Iran was quick on Saturday to express condolences after the "tragic" shooting rampage that left 26 people dead, including 20 small children, at an elementary school in the United States.

Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast condemned the "tragic incident" and expressed sympathy with the families of the victims, the state broadcaster's website IRIB reported.

Hugo Chavez's first words after emerging from surgery were "How are my (Venezuelan) people?" according to officials, who proclaimed here Friday that the ailing leader is on the road to recovery.

Venezuela's Information Minister Ernesto Villegas told reporters that Chavez spoke with family members immediately after an operation to control bleeding after his cancer surgery earlier this week, and that his recovery was proceeding "satisfactorily."

Police in California are looking for a man who reportedly walked into a California mosque saying he had a gun and threatened to kill everyone, a spokeswoman said Friday.

The man entered the Ibrahim Khalilullah Islamic Center in Fremont, south of San Francisco, during afternoon prayer Wednesday, said mosque leaders, urging official action to track down the man.

German prosecutors said on Friday they believed Islamist extremists were behind a botched bomb attack at Bonn train station.

The federal prosecutor said in a statement that there was enough evidence to suggest Monday's incident was "an attempted explosives' attack by a terrorist organization with a radical Islamist bent".

Russia on Friday condemned U.S. sanctions against officials implicated in the death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky as "dangerous" meddling and hit back with moves for a bill of its own blacklisting American citizens.

The bill, which grants normal trade relations with Russia but also includes a blacklist of alleged human rights abusers, had angered Russian President Vladimir Putin and was signed into law Friday by President Barack Obama.

A heavily armed young gunman slaughtered 20 small children and six adults at a school in an idyllic Connecticut town on Friday, in one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history.

Connecticut State Police spokesman Lieutenant Paul Vance said 18 children were shot dead inside Sandy Hook Elementary School and that two more died of their wounds in hospital.

Will she, won't she, will she, won't she, will she join the dance? To borrow from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," that's the question on everyone's lips about Hillary Clinton and the 2016 White House race.

And just like Alice, who followed the White Rabbit down the hole into a strange and topsy-turvy universe, nothing is ever quite what it seems in Clintonland or the ever-shifting world of U.S. politics.

Russian investigators said Friday that they had launched a fraud probe against opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his brother, putting new legal pressure on the protest movement's most charismatic figure.

The new probe -- the second major investigation launched against Navalny -- also comes as the opposition plans an unsanctioned rally Saturday in Moscow after the City Hall denied to authorize their proposed routes.

The elderly mother of Nigeria's finance minister was on Friday freed from kidnappers after being abducted from her home in the country's south last weekend in a crime that shocked the country, police said.

Details of the release were unclear and there was no indication of whether a ransom was paid to free the 82-year-old Kamene Okonjo, whose daughter Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a high-profile minister and ex-World Bank managing director.

A strong 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of California early Friday immediately followed by a 6.1-magnitude temblor, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties from the earthquakes, which took place 262 kilometers (163 miles) and 93 kilometers (58 miles) off the coast, respectively, according to seismologists.