Democracy Now! Thursday, August 21, 2008

Today's Headlines

• Report: 79 Million Have Trouble Paying Medical Bills
• FBI Agents May Get More Power to Probe Anyone
• 40 Die in Bomb Blasts at Pakistani Arms Factory
• Iraq and US Negotiators Complete Draft Security Agreement
• Poll Shows McCain Takes 5-Point Lead Over Obama
• Obama Ad Criticizes McCain Ties to Abramoff Colleague
• McCain on Reinstituting a Military Draft: “I Don’t Disagree”
• Libby Questioned Over Forged CIA Iraq Letter
• Report: NATO Friendly Fire Killed French Troops in Afghanistan
• Court Rules Passengers Can Challenge Inclusion on No-Fly List
• Peruvian Indigenous Groups End Protests After Land Law Thrown Out
• Ohio Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, 58, Dies

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  Texas Death Row Prisoner Faces Execution Tonight for Murder He Didn't Commit

  A thirty-five-year-old man on death row in Texas faces execution tonight for a murder he didn’t commit. Jeff Wood is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6:00 p.m., unless Governor Rick Perry grants him clemency. Wood was an accomplice in a 1996 convenience store robbery. He was sitting in a truck outside when the clerk was shot and killed. The man who pulled the trigger was executed six years ago, but Wood was given a death sentence for the same crime under the Texas law of parties. We go to the prison where Jeff Wood is awaiting death to speak with his wife, mother and father outside. We also speak with Liliana Segura of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty.

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  Tensions High as NATO Suspends Formal Contacts with Russia Over Georgia Conflict

  Tensions are high between the United States and Russia over the ongoing conflict in Georgia. On Wednesday, soon after NATO foreign ministers decided to cut formal ties with Russia until it withdrew all its troops from Georgia, President Bush vowed to continue to support Georgia. We speak with William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation.

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  NYC Agrees to Pay 52 Antiwar Protesters $2 Million

  The City of New York has agreed to pay $2 million to a group of fifty-two protesters who were swept up in a mass arrest during a peaceful antiwar protest outside the headquarters of the Carlyle Group in 2003. We speak with the lead plaintiff in the case, Sarah Kunstler.