USA

Classes at Northern Illinois University resumed Monday in DeKalb for the first time since Feb. 14, when a former graduate student shot and killed five students and wounded 17 others before committing suicide. A memorial service drew 12,000 people Sunday. Plans for a permanent memorial are being sketched out.

San Francisco-based Visa Inc. said Monday that it expects to raise nearly $19 billion from an initial public offering, which would make it easily the largest in US history. More than 400 million shares will go on sale for $37 to $42 a share.

The New York Philharmonic arrived in North Korea Monday for a historic 48-hour stay at the invitation of the isolationist, communist government. A Tuesday concert in Pyongyang will be broadcast live on North Korea's state-run TV and radio in a performance hailed as musical diplomacy.

Governors meeting in Washington identified the need to rebuild the nation's roads, bridges, and other infrastructure as a priority for federal spending if Congress takes up a second stimulus package. A bipartisan group of governors planned to make the point to President Bush Monday.

A growing number of economic forecasters see the US headed for a recession, according to a survey released Monday by the National Association for Business Economics. Forty-five percent of the experts on the group's forecasting panel expect a recession this year.

The average price of self-serve regular gasoline jumped 16 cents per gallon over the past two weeks to $3.10, approaching the all-time high of almost $3.26 set last May, according to the Lundberg Survey of gas stations.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves Los Angeles, was named co-winner in the municipal category of "the Academy Awards of water." Clearbrook, B.C., shared the honor at the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting held annually in West Virginia.