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MIAMI — A South Florida man has been cited after his dog was dyed to look Pikachu from the "Pokémon" franchise during a Miami Heat game last week. "It's made NBA history because nobody's ever seen a Pikachu dog sitting next to an NBA player before," owner Erik Torres told NBC affiliate WTVJ. But the Pomeranian's fur color had already caught the attention of Miami-Dade County Animal Services during an inspection at Torres' Doral puppy store last month. "Pikachu was in the store," Miami-Dade County Animal Services Assistant Director Kathleen Labrada said. "There was a staff member holding the dog...

Washington, D.C. (Vocus/PRWEB ) January 15, 2009 -- The nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom said today that Cass Sunstein, the Harvard University Law School professor tapped by President-elect Obama to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, has a secret aim to push a radical animal-rights agenda in the White House. Sunstein supports outlawing sport hunting, giving animals the legal right to file lawsuits, and using government regulations to phase out meat consumption. In a 2007 speech at Harvard University, Sunstein argued in favor of entirely "eliminating current practices such as … meat eating." He also proposed: "We ought...

e-mail 19 View comments New York City has elected black former policeman Eric Adams as mayor, making the Democrat the next leader of America's biggest city. The result was called by Associated Press shortly after the polls closed at 9pm Eastern Time, with less than 30 per cent of the vote counted. Adams already had a 50 point lead, CNN reported. The centrist Democrat trounced Republican rival and volunteer crime fighter Curtis Sliwa in the liberal-voting bastion to become just the second African American to lead the Big Apple. Sliwa, who founded the vigilante group Guardian Angels, showed up to...

Ian Botham is leading a formidable alliance of opponents to new laws recognising that animals have feelings, with the former cricketer joining forces with Tory donors and farming leaders to lobby against the proposed legislation. The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill would enshrine in law the principle that animals are sentient and would create an animal sentience committee to scrutinise whether Ministers had paid due regard to their policies' 'adverse effect on the welfare of animals'. But Lord Botham, a country sports enthusiast who was ennobled by Boris Johnson last year as a crossbench peer, has described it as 'bizarre' that...

A local government in Australia is facing an investigation after horrific reports surfaced. A group of dogs that was set to be sent to a rescue were instead shot and killed by local officials, according to local reports. This was apparently done in order to prevent shelter volunteers from traveling and potentially spreading infections.

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President Trump on Monday signed the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act, a new federal ban on animal cruelty. The law will outlaw purposeful crushing, burning, drowning, suffocation, impalement or other violence causing “serious bodily injury” to animals.

A regional politician in Austria defended a plan to limit access to kosher meat, conditioning its sale on permits that would be individually issued to observant Jews. The Wiener Zeitung daily reported Tuesday about the draft decree in the state of Lower Austria, one of nine states that make up the federal Republic of Austria. Gottfried Waldhäusl, the cabinet minister in the state government of Lower Austria who is in charge of animal welfare and several other portfolios, defended the plan as necessary “from an animal welfare point of view.” *** The Wiener Zeitung did not say whether the draft...

After Support for Christianity Should Not Alienate People, How Christian Charity Developed Western Ethics, Hospitals, Schools and Slavery, Colonialism and Christianity, I've arrived at the fourth installment of my replies to common contemporary criticisms of Christianity. The issue of how animals are considered is of particular ethical importance so, if I really believed that Christianity debases the moral status of animals, I would not support it. About the issue of treatment of animals, my reader Tony says: I cannot see how you, as a vegan, can support the Bible: the treatment of animals in the Bible is appalling, and I...

The future of state laws that regulate everything from the size of a hen’s cage to the safe consumption of Gulf oysters may be at stake as farm bill negotiators work to resolve a long-simmering fight between agriculture and animal welfare interests. The House Agriculture Committee added language to its version of the farm bill earlier this year that says a state cannot impose certain production standards on agricultural products sold in interstate commerce. The provision, authored by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, is aimed at a California law that will require all eggs sold in the state to come from...

The sheltered existence of hundreds of desert tortoises will come to a sad and tragic end in early 2014. A lack of funds at The Desert Tortoise Conservation Center, located outside Las Vegas, Nevada, will cause the sanctuary to close its doors and euthanize about half of its 1,400 tortoise residents, reports the Associated Press. The facility was created in 1990 when the overdevelopment—namely McMansions, solar plants, and strip malls—of the turtles' native habitats caused the critters to be put on the endangered species list. The center previously upheld a $1 million annual budget, mostly fueled by "raking in funds...

First the bay city decided we American’s just shouldn’t be able to decide matters such as circumcision. We shouldn’t have to worry about decisions like that since we have a brilliant and all knowing government to think for us.Now San Francisco is taking things a step further by possibly relieving the American’s that live within its limits of the terrible right to purchase a pet goldfish. San Francisco’s Animal Control and Welfare Commission is recommending that the City ban the sale of goldfish, tropical fish and guppies in its borders, according to Matier and Ross.The recommendation to the San Francisco...

With the recent charges that a major National Football League player had allowed cruel dog fights on his home property, the issue of cruelty to animals has been brought to national attention. Nearly everyone acknowledges the obvious -- that a person who is cruel to animals, who enjoys sees seeing an animal suffer, is likely to inflict suffering on human beings. Cruelty to animals is one of the very few predictors among children of later criminal behavior. So, aside from altruistic concern for animals, we human beings also have a selfish concern about people who enjoy making animals suffer. People...

A MELBOURNE man has been jailed for three months for bashing his partner's dog. Ibrahim Moussa, 25, of Widford Street, Glenroy, was sentenced in the Broadmeadows Magistrates Court last week to a total of three years' jail over a range of offences including burglary, theft and breach of an intervention order. The three years included two three-month sentences for beating a dog and causing unnecessary pain to the animal, to be served concurrently. The animal cruelty charges relate to incidents in July and August last year involving Zarah, a pit bull-cross puppy that was four months old when the RSPCA...

It could soon be against the law in New Jersey to tie the family pet up in the yard for long periods of time. Thats the aim of bills recently introduced by Tenth District lawmakers Senator Andy Ciesla and Assemblymen Dave Wolfe and Jim Holzapfel. Senate bill S1705 and Assembly bill A2773 would update New Jersey's animal cruelty statutes making it a disorderly persons offense to inflict unnecessary cruelty upon a living animal by chaining or otherwise restraining the animal so as to deprive it of the ability to properly eat, drink shelter itself, move sufficiently to maintain its mobility...

One day last month, animal welfare extremists followed the wife of a pharmaceutical company executive to her job, went into her car and stole a credit card to buy $20,000 in traveler's checks that they then donated to four charities. A Web site announcement boasting of the act included a more sinister threat: ``If we find out a dime of that money granted to those charities was taken back we will strip you bear (sic) and burn your (expletive). This is OUR insurance policy.'' The actions by the radical Animal Liberation Front appear to be the latest salvo in an...

The La Crosse man who's asked the state to allow hunters to kill stray cats says he's been getting death threats. Mark Smith told La Crosse police he's gotten angry phone calls and messages at work and at home. Police reports say one call made while Smith was working at the La Crosse Fire Department suggested it should be "open season on firefighters." Another woman told Smith that if the state Legislature approved his request Smith would be hunted down and killed. Smith has asked the Wisconsin Conservation Congress to vote on his proposal at an April eleventh meeting. That...

ELYRIA, OhioJennifer Mitchell's apartment is full of rats, and that's the way she likes it.

No one who follows today's animal-rights movement can deny that its violent tactics are escalating. Ten years ago, picketing a restaurant or tossing red paint on a fur coat was front page news. But times are changing. Following the advice of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals campaign director Bruce Friedrich, leading-edge animal cultists have been busy "" They've cheerfully endorsed murder, issued a detailed "hit list," delivered life-threatening pipe bombs, set multi-million-dollar arsons, and harassed Americans in their homes and places of worship. And just when we thought they couldn't push the envelope any further, along come a...

Much of the coalition forces' work in Iraq focuses on improving the lives of the country's citizens. In some cases, the benefits are not limited to humans. With the help of soldiers from the Army's 1st Armored Division and 5th Corps, and funding from the 22nd Signal Brigade, Iraqi veterinarians recently cut the grand-opening ribbon at the Iraqi Society for Animal Welfare in central Baghdad. The society, made up of military and civilian veterinarians and Iraqi ministry officials, was formed to address the growing need for animal control in Baghdad. "It is the first of its kind in the country"...