At least 10 people have been killed in a trolley bus blast in Volgograd, emergency services report, only a day after a suicide bombing ripped through the city's railway station, killing 17.

Monday, December 30

06:25 GMT: Burns and multiple traumas have been sustained by the victims of the trolley blast. Moscow is standing by to receive more wounded, if the need arises, health ministry spokeswoman Veronika Skvortsova told RIA Novosti.

06:18 GMT: FSB director, Aleksandr Botnikov, has been ordered by the President to fly to the scene, RIA Novosti reports.

06:20 GMT: The situation is being handled effectively - no shortage in medicine has been reported and efforts by emergency services are proving to be quite effective.

06:16 GMT: The number of fatalities varies from at least 10 to 15 at this point, as official sources differ on the matter.

06:13 GMT: Ministry of Health spokesperson said a child has been badly injured and is in critical condition.

06:06 GMT: The Emergencies Ministry has strongly tightened security in Volgograd. Teams of psychologists and other doctors are also being dispatched to the scene of the blast, the ministry reported. Their plane is to leave Moscow at 10:30AM local time.

06:00 GMT: "We are terrified. Everyone disembarked from buses and trams to walk on foot. I live 200 meters away from that place, I was just passing it on my way to work," Sergey Stukalov, an eyewitness, told RIA Novosti.

Sergey also said that the blast occurred on the No.15 trolley route, connecting a suburb to Volgograd's downtown area.

A boyish-looking American diplomat was meeting for the first time with the Islamist leaders of eastern Libya's most formidable militias.

It was Sept. 9, 2012. Gathered on folding chairs in a banquet hall by the Mediterranean, the Libyans warned of rising threats against Americans from extremists in Benghazi. One militia leader, with a long beard and mismatched military fatigues, mentioned time in exile in Afghanistan. An American guard discreetly touched his gun.

"Since Benghazi isn't safe, it is better for you to leave now," Mohamed al-Gharabi, the leader of the Rafallah al-Sehati Brigade, later recalled telling the Americans. "I specifically told the Americans myself that we hoped that they would leave Benghazi as soon as possible."

Yet as the militiamen snacked on Twinkie-style cakes with their American guests, they also gushed about their gratitude for President Obama's support in their uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. They emphasized that they wanted to build a partnership with the United States, especially in the form of more investment. They specifically asked for Benghazi outlets of McDonald's and KFC.

Swisscom AG, a major telecommunications provider in Switzerland, filed U.S. and international patent applications for an innovative system to reduce "electrosmog" from wireless local networks (i.e., Wi-Fi) in 2003.

This patent application acknowledged the cancer risk from exposure to wireless radiation eight years before the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer declared that radiofrequency energy, including cell phone and Wi-Fi radiation, is a "possible carcinogen" to humans, like DDT and lead.

Furthermore, the application acknowledged that low-intensity, non-thermal exposures to wireless radiation is genotoxic. This is critical because the current U.S. regulatory standard for wireless radiation, established in 1996, does not protect us from non-thermal exposures.

Few of the politicians who so brazenly proclaim the benefits of drones have a real clue how it actually works (and doesn't)

Whenever I read comments by politicians defending the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Predator and Reaper program - aka drones - I wish I could ask them some questions.

I'd start with: "How many women and children have you seen incinerated by a Hellfire missile?" And: "How many men have you seen crawl across a field, trying to make it to the nearest compound for help while bleeding out from severed legs?" Or even more pointedly: "How many soldiers have you seen die on the side of a road in Afghanistan because our ever-so-accurate UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicle] were unable to detect an IED [improvised explosive device] that awaited their convoy?"

Few of these politicians who so brazenly proclaim the benefits of drones have a real clue of what actually goes on. I, on the other hand, have seen these awful sights first hand.

I knew the names of some of the young soldiers I saw bleed to death on the side of a road. I watched dozens of military-aged males die in Afghanistan, in empty fields, along riversides, and some right outside the compound where their family was waiting for them to return home from mosque.

The US and British militaries insist that this is such an expert program, but it's curious that they feel the need to deliver faulty information, few or no statistics about civilian deaths and twisted technology reports on the capabilities of our UAVs. These specific incidents are not isolated, and the civilian casualty rate has not changed, despite what our defense representatives might like to tell us.

The race to put man on the Moon wasn't enough of a battle for the global super powers during the Cold War.

At the time, the Soviet Union and the United States were in an arms race of a bizarre, unconventional kind - that has been exposed in a new report.

Beginning in 1917 and continuing until 2003, the Soviets poured up to $1 billion into developing mind-controlling weaponry to compete with similar programs undertaken in the US.

While much still remains classified, we can now confirm the Soviets used methods to manipulate test subjects' brains.

The paper, by Serge Kernbach, at the Research Centre of Advanced Robotics and Environmental Science in Stuttgart, Germany, details the Soviet Union's extensive experiments, called "psychotronics". The paper is based on Russian technical journals and recently declassified documents.

Two missiles fired from southern Lebanon exploded in northern Israel, prompting the Israeli military to hit back with about twenty artillery shells, an army spokesman said.

"The Israeli artillery responded to the Sunday rocket attacks from Lebanon against Israel that left no victims, targeting the area where these projectiles were fired from," an army spokesman told AFP news agency.

The Katyusha-style rockets landed in a field west of the town of Kyriat Shmona, without causing any casualties or damage, Israeli military radio reported.

Although the fact that the still-unsolved attack on a power station near San Jose occurred just a handful of hours after the Boston Marathon bombing - and apparently raised a few eyebrows initially - its ride in the public eye has been decidedly under the radar to date.

But that may be changing.

Now that the ranking member of the House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Committee is decrying the incident as possibly indicative of a wider security issue, the brazen attack is getting a bit more attention, noted Foreign Policy.

"It is clear that the electric grid is not adequately protected from physical or cyber attacks," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) at a hearing on regulatory issues earlier this month, Foreign Policy noted.

When U.S. officials warn about "attacks" on electric power facilities these days, the first thing that comes to mind is probably a computer hacker trying to shut the lights off in a city with malware. But a more traditional attack on a power station in California has U.S. officials puzzled and worried about the physical security of the the electrical grid--from attackers who come in with guns blazing.

Around 1:00 AM on April 16, at least one individual (possibly two) entered two different manholes at the PG&E Metcalf power substation, southeast of San Jose, and cut fiber cables in the area around the substation. That knocked out some local 911 services, landline service to the substation, and cell phone service in the area, a senior U.S. intelligence official told Foreign Policy. The intruder(s) then fired more than 100 rounds from what two officials described as a high-powered rifle at several transformers in the facility. Ten transformers were damaged in one area of the facility, and three transformer banks -- or groups of transformers -- were hit in another, according to a PG&E spokesman.

One of Barack Obama's chief accomplishments has been to return the Constitution to a central place in our public discourse.

Unfortunately, the president fomented this upswing in civic interest not by talking up the constitutional aspects of his policy agenda, but by blatantly violating the strictures of our founding document. And he's been most frustrated with the separation of powers, which doesn't allow him to "fundamentally transform" the country without congressional acquiescence.

But that hasn't stopped him. In its first term, the Administration launched a "We Can't Wait" initiative, with senior aide Dan Pfeiffer explaining that "when Congress won't act, this president will." And earlier this year, President Obama said in announcing his new economic plans that "I will not allow gridlock, or inaction, or willful indifference to get in our way."

And so, as we reach the end of another year of political strife that's fundamentally based on clashing views on the role of government in society, I thought I'd update a list I made two years ago and hereby present President Obama's top 10 constitutional violations of 2013.

The serenity of President Barack Obama's Hawaiian vacation was rattled a little on Saturday when demonstrators aired grievances against unmanned aircraft and other issues in a small protest zone near the first family's upscale rented house.

Returning from an early morning gym visit at nearby Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Obama's motorcade passed a few dozen protesters holding signs with slogans including "Drones: Unethical and Illegal," "U.S. Bases Out" and "Close Guantanamo Now." Others expressed their opposition to genetically modified foods.