The Los Angeles City Council has just announced that a meeting will be held on Friday morning to discuss a historic ordinance that would require virtually all dogs and cats in Los Angeles to be spayed or neutered. If you happen to live in L.A. and have an urge to whisper sweet words of encouragement into your council member’s ear, you can find his or her phone number at http://www.lacity.org/council.htm. Just let 'em know that you support the spay-neuter ordinance, and you’re hoping they will too. Council members love that sort of thing. You can also attend the meeting to show your support.

If you don’t live in L.A., there’s probably not all that much you can do about this particular bill, but at least you don’t have to deal with the lousy traffic conditions they have in that city. That’s gotta be worth something, right? There’s also tons of information about how you can help cats and dogs in your community right here. And to continue with a theme started earlier this week, here’s a criminally adorable pro spay/neuter spot, starring animated kittens.

One of the drawbacks of being an international business without any sort of ethical sensibilities is that once your questionable practices get out in the open, the entire world learns about them. Which is a lot of people. This past week, Burberry's callous disregard for animal welfare was exposed in …

Paris (by means of French people in coffins) …

… Hong Kong (with real cavepeople!) …

…and Los Angeles (where a little bit of nudity goes a long way)

And there's plenty more where that came from. So there you have it, Burberry. The whole world agrees that you should stop making clothes out of fur that doesn't belong to you.

And Forest Whitaker, who won Best Actor in a Drama for his riveting performance in The Last King of Scotland, recently starred in a somewhat more lighthearted piece for PETA with his daughter, True. If you're a fan of Forest's work, you should definitely check that out:

In the meantime, our old friend Joaquin Phoenix presented the award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, which was won by Meryl Streep. And last year's "World's Sexiest Vegetarian," Prince, won the award for Best Song. The whole event could almost have been a PETA Gala, except with, like, awards for people doing a good job in movies instead of PETA employees in giant rat costumes (not to say that wasn't really fun).

Jack Black is amazing. First, because his band rocks so damn hard that he had to go into hell to find his rhythm section; and second, because he had the good sense and foresight to put Colonel Sanders there, where he belongs. Check it out:

MSNBC just reported on a study which showed that the beneficial effects of tea are cancelled out when you put milk in it. According to MSN:

Since I quit smoking about three years ago, I've been drinking, like, five cups of tea a day to fill the void, but I've totally been cheating death by using soymilk instead of cow's milk. Which, you know, hooray for getting one over on Death, but the underlying point here is that cow's milk is designed for baby cows, not for one's Earl Grey or English Breakfast.

While I'm on the subject—ever since I moved to the U.S., I've noticed that a lot of people here don't always bring their water to a full boil before pouring it on their tea. WTF is that all about? For a proper cup of tea, you need to use boiling water to activate the tea leaves, and then let it steep for at least a minute. Then, if you don't want to drop dead from a heart attack right there on the spot, skip the cow's milk and have some soymilk with that bad boy. At any rate, that's how I do it.

Stay tuned for more scintillating tea tips next week. I have a lot to say on this subject.

Things just keep getting worse for the folks at POM Wonderful, who (in case you're not up to date on this) can't seem to figure out why performing gruesome experiments on rabbits in order to sell more juice is as ludicrous as it is frightening. This week, right after two stores in California decided to ban sales of POM, the legendary nightclub promoter Steve Lewis sent POM CEO Matt Tupper a letter asking him to stop his animal testing program. If Matt agrees, Steve has made a commitment to use his considerable influence to get POM promoted in nightclubs throughout New York. The New York Post did a piece on the story, which you can read here.

Then, just as all this was happening, PETA's Pom Campaign Coordinator—the lovely Melissa—broke her leg. I admit that sounds like it would be more of a blow to us than it is to POM, but check out what she did with her cast! How do you like them apples, Matt Tupper?

P.S. Stay tuned for details on exactly how Melissa broke her leg. I'm still trying to get the story out of her. All I know at the moment is that it happened on New Year's.

In Other News

The British Medical Journal on Why Animal Testing Sucks

New Zealand's Take on Pink's Wool Boycott

Predict Your Own Death! (Accuracy Not Guaranteed)

These pictures kind of tell their own story, which, as I interpret it, is that a lot of MPs are pretty hacked off with the MoD for being so bleeding stroppy about the Queen's Guards' kit, innit? Or, translated into American, dozens of British politicians gathered outside parliament yesterday to call on the Ministry of Defence to ban the use of bear fur in making the well-known caps worn by the palace guards. Either way you look at it, it's pretty damn wonderful—and it's a big coup for PETA Europe in its quest to save Canadian black bears from a horrible fate. Great to see so many politicians getting involved in an issue on behalf of the British public, which—like most reasonable publics—is overwhelmingly against turning bears into hats without a bloody good reason.

Glenda Jackson, Mike Hancock, George Galloway, and dozens of other cross-party MPs protest the use of bear fur in The Queen's Guards' caps outside the Houses of Parliament

Mike Hancock, David Lepper, and David Taylor standing up for bears

Oscar winner turned MP Glenda Jackson with a Canadian black teddy bear

Victory! Raley's has discontinued the sale of live lobsters.

Update: After Thousands of Complaints From Customers, Raley's Has Agreed to Discontinue the Sale of Live Lobsters in Its Stores!

Earlier this week, a customer of Raley's—which is a popular grocery chain in Nevada, New Mexico, and California—sent PETA disturbing pictures of live lobsters kept in tiny plastic containers barely larger than the lobsters' bodies in a Raley's store. After PETA put an action alert up on our site last night, thousands of people wrote to the company to ask that they abandon this cruel practice immediately and consider following in the footsteps of chains like Safeway and Whole Foods and discontinue the sale of live lobsters entirely.

This morning, we received an e-mail from Raley's announcing that the company would do just that! Raley's Spokesperson Nicole Townsend gave PETA the following statement:

It goes without saying that this is a massive victory for lobsters everywhere, who suffer immeasurably in grocery-store lobster tanks before being boiled alive. Raley's compassionate decision—along with the example of Safeway and Whole Foods—sends a strong message to supermarkets everywhere that cruelty of this sort simply will not be tolerated. A huge thank you to everyone who took the time to write to Raley's about this issue! Thanks to your kindness, countless lobsters will be saved from a horrific fate.

Today is my birthday, which—for those of you not familiar with birthday rules—means I can do anything I want. And what I want to do today is post this video that my friend Joel and I made a while ago for a song I wrote, which happens to be about birthdays. What does this have to with animals, you ask? Plenty. Apart from being a brilliant reflection on the alienating effects of ingrained cultural phenomena on the postmodern man, it’s also a step-by-step instructional video on how to make a delicious vegan birthday cake! E.g., use apple sauce instead of eggs. The chickens will thank you. Happy Birthday me!

P.S. Today is also Richard Nixon's birthday, but whatever.

KFC employees who are used to seeing PETA's crippled chicken hobbling across the street or watching Colonel Sanders burned in effigy in front of their restaurants are in for a pleasant surprise: The KFC Campaign is finally going naked, with our brand-new "Naked Truth" demonstrations. The bad news for the company is, unfortunately, that the "naked truth" about KFC is that it's gross and unethical and abusive and, seriously, don't even think about eating there. Even if there are attractive naked girls outside. Our first Naked Truth protest was immediately picked up by the Associated Press, proving, once again, that taking your clothes off really is a great way to help chickens on factory farms—though that line never works for me for some reason.