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Baltimore Health Commissioner Peter L. Beilenson said yesterday that he wants to double the city's capacity to treat drug addicts and expand services for them -- but he needs about $20 million to do it."The system as it exists makes sense," Beilenson told 24 directors who primarily receive money from the city, state and federal government through the Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems Inc., the umbrella agency that oversees funding for the city's 39 publicly backed centers. "I do believe we can make positive changes."

USinternetworking Inc., an Annapolis company that offers business software over the Internet, has become Wall Street's latest upstart high-tech darling.In its first day of public trading yesterday, the company saw its stock zoom from an opening price of $21 to close at $57.50 on the Nasdaq market. USinternet-working was the 10th most active stock on U.S. markets, with 12.68 million shares changing hands.This near-tripling of USinternetworking's value came in spite of the fact that the company was founded just a year ago January and has yet to turn a profit.

Spurred on by its pending acquisition of Howard Hughes Corp., Rouse Co. expects a nearly 20 percent gain in earnings this year, shareholders were told yesterday.Based on that projection, the $520 million Hughes transaction slated to close on June 13 could boost the Columbia-based real estate developer's 1996 earnings before interest, taxes and noncash charges to a record $130 million.Rouse also believes that Hughes, which will provide the company with capital from existing and planned projects and future land sales in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, will greatly enhance its balance sheet in years to come.

Independent Can Co., an Aberdeen manufacturer, is seeking $76,000 in tax credits because it wants to hire 40 workers and expand its plant, according to a bill to be introduced before the Harford County Council Tuesday.The company, which makes decorative cookie tins and other cans, owns five buildings totaling 250,000 square feet in the Riverside Business Park, said George Harrison, a county spokesman.The plan is to add a building on a 4 1/2 -acre lot adjacent to the existing operations in Riverside, Mr. Harrison said.

A request to expand a Timonium day care center from eight children to 20 has been turned down by the county Board of Appeals.Neighbors had protested the expansion proposal for the center operated by Fatemeh Falahi and Mohammad Haerian in the first block of E. Timonium Road.The board issued an oral ruling last month, followed by the written opinion Dec. 15. The center closed several weeks ago, according to attorney J. Carroll Holzer, who represented the opponents.

Two of the three Carroll commissioners say they want to expand the county Planning Commission to make the five-member panel more representative.Commissioner W. Benjamin Brown said increasing the board to seven members would "guard against overloading [the commission] with one mind-set."Commissioner Donald I. Dell voted against the expansion, saying the change was premature. The commissioners, who took office Dec. 5, should wait a few months before considering a change, he said.Mr. Brown said the expansion was his idea and that Commissioner Richard T. Yates was "very receptive" to the change.

In 1987, the idea was to expand by two teams. But the demand was staggering, the cities were viable and the commissioner had vision. The NBA went to four teams.Charlotte and Miami for the 1988-89 season, Orlando and Minneapolis for '89-90. Nearly everyone was satisfied. No one cried foul.This is a league that responds to interest in its product. This is a league that thinks big, rather than expand into places like Jacksonville, the nation's 56th-largest TV market.Now, six years later, the NBA is ready to expand again.

Two years ago, county churches were trimming budgets any way they could to pay the bills.Now, many are rejoicing over a surge in giving and some are demonstrating greater financial stability by building new facilities.In a random sampling of the leaders of 25 churches, nearly half said they were about to begin building projects, ranging from larger sanctuaries to expanded Sunday school and social facilities.Church leaders said they aren't certain that their healthier bank accounts reflect a stronger economy so much as their own efforts to pare excess spending during tough times.

One theory has it that the universe is constantly expanding, which would explain Paul Prudhomme, the gun-slinging gourmet.But not the NFL.Definitely not the NFL.The NFL stays the same size -- now, and unless I'm wrong, forever.I mean you don't believe these guys when they say this latest delay may be hardly a delay at all, do you?Sure, they'll expand soon. If certain conditions can be met. If it is discovered that Paul Tagliabue was really the fifth Beatle. If you can say Bundesbank without smiling.

Rejecting appeals by both sides in the struggle over Baltimore Bancorp, a federal appeals court affirmed yesterday a lower-court ruling ordering a new stockholder vote on whether the company's board of directors should be expanded to 28 members from 18.A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a one-sentence ruling affirming last month's decision by U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz, who said a dispute over more than 1...

A committee of city police commanders and union representatives has recommended expanding a pilot program in which officers work four 10-hour shifts every week, a system they credit with reducing crime in the Northeastern District, according to a report obtained by The Sun. The new schedule, in place there since November 2007, puts Northeastern officers on the streets four days and then off three. The arrangement is popular with the police rank and file, who typically work six days straight in eight-hour shifts.

The group that oversees substance-abuse treatment in Baltimore has received a $360,000 grant to help the city more effectively expand use of buprenorphine, a drug-addiction medication. Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems Inc. announced yesterday that the money from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will be used to help city officials streamline the process of expanding a program that has treated nearly 700 patients in six participating clinics to one that aims to eventually treat 10,000 addicts.

The city's spending board approved an office improvement loan yesterday that helped entice a Chicago-based insurance corporation to expand its Baltimore presence. The Board of Estimates voted unanimously to lend $900,000 to Aon Corp., which plans to expand next year into an office at 500 E. Pratt St. Aon has about 180 workers at its office at 111 Market Place. Aon will pay 1 percent interest on the 15-year loan and provide no collateral. City and real estate officials said the deal is a standard incentive.

With a week remaining in this year's legislative session, lawmakers seem likely to pass several bills expanding access to health care. "It's a significant year for health care expansion," said Vincent DeMarco, president of Maryland Citizens' Health Initiative, a group supporting universal medical coverage. Both houses have approved - unanimously - legislation letting low- and moderate-income uninsured people take advantage of the state's purchasing power in buying prescriptions, which promises discounts of up to 40 percent.

For the second year in a row, slots foes appear to have beaten back a deep-pocketed gambling industry's efforts to expand in Maryland. But experts say it almost certainly will not be the last battle over casino-style gambling here. The Maryland market is too lucrative to abandon, said Steven Rittvo, president of a New Orleans-based gambling consulting firm. "As long as the state is facing a budget shortfall, I think it comes back until it passes or until there is an alternative revenue source," Rittvo said.

CHICAGO -- A long time ago, by which I mean the year 2000, conservatives didn't want to expand the size and reach of government. Today, it's plain that their sentiments have changed. They still don't want Democrats to expand the size and reach of government. But when Republicans do it -- well, let the good times roll! Being a libertarian, I often disagree with conservatives. But conservatives have traditionally shared the libertarian view that the central government is too big, too expensive, too powerful and too intrusive.

When Baltimore began attracting throngs of people to meet, sleep in downtown hotels and shop and eat in the Inner Harbor, officials decided that only one thing was missing from the city's renaissance: a first-class convention complex that would act as a magnet for visitors. That required spending $151 million to expand the existing center, with the promise that one national convention would overlap the next in Baltimore - bigger conventions than ever before, more people than ever before, more spending and tax revenue than ever before.

CLEVELAND - Gliatech Inc. shares fell as much as 27 percent after the surgical products maker said U.S. regulators suspended the review of an anti-scarring gel as they questioned the validity of data Gliatech submitted with applications to expand the gel's use. Shares of the Cleveland company closed down $1.25 to $5 yesterday, after dropping as low as $4.56. The Food and Drug Administration suspended its review of pre-marketing applications for ADCON-L gel, used to prevent internal scarring and pain after spinal surgery, until questions about testing are answered, the company said Saturday in a statement.

Baltimore Health Commissioner Peter L. Beilenson said yesterday that he wants to double the city's capacity to treat drug addicts and expand services for them -- but he needs about $20 million to do it."The system as it exists makes sense," Beilenson told 24 directors who primarily receive money from the city, state and federal government through the Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems Inc., the umbrella agency that oversees funding for the city's 39 publicly backed centers. "I do believe we can make positive changes."

USinternetworking Inc., an Annapolis company that offers business software over the Internet, has become Wall Street's latest upstart high-tech darling.In its first day of public trading yesterday, the company saw its stock zoom from an opening price of $21 to close at $57.50 on the Nasdaq market. USinternet-working was the 10th most active stock on U.S. markets, with 12.68 million shares changing hands.This near-tripling of USinternetworking's value came in spite of the fact that the company was founded just a year ago January and has yet to turn a profit.