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INDIANAPOLIS – Top-ranked Illinois heads into the NCAA tournament with one loss and the overall No. 1 seed, while Washington was this year’s surprise at the top of the men’s bracket. LSU and Tennessee were among the top seeds in the women’s tournament bracket. Joining the Big Ten (search) champion …

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Democratic vice presidential candidate and former senator John Edwards (search) will be among visiting fellows at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics this spring, the school announced Wednesday. Edwards, 51, of North Carolina, ran for the Democratic nomination for president before being chosen as Sen. John Kerry’s running …

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Two tornadoes tore through northern Bangladesh (search), killing at least 28 people, injuring nearly 900 and leaving thousands homeless, officials and news reports said Monday. The tornadoes struck late Sunday almost simultaneously, blowing away huts in dozens of farming villages in Gaibandha and Rangpur districts. At least …

PARIS – Lance Armstrong (search) finished 140th Sunday in the prologue of the Paris-Nice cycling race, a key tuneup for the Tour de France (search) in July when he will go for a record seventh straight title. Armstrong, who previously raced in this event in 1999, has not placed a …

OMAHA, Neb. – The nation’s largest medical unit for victims of highly lethal infectious diseases such as smallpox, anthrax (search) and the plague opened in Nebraska on Monday. The Nebraska Medical Center‘s (search) 10-bed containment wing has a separate ventilation system, alarms to indicate escaping air, a sterilizer for items …

RAMALLAH, West Bank – Extremists on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides pose a significant threat to a truce that 13 Palestinian factions agreed to extend this week. Rogue Palestinian groups, some of which are believed to be funded by the Lebanon-based Hezbollah (search), remain outside the truce, which is …

WASHINGTON – Setting up an independent arbiter of freedom-of-information disputes with the government would make appeals for the release of information more fair and less expensive, witnesses told a Senate panel Tuesday. “It will more than pay for itself in diverting cases from the courts,” Thomas M. Susman, a lawyer …

LOS ANGELES – Eastman Kodak Co. (EK) said Wednesday it would restate earnings for the first three quarters of 2004 and all of 2003 to fix accounting errors related to income taxes, pensions and retirement benefits and other issues. Separately, the photography company said it would close a paper plant …

NEW YORK – Surgeons successfully removed fluid and scar tissue from Bill Clinton’s chest cavity Thursday, cleaning up complications from the former president’s heart bypass operation of six months ago. Clinton was “awake and resting comfortably” after four hours of surgery, said Herbert Pardes, president of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University …

HARARE, Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe’s highest court has barred 3.4 million citizens living abroad — over 20 percent of the country’s population — from voting in this month’s parliamentary elections. Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku (search) and four Supreme Court justices said an urgent appeal filed by expatriate Zimbabweans “has no merit …