Update: After hearing from PETA and our supporters about the cruelty of the circus and the danger to residents, Bellevue officials denied Carson & Barnes a permit to perform. And after PETA sent a letter to the president of Bellevue University asking her not to host Carson & Barnes, PETA also received a call from the university informing us that, having become aware of the cruelty to animals used by the circus, the university had canceled the circus's appearance.

New Action Alerts

Carson & Barnes Circus wants to bring its abusive act to Bellevue University in Nebraska. Tell Bellevue officials that cruelty to animals has no place at an institution for higher learning.

Panama is set to abolish bullfighting. Urge President Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal to ban the cruel "sport" by signing Panama's entire animal welfare bill into law.

PETA News on Tumblr

What is Justin Bua calling a "cancer and [pus] sandwich"?

National Public Radio reports on the backlash against dog slaughter in China. 

The newest cure for work-related stress: dogs!

Oprah Winfrey is owning her food choices.

Follow us on Tumblr for even more animal news.

New Features

It's time for Decision 2012. Cast your votes for the Sexiest Vegetarians Next Door.

Show your fur-free spirit with a PETA SpiritHood. Enter on Facebook to win one.

Oh, how we love Olivia Munn. In her Us Weekly "25 Things You Don't Know About Me" Q&A, she wrote: "I believe in rescuing your pets, not buying them." You're in good company there, Olivia. Loads of celebrities are fans of animal shelters, including Orlando Bloom, who rescued his dog, Sidi, seven years ago and has enjoyed having him right by his side ever since. 

We can easily name 25 things that we love about Pamela Anderson. Just this week, as she headed into the Celebrity Big Brother (UK) house, she sent a letter to the European Commission, asking it to institute the ban on animal-tested cosmetics in 2013, instead of delaying it, as the commission has discussed doing. Then she proposed a deliciously kind idea to her new housemates: She will introduce them all to heavenly vegetarian cuisine, and the entire show will be cruelty-free.

Fellow vegetarian Ke$ha is proving that blondes really do have more (animal-friendly) fun by designing a new line of faux-fur clothing and accessories. 

Maybe they'll become one of Oprah's favorite things. The Editor's Note in the October issue of O reads, "And there's one [trend] that O has decided to skip, not just this season but in every issue since the magazine began: garments made of real fur. . . . That is not to say you won't find exotic animal skins and feathers in O's October issue; it's just that they're still attached to the living creatures that grew them."

Well said! And these stars are eloquent about animal issues in 140 characters or fewer:

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Steve-O flips pizza with Nanci Alexander at her restaurant, Sublime, in south Florida.

 
In honor of Culinarians Day, we've whipped up a list of some of our favorite vegan celebrity chefs, chefs who cook for celebrities, and cruelty-free restaurants where you might just catch celebrities chowing down. Tasty! Check it out:

• Tal Ronnen: A graduate of New York City's Natural Gourmet Institute, Ronnen was Oprah's chef when she embarked on Kathy Freston's 21-day vegan cleanse. His classic French technique is highlighted in his book, The Conscious Cook, which is a must for anyone who wants to impress dinner guests with gourmet fare such as succulent "chicken" scaloppini.
• VegiTerranean: There's no pretending that Chrissie Hynde's rockin' restaurant in Akron, Ohio, won't blow you away with robust vegan dishes such as Chick'n Fried Portobello Steak or Mango BBQ Pizza.
• Alicia Silverstone: We'd be clueless not to mention the sultry star who penned The Kind Diet. Alicia also stars in one of PETA's sexiest public service announcements ever.
• Sublime: Nanci Alexander has been serving up brick-oven pizzas and European fare such as Penne Puttanesca and Quiche Lorraine to the likes of Pamela Anderson, Ami James, and Steve-O. Can't get to the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, restaurant? Pick up a copy of The Sublime Restaurant Cookbook, and you'll be impressing your friends with sophisticated Mushroom Ceviche and luscious Coconut Cake in no time.
• Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin: Coming out of the modeling industry, the authors of the Skinny Bitch series, which has been endorsed by Victoria Beckham and other celebrities, have taken the country by storm. If you haven't yet jumped on the bandwagon, don't fret—you can find the latest installment of the series in the PETA Catalog.

One lucky reader can win the Skinny Bitch Ultimate Everyday Cookbook. For a chance to win, just leave a comment telling us who your favorite vegan celebrity is.*

 
Written by Colleen Twombly-Borst

Today marks the end of a television era. After 25 years of daytime dominance, Oprah Winfrey's CBS show is signing off. While we wait to see our 2008 Person of the Year again on her OWN network, we wanted to take a stroll down memory lane and revisit some of our favorite Oprah episodes:  
 

• Oprah's week-long move from Chicago to Amarillo was the move followed 'round the world. She captivated millions with her court appearance to defend her 1995 episode that revealed the horrors of a beef industry rampant with mad cow disease.
• Inspired by guest Kathy Freston's book Quantum Wellness, Oprah went vegan for three weeks and marveled, "I never imagined meatless meals could be so satisfying."
• Oprah dedicated an entire episode to exposing the stifling, crippling conditions of chickens, cows, and pigs on factory farms as Californians prepared to vote on Proposition 2. The measure passed by a large majority—in part thanks to her revealing show.
• After Oprah saw a billboard off the Kennedy Expressway that read, "Oprah: Do a show on puppy mills. The dogs need you," she immediately jumped at the opportunity to save lives. Just a few minutes of her horrifying exposé were enough to convince viewers that adopting from an animal shelter is the only way to go.
• Our food envy was raging when Chef Tal Ronnen cooked his "Chicken" Scallopini and other delectable vegan meals on one episode of the show.
• When captive-chimpanzee attack victim Charla Nash decided to show her face to the public for the first time, it's no surprise that she chose to do it on Oprah's show.
• When Kathy Freston released her new book Veganist, Oprah did another vegan show, and one-upped herself by having 378 staffers go vegan for a week.

We're sure that in true Oprah fashion, she will continue to be a voice for animals on her new network.

If there is one person who can command national attention for an issue, it is "queen of all media" Oprah Winfrey. That's why Saving America's Mustangs, a group run by PETA supporter Madeleine Pickens, has enlisted actors, musicians, and athletes to film an appeal to Oprah asking her to help them protect the few wild horses remaining in the West.
 

  
Just 100 years ago, there were 2 million free-roaming horses in and around Nevada. Today, there are fewer than 28,000. But that isn't stopping the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from continuing to round up wild horses and confine them by the tens of thousands to holding pens, where they may be held for years before being sold. To get the horses into the corrals, workers rope, drag, and kick them and run them down with helicopters, killing some of them in the process. The roundups cost taxpayers $70 million per year. On July 1, the BLM will resume rounding up even more horses during foaling season.

Why is the BLM so hell-bent on rounding up wild horses? Two words: cattle ranchers. When horses compete with cows for grazing land, guess who ends up the loser? It's just one more of the many excellent reasons not to eat beef cows. 

Oprah has done a wonderful job exposing the horrors of puppy mills, the Japanese dolphin slaughter, and factory farm cruelty. Will wild mustangs be the first animals to star on her new network? Stay tuned …

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Set your TiVo now because you won't want to miss the stunning and articulate Kathy Freston talking to Oprah Winfrey and her legions of fans about living a cruelty-free, healthy vegan lifestyle. Kathy will appear on Oprah tomorrow as part of an hour-long show on being vegan. The last time that Kathy appeared on Oprah, she convinced the talk-show host to try the 21-day vegan cleanse that's included in Kathy's groundbreaking book Quantum Wellness: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Health and Happiness, so there's no telling what kind of meatless magic Freston will work this time. Maybe Oprah will let her audience members be the first to grab a copy of Kathy's new book, Veganist, which comes out the same day.

The full title of the book describes Kathy's life philosophy: Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World. The best-selling author provides the keys to effortless weight loss, saving money, feeding the hungry, reducing climate change, and ending animal suffering. U2 frontman and humanitarian Bono says of Veganist, "Kathy Freston writes so beautifully and convincingly that even this most carnivorous of rock stars finds himself staring at his bleeding protein with new eyes."

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Right on the heels of our first anti-fur protest of the season, a PETA member took the stage at the Women's Conference's Night at the Village event in California to publicly take designer Donna Karan to task. Karan's latest collections are made with real rabbit fur from China, so the protester made sure that the audience—which included Michelle Obama, Dr. Jill Biden, Maria Shriver, Oprah Winfrey, Caroline Kennedy, and Diane Sawyer—learned about footage that was recently taken at a Chinese fur farm. The footage revealed that conscious rabbits had their throats cut and their heads and paws cut off with knives before their skin was peeled off their bodies like a sweater.

The PETA member pleaded, "Donna, please dump fur!" before being escorted from the stage.

You, too, can help prevent animals from being killed for their skins. Fur-Free Friday demonstrations are being planned right now, so sign up to hold one in your area! And please contact Donna now and get everyone you know to do the same.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

rlv.zcache / CC

If you're left scratching your head after reading this blog's title, allow me to translate: That friendly greeting is Kiswahili for "What's the news?" The response, "Ujima," is today's Kwanzaa value.

Kwanzaa is celebrated for seven days during the week between Christmas and New Year's. Each day is marked by a do-gooding ideal called by its Kiswahili name. Today is day three, Ujima, which means collective work and responsibility. (Saturday and Sunday were Unity and Self-Determination, marked by the "unifying determination" of my family to nab the last bit of Grandma's famous holiday sweet potatoes!) The idea of Ujima is to take on the problems of our neighbors and work together to solve them. In the spirit of this lovely holiday, we thought it apropos to focus on how to help those who can't help themselves.

Please be encouraged to take action anytime you see an animal in distress. Volunteer at your local animal shelter to give animals in need a bit of holiday cheer, or call the authorities about that dog in your neighborhood who is chained outside without proper shelter in this unforgiving weather. And of course, always remember to make sure that the animal companions you're lucky enough to share your home with are given proper care and all the cuddles they can handle!

Another Kwanzaa tradition is to pay respect to someone of African heritage who has contributed something significant to society. Today, I choose the generous Richard Pryor for his unending efforts to stop the abuse of animals. Who do you pick?

Joyous Kwanzaa everyone!

Written by Missy Lane

rusty.com / CC

When I hear "Christmas spectacular," I think snow, lights, and a tree—really, it doesn't take much to make me happy. For the twisted folks at Loro Parque in Spain, however, it's apparently not Christmas without some animal exploitation. Wholesome and heartwarming? Yeah, right.

There was nothing festive about the death of a captive orca's trainer during the rehearsal for the zoo's Christmas performance. The whale hit the trainer, who drowned after being underwater for several minutes.

Freedom must've been first on this orca's Christmas wish list. Orcas swim up to 100 miles a day in the open ocean, so confining them to tanks in theme parks is like confining a person to a bathtub. Captured from their ocean homes by boats that chase orca pods to shallow waters so that the animals can be surrounded with nets that are gradually closed and lifted onto the boats, some orcas die from shock or stress. Others slowly succumb to pneumonia when water enters their lungs through their blowholes. After they are torn away from their homes and families, these animals are then forced to learn circus-style tricks from trainers who withhold food and isolate animals who refuse to perform.

At the top of my New Year's wish list? A PETA theme park in which the only "animals" forced to perform are the animatronic kind.

Written by Logan Scherer

athensboy / CC

It's official: Oprah will end her show in 2011. Feel that collective surge of sadness? We sure do. Oprah's groundbreaking program has transcended the talk-show format and has paved the way for social and political change. In honor of PETA's 2008 Person of the Year and her show's long run, we're revisiting Oprah's best animal-friendly episodes:

• Oprah's week-long move from Chicago to Amarillo was the move followed 'round the world. She captivated millions with her court appearance to defend her 1995 episode that revealed the horrors of a beef industry rampant with mad cow disease.
• Inspired by guest Kathy Freston's book Quantum Wellness, Oprah went vegan for three weeks and marveled, "I never imagined meatless meals could be so satisfying."
• Oprah dedicated an entire episode to exposing the stifling, crippling conditions of chickens, cows, and pigs on factory farms as Californians prepared to vote on Proposition 2. The measure passed by a large majority—in part thanks to her revealing show.
• After Oprah saw a billboard off the Kennedy Expressway that read, "Oprah: Do a show on puppy mills. The dogs need you," she immediately jumped at the opportunity to save lives. Just a few minutes of her horrifying exposé were enough to convince viewers that adopting from an animal shelter is the only way to go.
• My food envy was raging when Chef Tal Ronnen cooked his "Chicken" Scallopini and other delectable vegan meals on a recent episode of the show.
• When Charla Nash decided to show her face to the public for the first time earlier this month, it's no surprise that she chose to do it on Oprah's show.

The media mogul may be bidding farewell to her legendary talk show, but with the upcoming launch of her new cable network, we're sure that we'll be seeing a lot more of her for a long time to come.

Written by Logan Scherer