MARC SANTORA

A powerful explosion in Lower Manhattan on Thursday caused two buildings to collapse and ignited a large fire that quickly spread to neighboring buildings, leaving at least 19 people injured.

More than two years after Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 schoolchildren and six faculty members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, as well as killing his mother and himself, a state commission released a draft report of a wide-ranging set of recommendations Thursday with the goal of preventing such killings.

As investigators continued to search for clues as to why a Metro-North Railroad passenger train flew off the tracks on Sunday, killing four people and injuring dozens more, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Monday that it appeared that the train was traveling too fast as it hit a curve in the tracks.

Stuffed in a container and tucked inside a false wall in the basement of the home JoAnn Nichols shared with her husband in upstate New York, her body was inevitably whittled away by time.