Bomb threat empties NIU buildings; NY college locked down

The evacuations did not affect any classrooms at NIU, where a gunman killed five students and himself inside a lecture hall Feb. 14.

Authorities received a bomb threat targeting the health services building about 2 p.m., according to the school's Web site. That building and the adjacent telecommunications building were evacuated.

Campus police declined to comment.

Justin Weaver, managing editor of the NIU student newspaper, the Northern Star, said students weren't certain how to react.

"I don't know if anyone here was ready for this, after the 14th," he said, referring to the Feb. 14 attack at NIU, about 60 miles west of Chicago. "And we just had a vigil last night for Virginia Tech.

"Nobody needs this right now. Nobody wants this."

Also on Thurdsay, authorities locked down Utica College in upstate New York after getting a tip that an Albany-area man made an unspecified threat against the college.

On Monday, several Midwestern schools closed because of threatening graffiti. Wednesday was the one-year anniversary of the shooting at Virginia Tech in which a gunman killed 32 people, then himself.