daily
PRESS
September 2, 2025
The New York Times
Ms. Rosenberg, 23, says that she found chickens at Petaluma Poultry covered in scratches and bruises, including some with high fevers and serious infections. There was also evidence, she said, that birds were being scalded alive, instead of killed before broiling, because the slaughter lines were moving too quickly.
PRESS
September 2, 2025
The New York Times
PRESS
September 1, 2025
The Daily Californian
Cardboard ocean waves, sailor hats and a 16-foot sailboat set the scene Saturday outside of the Trader Joe’s on University Avenue. Animal welfare activists aboard the boat parked outside the store warned customers passing by to “steer away” from Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry, a company the activists allege engages in animal cruelty.
PRESS
September 1, 2025
The Daily Californian
PRESS
August 28, 2025
The Daily Californian
Rosenberg and DxE have also been encouraging people to sign their petition to the Sonoma County District Attorney, asking them to redirect the resources used on her case to prosecuting animal cruelty at factory farms in Sonoma County. Hundreds of people signed the petition when Rosenberg and DxE were protesting on campus during Caltopia this week.
PRESS
August 28, 2025
The Daily Californian
PRESS
August 23, 2025
Press Democrat
After months of unanswered emails and demonstrations, DxE organizer Cassie King said protesting at executives' homes was the only way to get their attention. “We've been ignored by the company every time we email or show up at their offices,” King said. “Now we're doing what we can to reach the people who literally oversee the lives and deaths of these animals and who have the power to stop animals from starving to death or being boiled alive.
PRESS
August 23, 2025
Press Democrat
PRESS
August 20, 2025
WMTV News
After years of animal welfare advocates raising concerns about conditions at a Dane County dog breeding facility, county supervisors are now stepping in.
PRESS
August 20, 2025
WMTV News
PRESS
August 19, 2025
CTV News
A 53-year-old woman chained herself to a structure at the zoo entrance around noon. According to a news release, the protest was put on by a group called Direct Action Everywhere in hopes of having Lucy transferred to a sanctuary in Tennessee.
PRESS
August 19, 2025
CTV News
PRESS
August 17, 2025
Times of San Diego
Animal rights advocates protested in front of a Trader Joe’s in Pacific Beach Sunday afternoon to demand that the grocery chain stop purchasing chickens from Petaluma Poultry. It was one of many that Direct Action Everywhere held over the weekend at Trader Joe’s in multiple states.
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
August 16, 2025
TOP PRESS
May 1, 2025
San Francisco Chronicle
Just four months after she graduates on May 17 with a bachelor’s degree in social movement strategy, the straight-A student will stand trial in a Sonoma County courtroom for her June 2023 incursion into Petaluma Poultry, a processing facility owned by agribusiness giant Perdue Farms. If convicted for taking four chickens Perdue valued at around $24, she faces up to 5½ years in prison.
TOP PRESS
October 10, 2024
Vox
In principle, there’s a lot of sense in capping the size of factory farms. Measure J’s proponents are betting that progressive Sonoma County, better known for its tasting rooms than its slaughterhouses, can push California — and the nation — in that direction.
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.
BLOG
December 1, 2017
BLOG
November 20, 2017
BLOG
November 9, 2017
BLOG
November 1, 2017
BLOG
October 24, 2017
BLOG
October 17, 2017
PRESS RELEASE
November 22, 2020
While Smithfield demands prison for Utah activists, this turkey farmer is helping them rescue more animals
PRESS RELEASE
November 17, 2020
Simultaneous protests at slaughterhouses and factory farms throughout CA demand moratorium prohibiting new factory farm and slaughterhouse construction
PRESS RELEASE
October 1, 2020
Arrestees include photographers and videographers, as well as activists who chained themselves to the building
PRESS RELEASE
August 25, 2020
PRESS RELEASE
August 7, 2020
Smithfield faces nuisance lawsuit judgements totaling hundreds of millions for waste pollution sprayed disproportionately on communities of color
PRESS RELEASE
July 14, 2020
Rotting pig carcasses are seen being fed on by wild animals after workers cut infected flesh out of carcasses before selling them for human consumption
PRESS RELEASE
July 3, 2020
Activists say proposal for partial divestment doesn’t go far enough
PRESS RELEASE
June 23, 2020
Factory farm investigator alleges improper connections between Smithfield Inc. and Utah Attorney General
PRESS RELEASE
June 5, 2020
Twelve activists now face charges, including felonies, as campaign seeks industry-wide ban
