Adam Nagourney

Eight years after voters in Hawaii approved a referendum clearing the way for construction of the rail line, many of the concerns that have been voiced during a 40-year debate over the project have turned out to have merit.

Los Angeles public schools were abruptly shut down and students sent home Tuesday after police received what officials described as a credible bomb threat against the nation’s second-largest school system, throwing into disarray the lives of millions of Angelenos — students, parents, teachers and other school staff members.

The couple who carried out the deadly attack that killed 14 people here last week had long been radicalized and had been practicing at a target range days before their murder spree.

On Wednesday morning, Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, left their 6-month-old daughter with Farook’s mother, telling her they were going out for a doctor’s appointment, a relative said.

A heavily armed couple terrorized a California city, killing at least 14 before leading police on a manhunt culminating in a shootout that left the suspects dead.

Californians cut their water use in April by 13.5 percent over the same month two years ago, a big improvement from March and the first indication of how the state is reacting to mandatory water cutbacks imposed by Gov. Jerry Brown to deal with the region’s ongoing drought.

Mario M. Cuomo, the three-term governor of New York who commanded the attention of the country with a compelling public presence, a forceful defense of liberalism and his exhaustive ruminations about whether to run for president, died at home in Manhattan on Thursday, according to a family friend. He was 82.