You know that we at PETA love to help out whenever we can, so when we heard about the extreme gas shortage plaguing the Southern states, we deployed our elite gasoline response team: the fabulous Lettuce Ladies. We've had these eye-catching demos before with great response (and even a hugely successful gas giveaway contest), but now, with so many gas stations running out of gas, the ladies are needed more than ever!

The Ladies have been touring the country wearing their signature lettuce-leaf bikinis. They've been giving away Tofurkey brand vegan sandwiches and free gasoline to anyone who would give it a try—all to call attention to the fact that factory farming causes more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, trains, and planes combined. In fact, eating a single pound of meat is the environmental equivalent of driving 40 miles in an SUV!

So while drivers in Atlanta waited in those long lines to fill up their tanks, our Lettuce Ladies gave them vegan sandwiches to fill up on, too—and hey, who can argue with free sandwiches, right?

Written by Amanda Schinke

As you can imagine, PETA hears about lots of cases of cruelty to animals. For folks who love animals as much as we do, that's never fun, but we can't make things better if we bury our heads in the sand. Still, it takes a lot to really strike a nerve with us, but one recent case stands out.

Carrie Cagata, James Cullen, and Shannon Kraham of Fort Myers, Florida, have been charged with multiple counts of cruelty to animals and animal abandonment. Lee County deputies reportedly found more than 80 dogs, cats, and other animals who had been entrusted to the trio malnourished or dead. While that's awful, it's not entirely unusual (unfortunately), but this is: Cagata is the owner of My Best Friend Inc., a supposed animal rescue organization. Detectives are alleging that she adopted abandoned animals from animal shelters and then tried to sell them for a profit—if the animals didn't sell, the detectives claim, they were apparently shipped off to "the farm," where they were left to starve.

While starving and abandoning animals is horrible enough, to do so while allegedly pretending to be rescuing them is over-the-top hideous—and an insult to the wonderful people who operate legitimate rescue groups. We fired off a letter to the head of the felony division of the Florida attorney's office, demanding that this case be prosecuted vigorously.

The letter also stated, "On behalf of our thousands of members and supporters in Florida, we respectfully ask that, if convicted and in addition to serving a period of incarceration, the three defendants (and any codefendants later named) be required to undergo psychological evaluations followed by mandatory counseling at their own expense." You can read the full letter here.

Written by Jeff Mackey

Last week, we released our jaw-dropping investigation into a Hormel supplier. It didn't take long for more abuse of pigs to come to light. We recently learned of a situation that happened early this month when a truck carrying nearly 200 live pigs to a slaughterhouse overturned on the highway, trapping some pigs in the wreckage for hours. Approximately 65 pigs were killed by the impact, died from their injuries, or were killed at the site of the accident by responding workers, including employees of Murphy-Brown, a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods Inc.

As if the trauma of the accident weren't enough, while workers were removing the surviving pigs from the scene in order to send them on to the horrors of the slaughterhouse, they pulled the terrified pigs by their ears and hit them in the face with tools that even the pork industry says should never be used to hit animals.

As Smithfield's neighbors, we're all too familiar with the grisly aftermath of truck crashes. These latest documented abuses clearly demonstrate that Smithfield's self-touted "industry-leading accident response program" is ignored by a number of Murphy-Brown's employees and ineffectively enforced by supervisors. Watch the video and decide for yourself whether Smithfield is full of hot air.

If you eat hot dogs, ham, sausage, or bacon, then you are supporting this suffering. These and other abuses are done in your name and on your dollar. Please make a conscious decision to turn up your nose at pork, because the best way to help these intelligent animals is to stop eating them.

Written by Christine Doré

Some PETA activists stopped by the World Beef Expo in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to show them a thing or two about beef—namely, that all meat is murder.

Calling attention to the similarities between killing humans and killing animals for food, one of our activists lay on a "grill" on a busy sidewalk, her skin painted to mimic the charred flesh that some people still happily consume at barbecues. Meanwhile, local activists passed out free copies of PETA's "Vegetarian Starter Kit" to passers-by who asked for them—and you can bet a lot of people did!

Check our pics of the great demo below—and check out GoVeg.com for more info!

Written by Amanda Schinke