Breathing Room

NOTHING IN Belarus is as easy as it seems. A deal to defuse a political confrontation between authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko and the country's parliament began unraveling almost as soon as it was struck yesterday.Under the deal, brokered by Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, the parliament is to agree not to seek Mr. Lukashenko's impeachment. For his part, the president, who wanted to acquire nearly dictatorial powers and extend his term until the year 2001 through a referendum tomorrow, has pledged to regard the results as non-binding.

The casino operator whose bailout proposal for the state's harness tracks was rejected by track owners this week will continue to talk to them, but is losing patience with the process."

Opponent: Hershey BearsSite: Baltimore ArenaTime: 5 p.m.Radio: WITH (1230 AM), WAMD (970 AM)Outlook: The Bandits swept the Bears in home-and-home encounters two weekends ago, closing to within a point of them for second place in the Southern Division. Hershey was struggling then, losing four in a row, but has subsequently won five of six games to open up some breathing room. Baltimore has won four of seven games contested between the longtime rivals. LW Chris Herperger will be facing his old mates for the first time as a Bandit.

Those footsteps the Spirit heard belonged to the Harrisburg Heat.Two days ago, Harrisburg was within a half game of the Spirit, which was second behind the Cleveland Crunch in the National Professional Soccer League's American Division. Now, thanks to two straight victories, the Spirit (18-9) has a two-game lead on the Heat (15-10).Led by ex-Heat player Franklin McIntosh, who had two goals last night and has 18 points in three games against his former team, the Spirit defeated Harrisburg, 11-9, before 5,619 at the Baltimore Arena.

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.

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.

LANDOVER -- Preseason games are for players on the edge, fighting for a spot on the NHL roster, fighting to avoid another trip to the minor leagues.Last night, defenseman Jason Woolley, battling for a spot as the Capitals sixth defender, and right wing Reggie Savage, trying to avoid another season with the Baltimore Skipjacks, gave coach Terry Murray something to think about during Washington's 6-4 victory over the Boston Bruins."

The players' searing intensity matched the game's championship significance.The Dayton Raiders looked like a team determined to win the North-Central District American Legion baseball championship Monday at the Dayton Rod and Gun Club's Buckshot Field.The Raiders entered the game atop the district standings with 66TC record, and Dundalk, Monday's opponent, was in second place at 6-3.When Dundalk exploded for a five-run first inning, however, Dayton's first-place stature was in jeopardy.But Dayton rallied for one run in the bottom of the first, five more in the second and four in the fourth to take a 10-7 win and open some breathing room in the race for a first-half district title.

The George L. Schnader Jr. real estate development company, which has filed for protection from creditors, has seen hard times in the housing industry before.The 1974 slump in the market hit the company hard.The Schnader company, founded in 1951, went from 60 employees in early 1973 to 12 by the end of 1974.George Schnader, then the president of the Home Builders Association of Maryland, said it was the worst year in the history of the housing industry. He and the association were also fighting no-growth sentiment from residents in Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties.