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The Syrian smuggler agrees to meet at an outdoor cafe in Kilis, a town on the edge of Syria-Turkey frontier. As waiters deliver glasses of hot, sweet tea and Turks play dominoes at nearby tables, he talks about his role in the "Jihadi Highway" and why he finally decided to quit.

The smuggler, in his mid-20s, is open about every aspect of the lucrative enterprise, except for revealing his name. He is well known to the militants of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, who paid him well for his skills, and who certainly would kill him for speaking to a journalist.

For the past two years, he says, he helped hundreds of bearded young men — and in recent months, four young women — cross the Turkish border into Syria to join ISIS.

He says he is not a religious radical, just someone who needed to support his family as the Syrian civil war dragged on. He decided to quit when more moderate rebels, who now control Syrian territory across the border from Kilis, threatened him. The moderate rebels wanted the smuggling routes closed to stop more fighters from joining the ranks of ISIS.

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Smoke rises from buildings in Syria's Kobani city on the Turkish-Syrian border, near Sanliurfa, on Monday. Sedat Suna/EPA/Landov hide caption

itoggle caption Sedat Suna/EPA/Landov

Smoke rises from buildings in Syria's Kobani city on the Turkish-Syrian border, near Sanliurfa, on Monday.

Sedat Suna/EPA/Landov

Smuggling is a good business, he says with a shrug: "The money is very good, but you feel you are bad."

But that's not how he felt in 2012, when he began his work. At that point he believed he was helping the Syrian revolution that began as peaceful protests against an oppressive regime.

As the Syrian regime stepped up the violence and it became clear there was no prospect for international support, local rebels welcomed international recruits willing to fight and die in Syria. They said they came for jihad.

"They are excited people and don't think about the risks," he says.

It was easy work at first, says the smuggler.

"The Turkish people, in the beginning, they just closed their eyes," he explains.

At Turkish airports near the border, he would greet bearded men who had all kinds of foreign accents, and who came without luggage.

At the airport, he says, some Turks voiced their support. "Good luck in jihad in Syria," they would say, and the smuggler believed he had Turkey's tacit support.

Even when his clients were young women — between 17 and 20, from Tunisia, Morocco, one from Britain — no one stopped him. The four had met militant fighters online and came for marriage and jihad.

The Jihadi Highway from Turkey to Syria long has been an open secret, well documented by the international media, Syrian activists and the Turkish press. The militants often were spotted in border towns buying supplies before crossing into Syria to join ISIS.

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Vice President Joe Biden said in a speech at Harvard University's Kennedy School last week that "our allies in the region were our largest problem" in promoting the growth of radical groups.

Biden said that U.S. allies, including Turkey, were so determined to unseat Syrian President Bashar Assad that they channeled money and guns to anyone willing to fight.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was incensed, and Biden has apologized. The diplomatic spat comes at a sensitive time, as the U.S. wants Turkey to join the anti-ISIS coalition.

"The Turkish government steadfastly denies that it has ever, ever helped (ISIS)," says Soli Ozel, a specialist in international relations at Istanbul's Kadir Has University.

But the Turkish media has documented tacit backing, says Ozel, including "turning a blind eye, allowing them to come and be treated in Turkish hospitals when they are wounded."

Turkish analysts say the indirect support was based on Turkey's gamble as the Syrian revolt raged on that the militants would boost the rebel cause in the absence of Western support.

Turkey was slow to see the danger, even as Washington began to raise the alarm. In recent weeks, Turkey has stepped up border patrols and arrested suspected militants.

The Syrian smuggler chain smokes as he explains that the Turks finally are shutting down the pipeline used by him and others like him.

"All of them, they got warning" from the Turkish border police, he says. "So, it's not easy to go to ISIS from the border."

But it's also not impossible, he says with a grin and glint of professional pride.

But those moves may have come too late for Turkey, where the spread of radical Islam now makes the ISIS threat a direct domestic danger, says Ozel. There are reports that more than a thousand Turks have already joined the militants with support cells inside the country.

"We know that, for instance, these guys had recruitment offices in different parts of the country," says Ozel, as ISIS targeted Turkish youth and others, "who may not like their methods but sympathize with their ideology."

The sympathy has been on display at Istanbul University, where ISIS supporters openly attacked anti-ISIS students. Last week, a mosque in Istanbul's Fatih neighborhood offered prayers for militants killed in U.S. airstrikes. These are small details, says Ozel, but indicate an alarming trend. It will be part of Turkey's calculation as it considers a role in the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS.

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The latest victim of the Ebola panic has not been tested for the deadly virus. But he lived with someone who has it.

Amid fear over the virus's possible spread in Europe, Spanish authorities say they'll take no chances. They will not test him. Instead, to play it safe, they will kill him.

This latest victim ... is a dog.

Excalibur, a sandy-colored mixed-breed mutt, belonged to a Spanish nurse who was the first case of Ebola to be transmitted outside Africa.

Mara Teresa Romero Ramos, 40, helped treat two Spanish priests who had contracted Ebola in West Africa, where they worked. They were repatriated to Spain for treatment but died in August and September.

Doctors say Romero entered one of the infected priests' rooms just twice: once to help treat him, and once after his death, to collect some of his belongings. She was wearing a protective suit but somehow became infected. Today she told Spain's El Pas newspaper that the problem might have been when she removed her protective gear.

Laid low by a fever, Romero hung out with her dog in her apartment, in a southern suburb of Madrid, for about a week before checking herself into a hospital this past Monday. Her husband has been placed in isolation as well, as a precaution, though he has no Ebola symptoms.

Madrid's regional government issued a statement Tuesday saying that rather than follow the same procedure with the couple's dog, it would euthanize the pet. It said the procedure would be carried out in such a way as to minimize his suffering, and that his body would be incinerated.

From his hospital room, the husband, Javier Limn, responded in a video posted on YouTube.

"This is a call to the population to help me save my dog, Excalibur," Limn says. "They want to kill him."

More than 325,000 people have signed an online petition to try to save the dog.

A bewildered Excalibur had been left alone in the couple's apartment until medical workers arrived early this morning to disinfect the apartment. Dozens of animal lovers, many carrying their own pets, turned out to try to block them.

"Murderers!" they yelled at medical workers who pulled up in an ambulance.

The science on whether pets can transmit Ebola to humans is unclear. The virus can infect mammals. In the current West African outbreak, the source is believed to have been an infected bat. In previous outbreaks, people may have caught the virus when they handled the carcasses of infected gorillas, chimpanzees or other non-human primates.

"There is one article in the medical literature that discusses the presence of antibodies to Ebola in dogs," CDC Director Tom Frieden said at a news conference Tuesday. The study, from 2005, looked at several dogs in Gabon who'd eaten Ebola-infected dead animals. The authors reported, "This study suggests that dogs can be infected by Ebola virus and that the putative infection is asymptomatic."

"Whether that was an accurate test and whether that was relevant, we do not know," Frieden said. But, he added: "We have not identified this as a means of transmission."

And even as the world begs for the dog to live, there is the question of context. Edu Madina, a Basque politician, posted this tweet:

Un perro en Madrid ha generado ms movilizacin y noticias que miles de muertos por bola en frica. Para reflexionar.

— Edu Madina (@EduMadina) October 8, 2014

"One dog in Madrid has generated more mobilization and news than thousands of deaths from Ebola in Africa. Something to reflect on."

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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.

Economy

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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