Video Shows Florida Police Arresting a 90-Year-Old Man for Feeding the Homeless

Police in Fort Lauderdale, Florida arrested a 90-year-old man last weekend for feeding homeless people — an act of charity he’s been doing regularly for the past 23 years.

At least four police cruisers and a half dozen uniformed cops were waiting for Arnold Abbott and two pastors when they arrived at a local Florida park Sunday afternoon to distribute food to more than 100 homeless and hungry people, according to the Broward-Palm Beach New Times. Abbot, the founder of the service organization Love Thy Neighbor, managed to dole out four meals before he was placed in handcuffs and issued a summons.

Video Shows Antares Rocket Exploding Six Seconds After Liftoff in Virginia

An unmanned Antares rocket ferrying supplies to the International Space Station exploded Tuesday just six seconds after liftoff at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Wallops, Virginia. No personnel were near the rocket when it exploded, and no injuries have been reported by NASA.

The Antares rocket appeared to abruptly lose upward momentum after it launched, falling back toward the ground before exploding in mid-air.

The Antares — a medium-lift rocket — was carrying a Cygnus spacecraft packed with about 5,000 pounds of cargo to take to the International Space Station. NASA confirmed at 6:45pm ET that all personnel were accounted for. Officials on NASA TV reported significant property and vehicle damage.

After Latest Blunder, Privacy Watchdog Chief Calls Uber ‘Out of Control’

At a private dinner Friday night, Emil Michael, Uber’s senior vice president of business, suggested that the company should hire a team of journalists and opposition researchers to counter bad press and even attack members of the media that criticize the company.

Michael, who previously worked for Klout, the website and mobile app that uses social media analytics to rank users according to online social influence, suggested spending “a million dollars” on this team, which would look into “your personal lives, your families.” Michael made the statements in front of a crowd of influential New Yorkers at Manhattan’s Waverly Inn last week.

Michael specifically mentioned that such a plan could be used to spread personal details about the life of Sarah Lacy, the editor-in-chief of PandoDaily, a Silicon Valley website whose coverage of Uber has been far from positive.

A Law Designed to Target Coke Lords Is Screwing Over Legal Pot Companies

Voters in Oregon, Alaska, and Washington, D.C. headed to the polls Tuesday to decide whether to legalize sales of recreational marijuana.

But would-be weed entrepreneurs in the states might be disappointed to learn that a federal tax law designed to target coke lords in the ’80s is eating into the profits of legal pot merchants across the country.

“This is one of the most critical issues facing the industry today because it directly affects the bottom line of anyone who cultivates or sells medical or recreational marijuana,” said Taylor West, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, an association of more than 750 cannabis-related businesses across the United States. “It results in businesses paying effective tax rates of 70 to 85 percent when they should be only paying 30 or 40 percent.

Islamic State Video Is Latest in Worldwide Propaganda War

The Islamic State’s media machine took to the web again on Tuesday with the release of a high-production Hollywood-style trailer for an upcoming movie entitled Flames of War.

The 52-second clip was issued in response to President Barack Obama’s vow to “degrade and ultimately destroy [the Islamic State],” and shows flames engulfing footage of the White House and Obama, as well as images of US forces in Iraq — despite Obama ruling out putting “boots on the ground” last week.

US Airstrikes Target the Islamic State’s Seized Syrian Oilfields

At least 19 people were killed on the third day of a US-led air campaign targeting the Islamic State in Syria. Strikes focused on one of the group’s main revenue streams — the region’s captured oil fields.

Activists say that the attacks, made by the US along with five Arab allies, led to the release at least 150 people from a prison in their powerbase of Raqqa in northern Syria, as the militant group feared more strikes, according to the Associated Press.

At least 14 militants were killed in the attacks, which hit four oil installations and three oil fields near the town of Mayadeen in the east of the country. This information came from the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which gathers reports from a network of activists on the ground, and was confirmed by two local activist groups.

Historic California Rape Law Tells College Campuses: ‘Yes Means Yes’

California has enacted a historic law that forces the state’s colleges to adopt a policy of unambiguous, affirmative consent by students engaged in sexual activity.

State lawmakers approved the so-called “Yes Means Yes” law last month, and Governor Jerry Brown signed it Sunday. The state is the first to pass a law that makes affirmative consent central to school sexual assault policies.

“I don’t think there are words to describe how monumental this is for survivors of sexual assault — female, male or otherwise,” Savannah Badalich, a student at University of California, Los Angles (UCLA) and the founder of the group 7,000 in Solidarity, told VICE News.

The US Navy Is Developing ‘Drone Gunboats’ for Naval Warfare

Robots are no strangers to warfare nowadays. They are regularly used for dangerous battlefield jobs such as surveillance, explosives detection, and air strikes, and, as VICE News reported last week, they are now even used to hunt naval mines from the air. Their utility seemingly knows no bounds, and the US Navy has now revealed a plan that seemingly takes the technology even further into the future.

On Sunday, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) announced the addition of “drone gunboats” to the US military’s growing family of militarized robots. Developed using existing NASA technology, the robo-boats could be deployed within the year to protect bigger ships or to swarm an enemy with kamikaze-like coordinated attacks.

The program was partly prompted by the 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole by al Qaeda. In the attack, suicide bombers drove a boat laden with explosives into the hull of the guided-missile destroyer as it refueled in the Yemeni port of Aden, killing 17 US sailors.

Murder of Transgender Woman Raises Tensions in Philippines Over US Military Presence

A US Marine accused of killing a 26-year-old transgender Filipina woman was turned over to Philippine authorities by the US military on Wednesday in a case that has brought long-simmering tensions between the two countries to a boil.

Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton is accused of murdering Jennifer Laude, formerly known as Jeffrey, by drowning her in a motel bathroom toilet on October 11 after a bilateral training session near a former US naval base at Subic Bay, about 50 miles northwest of Manila.

The gruesome killing comes at a delicate moment for US-Philippine relations. There is political pressure in the Philippines for the former US colony to deny the US access to military bases.

Atheists Are Banned From Holding Public Office In Seven US States

If you’re an atheist and interested in becoming a city council member or a juror in Maryland, well you can forget it: the East Coast state is one of seven in the US, which thanks to long-standing provisions in their state constitution, prohibits those who don’t believe in God from holding public office.

Atheists are up in arms about the old-fashioned restriction, which also affects non-believers in Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, and are trying to get rid of the bans.

Rob Boston, director of communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told VICE News that these laws are “outdated provisions from a more bigoted time” but that they send a worrying message to atheists and non-believers.