Sunday's Sports Scoreboard

All Times Eastern
Interleague
Cleveland 5, Cincinnati 3 F
N.Y. Mets 6, Minnesota 0 F
Detroit 10, Atlanta 4 F
Philadelphia 11, Toronto 2 F
Baltimore 4, Washington 3 F
Arizona 2, Tampa Bay 1 F
Chicago …

Transportation department tests best-value contracting

In May 2004, Tucker Ferguson and Rich Wagman went on a trip to Canada and Europe. The PennDOT bureau director and highway contractor, respectively, didn't do much sightseeing. They spent their time learning about international-transportation projects as part of a federal government-sponsored program. They returned to the U.S. enthused about a common international practice that is just starting to become popular stateside: best value contracting.

PennDOT has used best value once, in Somerset County. It's about to award another best-value contract on a bridge project in Washington County. Instead of selecting a contractor through a low-bid process, the agency is picking one based on …

3 killed, 7 injured in hotel fire in northern Serbia

An overnight hotel fire in northern Serbia killed three people and injured seven, police said Wednesday.

The fire in the Putnik hotel in Novi Sad, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Belgrade, started around midnight and was extinguished early Wednesday, police said.

"The fire started in the basement, …

Rumsfeld may face his day of reckoning

He was going to get away with it.

It appeared that Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary under President George W. Bush who made besmirching the Constitution a national policy, was going to escape responsibility for the torture and abuse of prisoners that happened under his watch.

President Barack Obama didn't want to touch it, and the courts were showing the same yellow streak. Rumsfeld was going to spend his retirement writing self-congratulatory books and picking up hypocritical honors like the "Defender of the Constitution" Award bestowed on him this year by the American Conservative Union.

Not so fast.

Two cases this month, including one by a federal …

`Junk' chief takes Fifth

((PHOTO …

Israel Answers Attack With Lethal Blows

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hezbollah and Israel traded rocket and missile barrages for a sixth day Monday, as warfare that has erupted in the Middle East showed no sign of easing. Hezbollah rockets struck deep inside Israel, killing eight people in the northern city of Haifa, and Israel retaliated with waves of missiles from Lebanon's north to south and into the Bekaa Valley near Syria.

The toll on both sides rose to above 200, most of them civilians, as strikes continued into Monday. In addition to the Israeli victims at a rail repair facility in Haifa, an Israeli rocket blew up a Lebanese army position, killing eight soldiers, and a sea-launched missile killed at least nine people in the …

US, Venezuela restoring envoys after expulsions

The United States said Thursday it is sending its ambassador back to Venezuela more than nine months after he was expelled by President Hugo Chavez, creating an opening for a less hostile relationship even though many disagreements remain.

The pending return of ambassadors to Washington and Caracas indicates both sides are testing the waters and aiming to re-establish channels of communication after Chavez and President Barack Obama had a warm first encounter at a summit in April.

Venezuela said Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez will return to work in Washington on Friday, while the U.S. State Department said veteran diplomat Patrick Duddy will be back in Caracas …