Breathing Room

As our sluggish economy slides into a painful recession, a growing number of small companies will find that the debt they assumed in the optimistic 1980s has come back to haunt them in the '90s. Responding to this, many will search for a fresh infusion of working capital to restructure their debt, thus easing the credit crunch. But in most cases, this search will turn out to be a wild goose chase."With many lenders and investors now cautiously sitting on the sidelines waiting for business conditions to improve, finding capital to reorganize debt will be a difficult, if not impossible, challenge," says Michael Busch, chief executive of the Wharton Resource Group Inc., a management consulting and investment banking firm.

The redesigned track at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway features 30-inch strips of rippled asphalt in all four corners, as well as new warm-up lanes for cars entering and leaving the pits.During practice and qualifying, injuries have been cut drastically as the change in driving area has cut down the angles off the turns. Now if a driver loses control coming out of a turn, he is more likely to scrape along the wall than to ram it feet first at 220 mph.Defending Indy 500 champion Al Unser Jr. gave the following account of a lap around the track:In Turn 1, the new warm-up lane is superb.

The Howard County Circuit Courthouse is about to get some breathing room - about 6,300 square feet of it. The state's attorney's office plans to move to roomier offices down the street in the Carroll Building next month, freeing a two-level corner in the chronically cramped building that court officials say will quickly be filled. While the changes will mean more room for the sheriff's office, one of the county's masters and other employees, court officials will have to make do with the space as is. A renovation that would rehab the space to create a fully functional courtroom, an additional master's hearing room and more jury rooms is planned.

The Howard County Circuit Courthouse is about to get some breathing room - about 6,300 square feet of it. The state's attorney's office plans to move to roomier offices down the street in the Carroll Building next month, freeing a two-level corner in the chronically cramped building that court officials say will quickly be filled. While the changes will mean more room for the sheriff's office, one of the county's masters and other employees, court officials will have to make do with the space as is. A renovation that would rehab the space to create a fully functional courtroom, an additional master's hearing room and more jury rooms is planned.

The folders on top of the cabinets in the Howard County Circuit Court file room reach so high they almost brush the sprinklers -- a clear violation of fire codes. Boxes containing files crowd the narrow paths in the clerk's office, allowing less than 2 feet of space for workers to pass. In this tightly packed office, there is nowhere else to put the files, court officials say. Crowding has long been a problem in the county's historic 158-year-old courthouse in Ellicott City, a building that served a variety of county functions in its early days.

Howard County court officials are seeking about $860,000 to reconfigure the county's cramped circuit courthouse to meet the county judicial system's most pressing needs. The money would be used to create a fifth jury courtroom and more hearing rooms while moving the state's attorney's office to another building. In a letter to County Executive James N. Robey last week, Administrative Judge Raymond J. Kane Jr. said the fix recommended by a consultant's recent report should be enough to allow court officials to "work effectively" for five years - or until the state awards the county a sixth Circuit Court judge.

As the alleged leader of the Black Guerrilla Family gang at the Baltimore City Detention Center, federal prosecutors say, Tavon White could get access to pretty much whatever he wanted: drugs, phones, money and sex. He is now being held under more straitened circumstances at a state prison in Cumberland, according to his attorney, who is asking a judge to reconsider the conditions of his detention. "The totality of his belongings were as follows: A jump suit, one pair of underwear, shower sandals, a sheet for the bed. Period," the lawyer, Gary E. Proctor, wrote in a court filing.

WASHINGTON -- In all the postmortems on President Clinton's prime-time news conference, in which he answered a steady stream of questions about the Whitewater case, it should be borne in mind that he called the conference on his own initiative at a time the polls indicated serious slippage in his public support.He was not dragged kicking and screaming before the reporters but instead held the news conference in prime time clearly to assure the largest possible audience. He and his political advisers were well aware that the drumbeat of queries about Whitewater would dominate the session, and he deftly played on that concentration to underscore a winning point with the electorate.

In a move that cast new gloom over Europe's ambitions to become a unified economic power on the world stage, European Community finance ministers early today diluted their foundering system of fixed exchange rates, nearly to the vanishing point.The modification will effectively allow other EC currencies in the system, including the French franc, to be devalued by slightly more than 13 percent against the German mark, the EC's strongest currency.No currency was actually devalued, however. Instead, the finance ministers decided that each currency would be permitted to lose up to 15 percent of its value against the EC's strongest currency.

GENERAL Motors' decision to keep its 64-year-old Baltimore Assembly plant operating four more years is a significant opportunity for state and local officials.It isn't yet cause for celebration: One shift of 1,200 employees may be eliminated, and the plant's fate beyond 2003 is uncertain. But with 2,600 jobs and an estimated $1 billion impact on the local economy, GM's Broening Highway plant is a major economic asset to the region.Its future has been up in the air for years. Previously, GM said it would wind down Broening's production of Chevrolet Astro and GMC Safari minivans at the end of 2001.