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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, says newly released recordings of conversations between Federal Reserve officials show that the same kind of cozy relationships that led to the 2008 financial crisis still dominate Wall Street.

In an interview with Morning Edition, Warren says the recordings provide definite proof of that relationship.

"You really do, for a moment, get to be the fly on the wall that watches all of it, and there it is to be exposed to everyone: the cozy relationship, the fact that the Fed is more concerned about its relationship with a too-big-to-fail bank than it is with protecting the American public," Warren says.

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Transcript: Sen. Warren's Full NPR Interview On Financial Regulation

Warren talked to Morning Edition days after ProPublica and This American Life ran stories about Carmen Segarra, a former bank examiner for the Federal Reserve in New York, who in 2012 surreptitiously recorded conversations by Fed officials considering regulatory decisions on Goldman Sachs.

The recordings don't reveal anything outright illegal. Instead, they reveal Fed officials discussing "legal but shady" transactions and then wringing their hands over how to delicately bring them up with the bank.

Warren, who before coming into office led an effort to create the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, says that trepidation is another thing wrong with regulators today.

"A regulator doesn't say to a big financial institution: 'Hey! Step right up here. Get your toes on the line, and so long as you can make a legal argument that you have not crossed the line then, hey, we're — we're all cool here,' " she says. "That's not the way regulation of large financial institutions is supposed to work — they're supposed to be using judgment. And remember, part of this judgment is about whether or not there has been compliance with the law. The fact that Goldman could mount a legal defense here is not really the point of these tapes. The point of these tapes is that the regulators are backing off long before anyone's in court making a legal argument about whether or not they came right up to the line or they crossed over the line."

The bottom line, Warren says, is that the United States needs regulators "who understand that they work for the American people, not for the big banks."

Much more of Steve Inskeep's conversation with Warren is on today's Morning Edition. Click here for your local NPR member station.

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Here's a roundup of the latest developments on Ebola. We'll update this post as news happens.

In Spain, Teresa Romero Ramos, the nurse who was admitted to a hospital in Madrid after caring for an infected priest who'd returned from West Africa, reportedly told health authorities three times that she had a fever before she was placed in quarantine.

The Guardian newspaper cited the Spanish paper El Pais as saying that she first contacted health authorities on Sept. 30. The Guardian writes:

"[When] she complained of a slight fever and fatigue. Romero Ramos called a specialised service dedicated to occupational risk at the Carlos III hospital where she worked and had treated an Ebola patient, said Antonio Alemany from the regional government of Madrid. But as the nurse's fever had not reached 38.6C, she was advised to visit her local clinic where she was reportedly prescribed paracetamol [aspirin].

"Days later, according to the El Pas newspaper, Romero Ramos called the hospital again to complain about her fever. No action was taken.

"On Monday, she called the Carlos III hospital again, this time saying she felt terrible. Rather than transport her to the hospital that had treated the two missionaries who had been repatriated with Ebola, Romero Ramos was instructed to call emergency services and head to the hospital closest to her home. She was transported to the Alcorcn hospital by paramedics who were not wearing protective gear, El Pas reported."

Reuters quotes Spanish health authorities as saying today that another person being monitored in Madrid for Ebola had tested negative for the disease:

"The man, a Spaniard who had travelled from Nigeria, was one of several people hospitalised after authorities confirmed on Monday that a Spanish nurse had caught the disease in Madrid.

A second nurse was also cleared of Ebola. A third nursing assistant was hospitalised late on Tuesday for monitoring, a source at La Paz hospital said - bringing the number of people examined in hospital for Ebola to five, two of whom tested negative."

On another note, the husband of the infected nurse has launched an online campaign to save the couple's dog, which authorities had sought to euthanize as a precaution.

The Guardian says:

"In a note distributed on social media by several animal protection organisations, Javier Limn Romero said health officials had asked for his consent to put down the dog Exclibur.

" 'I said no. And they told me that they would ask for a court order to enter my house and put him down,' Romero said in the note.

"The appeal was sent from Limn Romero's isolation ward in the Carlos III Hospital where his wife, Teresa Romero Ramos, is also in quarantine."

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Hospital workers attend a prayer vigil outside Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, on Tuesday. LM Otero/AP hide caption

itoggle caption LM Otero/AP

Hospital workers attend a prayer vigil outside Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, on Tuesday.

LM Otero/AP

In Dallas, Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who traveled from Liberia and was diagnosed with the disease in the United States, remains — at last report — in critical condition. He is being treated at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital with an experimental drug called brincidofovir.

Meanwhile, health officials are watching a group of people who had contact with Duncan after he developed symptoms of the disease but before he was placed in isolation at the hospital.

Duncan first sought hospital care on Sept. 25 and was admitted on Sept. 28. Before his hospitalization, 10 of the 48 people being monitored had close contact with him and are being most closely watched. Since the first symptoms of the disease can begin in eight to 10 days after exposure, "this is a very critical week," said Dr. David Lakey, the Texas health commissioner. "We're at a very sensitive period when a contact could develop symptoms. We're monitoring with extreme vigilance."

In Freetown, Sierra Leone, burial teams reportedly refused to collect bodies of Ebola victims in the capital and went on strike, apparently demanding more money, though officials there told The Associated Press that the situation has been "resolved."

The AP says: "In neighboring Liberia, health workers said they planned to strike if their demands for more money and safety equipment were not met by the end of the week."

And, in Geneva, the World Bank issued an estimate of the projected cost of the Ebola outbreak, saying it could reach $32.6 billion by the end of 2015 if it spreads significantly beyond worst-hit West Africa.

"The enormous economic cost of the current outbreak to the affected countries and the world could have been avoided by prudent ongoing investment in health systems-strengthening," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.

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The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

The words that so many ears know so well will soon be getting a place on the printed page — 1,034 pages, as a matter of fact. The songs of Bob Dylan have been compiled, annotated and illustrated in a collection so comprehensive, it could take some strength just to lift.

Set for publication on Oct. 28, The Lyrics: Since 1962 is the product of a collaboration between Dylan and Christopher Ricks, a British literary scholar and professor at Boston College. Ricks tells The New York Times that in his annotations, he aimed to point out the places where Dylan's songs changed over the singer's considerable career. Ricks says of Dylan's songs, "They're amazing, shape-changing things."

Only 3,000 copies will be printed, and they'll sell for $200 each at bookstores. Fifty signed copies of the book will also go for $5,000 each.

Sinead Takes To The Page: Not to be outdone, Sinead O'Connor has announced an upcoming book of her own — an as-yet untitled memoir slated for March 2016. And for those readers with a taste for a tell-all, never fear: There will be dirt. In a press release, the Irish singer says, "I look forward to dishing the sexual dirt on everyone I've ever slept with."

Grammarians, Stand Down: Relax, everyone. If you think you need to split an infinitive or even — God forbid — leave a modifier dangling, Steven Pinker's given you the green light. The chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary tells the New Republic that many grammar rules were born more from habit than necessity. "If you look at the grammar of English," he says, "you find that there is no rule that prohibits a dangling modifier. ... You find that it was pretty much pulled out of thin air by one usage guide a century ago and copied into every one since."

Superman Denied: The Supreme Court has declined to review a recent challenge lodged against Warner Brothers' claims of ownership over Superman. Brought by heirs of Joseph Shuster, co-creator of the Man of Steel, the decade-long challenge contested an agreement that DC Comics — a subsidiary of Warner Bros. — and Shuster's sister made at the time of Shuster's death, which resolved "any past, present or future claims against DC." In the lower-court decision against Shuster's heirs, says The Hollywood Reporter, a federal judge ruled that "the broad and all-encompassing language of the 1992 Agreement unmistakably operates to supersede all prior grants."

Against Funding Writers: In The Guardian, Allison Flood points to some choice words from Horace Engdahl, a member of the 18-person Swedish Academy that will decide the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. Speaking with the French newspaper La Croix, Engdahl laments the scholarships and grants that have turned the role of the writer into a profession: "Even though I understand the temptation, I think it cuts writers off from society, and creates an unhealthy link with institutions. Previously, writers would work as taxi drivers, clerks, secretaries and waiters to make a living. ... It was hard — but they fed themselves, from a literary perspective."

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Janet and Jaqueline Timal are 40-something-year-old sisters, and they have what they call a plastic surgery fund.

"I'm always saving money. When I see I've gathered up enough money for another surgery I do it," Jaqueline says.

She has had breast implants put in and also a tummy tuck. She's visiting the plastic surgeon's office again to do a famed Brazilian butt lift, which is the same as a breast lift, but on your backside. Janet has had a tummy tuck; she's now doing her breasts, too. Between them, they will have had five surgeries.

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The Changing Lives Of Women

Janet and Jaqueline aren't rich — far from it. One works at a retirement home; the other owns a small shop.

They both say this isn't about bankrupting themselves for beauty but rather the opposite — Jaqueline says she sees the procedures as an investment.

"I think we invest in beauty because this is very important for women here. You can get a better job because here they want a good appearance, a better marriage because men care about the way you look," she says.

Brazil has just surpassed the U.S. as the place with the most cosmetic surgeries performed in the world, even though it has fewer people and collectively less disposable income than the U.S.

Last year, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, 1.5 million cosmetic surgeries were carried out in Brazil — 13 percent of all the elective plastic surgeries done all over the world.

One reason is that Brazil simply has more plastic surgeons per capita than the U.S. There's a health care crisis in Brazil that has led the country to import doctors from Cuba to work in rural and poor areas. Yet there's a surfeit of plastic surgeons.

The other reason is women's increasing financial power. In the past 10 years, Brazil has grown economically, and salaries and disposable income have gone up. Women like the Timal sisters have overwhelmingly chosen to use that money on their appearance.

While in the U.S., people may hide that they have had plastic surgery like it's something shameful, in Brazil they flaunt it. The attitude is that having work done shows you care about yourself — and it's a status symbol.

But even though people have more money and greater access to credit, many of the poor wouldn't be able to afford to pay for all of their cosmetic procedures unless they got a helping hand.

'The Right To Dream'

The Ivo Pitanguy Institute in Rio de Janeiro is named after the famous Brazilian plastic surgeon who is renowned for saying, "The poor have the right to be beautiful too."

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Maria da Gloria de Sousa, 46, has had six surgeries at the Pitanguy Institute. "First off, I do this for me. These kind of things you need to do for yourself. And second, there's nothing better than getting a compliment, right? That you're good, that you're sexy, it's really good. I like it." Jimmy Chalk for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Jimmy Chalk for NPR

Maria da Gloria de Sousa, 46, has had six surgeries at the Pitanguy Institute. "First off, I do this for me. These kind of things you need to do for yourself. And second, there's nothing better than getting a compliment, right? That you're good, that you're sexy, it's really good. I like it."

Jimmy Chalk for NPR

Here the ethos is beauty shouldn't just be a privilege of those who can afford it.

The institute's lobby is packed as attendants call out the names of women — and a few men — who are waiting to be evaluated for cosmetic surgeries. This is a charity and teaching hospital, and the surgeries given are either free of charge or heavily subsidized.

The hospital offers all the usual fare: breast implants, breast lifts, Botox, nose jobs, face lifts and, of course, the ever-popular butt implant.

This is where the Timal sisters are having their surgeries. The price for Jaqueline's butt lift? It's 3,800 reals, about $1,600. At a private hospital it could run over three times that.

Francesco Mazzarone, who now heads the institute, explains why it's important to provide cosmetic surgeries to the disadvantaged.

"This is about equality, which is the philosophy Pitanguy created. Equal rights to everyone. The patients come here to get back something they lost in time. We give to them the right to dream," he says. "What we do here is altruism."

And the women NPR spoke with are grateful, but they also acknowledge that there is a lot of pressure in Brazil to conform to a physical ideal.

“ The patients come here to get back something they lost in time. We give to them the right to dream.

- Francesco Mazzarone of the Ivo Pitanguy Institute

Jaqueline Timal says her 21-year-old daughter has already had liposuction.

"I told her she should wait, but to be very beautiful, we push ourselves — and also society pushes us. I think she is too young for that, but as it was her great desire, I supported [her] so she can be happy," she says.

Some in Brazil, though, balk at the idea that happiness can be achieved at the end of a scalpel.

Being a feminist is a lonely business in Brazil, says Karen Polaz, a blogger and women's rights activist. She says despite the fact that Brazil has a female president, it's still a very sexist country. She says beauty as a right sounds good in principle; what that means in practice is that a very narrow view of what is beautiful is being pushed onto people here.

"Before accepting the idea that everyone has the right to be beautiful, we have to understand the image of beauty that is being sold, because this is an industry, an extremely lucrative industry. They transform women into consumers," she says.

And in Brazil, that transformation has a racial component.

What's Sold As Beautiful

Brazil imported more slaves, some 4 million, than any other country. Today, it is a primarily a mixed-race country, but you wouldn't know that by looking on TV and in magazines here, which rarely feature people of color.

“ If you look at the traditional body type of a Brazilian, you would see a woman with dark skin, curly hair, small breasts and a larger bottom, a body that is very different from the body marketed as desirable.

- Marcelo Silva Ramos, anthropologist and social scientist

"If you look at the traditional body type of a Brazilian, you would see a woman with dark skin, curly hair, small breasts and a larger bottom, a body that is very different from the body marketed as desirable," says Marcelo Silva Ramos, an anthropologist and social scientist.

He says what is sold as beautiful here is someone like Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen: a woman who is tall, thin, blond with straight hair, bigger breasts and fewer curves. That has meant people who don't look the right way — and by this he means "the white way" — are often excluded, he says.

"In our culture, the view is women who look acceptable get money, social mobility, power," he says.

Take for example the popular Miss Bumbum contest, which annually crowns Brazil's best backside. All of the contestants this year are lighter skinned.

Claudia Alende, the 22-year-old front-runner of this year's competition, looks like American actress Megan Fox, right down to the blue contact lenses she wears over her natural brown eyes. She says she is competing for a simple reason.

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"The contest is famous around the world, and I want to be recognized around the world and become famous, too," she says, laughing.

She says the contest is a way for her to become a TV presenter or an actress. The rules of the contest allow for plastic surgery anywhere but on the backside. She openly admits she's had work done.

"It was [because] everyone was doing [it] so I did [it]," she says.

Previous Miss Bumbum contestants have indeed gone on to arguably bigger and better things. One became a TV presenter; others have become actors and professional dancers on TV. But they are among the few.

Maria da Gloria de Sousa is 46 but looks 30. She's unemployed but has had six surgeries at the Pitanguy Institute and speaks about her procedures with characteristic Brazilian humor and openness.

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"Plastic surgery starts to become an addiction. You're born perfect, but then you have children and you know what having children does. Then suddenly comes the rebirth: plastic surgery. You can be beautiful, even more beautiful than you were before." — Maria da Gloria de Sousa, 46. Jimmy Chalk for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Jimmy Chalk for NPR

"Plastic surgery starts to become an addiction. You're born perfect, but then you have children and you know what having children does. Then suddenly comes the rebirth: plastic surgery. You can be beautiful, even more beautiful than you were before." — Maria da Gloria de Sousa, 46.

Jimmy Chalk for NPR

"I'm almost an android! I had done my breasts three times. I didn't stop there. I did a tummy tuck and then a lipo, and, lastly, I did my bottom," she says.

She says she has spent the equivalent of the cost of three cars on her operations.

"I'm much happier, there is no doubt about it. My bottom will never sag, my breasts will never sag. They will always be there, hard. It is very good to look at the mirror and feel fine," she says.

When I ask her if it was all worth it, she tells me she has a 21-year-old lover.

"Things have gotten a lot better," she quips.

She waves goodbye and, smiling, sashays down the beach — and nothing jiggles.

You can follow NPR's South America correspondent Lourdes Garcia-Navarro @lourdesgnavarro.

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