The future of The Senator
MIDDAY TODAY: April 1, 2009 88.1 fm WYPR WYPO WYPF
12 pm Eastern: Last month, after a run of 70 years, the historic Senator Theater in North Baltimore went dark. The owner of the art-deco cinema, Tom Kiefaber, is more than $1 million in debt, hasn't made loan payments in months, and a foreclosure auction looms in three weeks. Once again, Kiefaber and Senator fans are trying to patch together a rescue plan. The city of Baltimore apparently is poised to bail out the Senator if a viable nonprofit organization takes over. Should taxpayers be involved in reviving the old movie theater? What should this cultural landmark become in the future? And what role, if any, should Kiefaber have in all this? We'll ask him, right after the noon news from NPR . . .
1 pm Eastern: President Obama has made his first overseas trip to take part in the G20 summit in London. This is his first opportunity to meet his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev. Washington urgently needs Moscow's help in achieving key foreign policy goals, from rooting out terrorists in Afghanistan to containing Iran's nuclear ambitions. But the meeting of Presidents Obama and Medvedev comes at a time when, according to my guest, anti-American sentiment in Russia is the highest it’s been since the cold war. Douglas Birch, Moscow Bureau Chief for the Associated Press, and how Barack Obama might take the frost off American-Russian relations . . after the news from NPR.
