The Latest Breaking News from Happy

NEW YORK — Arthur Miller would, it’s reasonable to assume, have been delighted at the idea of a Broadway revival of “Death of a Salesman” with an all-Black Loman family, especially with Wendell Pierce (”The Wire”) swinging for the fences in the starring role and Sharon D. Clarke playing the…

You might think I’m no fun to have a meal with – but there’s method to my madness

Happy is an Asian elephant who has lived since 1977 in captivity at the Bronx Zoo.

Happy the elephant’s story is a sad one. She is currently a resident of the Bronx Zoo in the US, where the Nonhuman Rights Project (a civil rights organisation) claims she is subject to unlawful detention. The campaigners sought a writ of habeas corpus on Happy’s behalf to request that…

Plus: Purity politics, the end of the "millennial consumer subsidy," an unhappy outcome for folks seeking to free Happy the elephant, and more...

Happy the elephant, a 37-year resident of the Bronx Zoo, must remain in her one-acre enclosure after a New York court ruled she is not legally a person.

NEW YORK — It’s a sad day to be Happy.

The 5-2 decision by the court comes in a closely watched case that tested the boundaries of applying human rights to animals.

The wild-born animal has been at the zoo since 1977

From today's opinion from New York's high court in In the Matter of Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc., written by Judge DiFiore: For centuries, the common law writ of habeas corpus has safeguarded the liberty rights of human beings by providing a means to secure release from illegal custody. The question…

"The writ of habeas corpus ... has no applicability to Happy, a nonhuman animal."