It looks like the long push for D.C. voting rights has Hollywood on its side, with actress Hayden Panettiere coming to the capital for a Friday-night fundraiser for the D.C. Statehood Fund – which will be at Cities in NW from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Hayden is no stranger to the cause. She even filmed a PSA in 2008 encouraging people to donate to the fund – which pays the expenses of the District’s shadow congressional delegation and their lobbying efforts.
But Panettiere happens to be also be in town this week on another mission – saving the whales. The “Heroes” star went to the White House for a meeting Thursday with Nancy Sutley, of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, to praise President Obama for his latest actions against commercial whaling in Iceland, and to encourage the administration to similarly censure Norway and Japan for their whaling industries. And Hayden’s had her heels dug in on this issue for a while, too. You might remember her clash with Japanese authorities while trying to disrupt a dolphin-kill with other activists in 2007, which was featured in the documentary, “The Cove.”
