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In 1997, Cylvia Hayes, now Oregon's first lady, received about $5,000 to marry an Ethiopian man who wanted a green card. At a tearful news conference in Portland, Ore., Hayes said Thursday that she had made a "serious mistake" in what was a "difficult and unstable period" in her life.

"I want to be clear today — I was associating with the wrong people," she said in a statement read at the news conference. "I was struggling to put myself through college and was offered money in exchange for marrying a young person who had a chance to get a college degree himself if he were able to remain in the United States."

The hastily called news conference followed a story in the Willamette Weekly. The newspaper reported:

"In 1997, King County, Wash., marriage records show, Hayes married a teenage Ethiopian immigrant 11 years younger than she. It's not clear why Hayes entered into the marriage and why she has kept it secret. However, public records raise questions about whether the marriage was legitimate or whether it was a way to help the young man with his immigration status."

News stories have identified the man as Abraham B. Abraham. He was 18 at the time. Hayes was 29. The story noted that they filed for divorce in 2001. Hayes said that she and Abraham met only a handful of times and never lived together. She said they have not had any contact since the divorce was finalized.

Hayes called the marriage "wrong then and it is wrong now," adding, "I am here today to accept the consequences, some of which will be life changing."

Hayes and Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat, aren't married, but have been together for 10 years. The governor's office refers to Hayes as first lady.

In her statement Thursday, Hayes said she did not tell Kitzhaber about the marriage until the story broke.

"This is the most painful part for me. John Kitzhaber deserved to know the history of the person he was forming a relationship with. The fact that I did not disclose this to him meant that he has learned about this in the most public and unpleasant way," she said. "This is my greatest sorrow in this difficult situation."

So-called green card marriages are illegal under federal law. But the Oregonian quotes local immigration official Philip Hornik as saying an investigation is more likely when there are "fresh tracks." Here's more:

"The statute of limitation for criminal penalties is five years from the marriage date, meaning Hayes' deadline passed in 2002. There's no limitation on civil penalties, however. Hayes is likely safe from legal repercussions, yet immigration officials have the power to revoke a given status from immigrants who benefit from such deals."

That could affect Abraham, who news reports say later earned a degree in math from Greensboro College in North Carolina and now lives in the Washington, D.C., area.

Political pundits interviewed by the Oregonian said they doubted the story would hurt Kitzhaber, who is seeking a fourth term against state Rep. Dennis Richardson, a Republican.

Gov. John Kitzhaber

Cylvia Hayes

Oregon

Updated at 2:30 p.m. ET

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

White House press secretary Josh Earnest confirmed that the U.S. will conduct additional screenings of passengers arriving from the Ebola-infected region of West Africa. JFK, Newark, Chicago O'Hare, Dulles and Atlanta's Hartsfield airports will implement measures that would affect about 150 passengers a day.

The World Health Organization today also updated its Ebola figures, reporting a total of 8,033 cases and 3,879 deaths from the disease in West Africa.

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.

There were also reports that she may have become infected by touching gloves to her face while she was removing a protective suit she wore while caring for an Ebola patient.

Her dog, Excalibur, was euthanized, reportedly inside the apartment she lived in with her husband. The dog's body was then transported to an incinerator, reporter Lauren Frayer tells NPR's Goats and Soda blog.

Earlier, The Guardian reported:

"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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This is an undated image released Wednesday by animal rights organization PACMA of a dog named Excalibur who is owned by Javier Limon and his wife, a nurse who was infected with Ebola in Madrid. Authorities said they planned to euthanize the dog as a precaution. AP hide caption

itoggle caption AP

This is an undated image released Wednesday by animal rights organization PACMA of a dog named Excalibur who is owned by Javier Limon and his wife, a nurse who was infected with Ebola in Madrid. Authorities said they planned to euthanize the dog as a precaution.

AP

A social media campaign to save the dog had been running with the Twitter hashtag #excalibur.

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

" ... 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:

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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

"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."

The chief medical officer at La Paz University Hospital, Dr. German Ramirez, was quoted in El Mundo as saying that Romero contracted Ebola when she touched her face with gloves she had used in the room where she was treating Manuel Garcia Viejo, a priest who had worked in Liberia. Viejo later died from the disease.

In Dallas, as we reported in another post, Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who traveled from Liberia and was the first person diagnosed with the disease in the U.S., has died at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

Hospital officials say Duncan "succumbed to an insidious disease, Ebola," this morning.

In a statement, the hospital said: "He fought courageously in this battle. Our professionals, the doctors and nurses in the unit, as well as the entire Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas community, are also grieving his passing. We have offered the family our support and condolences at this difficult time."

Health officials are still 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. 26 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 Omaha, Neb., a freelance cameraman, Ashoka Mukpo, who contracted Ebola in West Africa and is being treated at Nebraska Medical Center, will reportedly receive blood donated by Dr. Kent Brantly, who earlier survived the disease. Antibodies against Ebola in Brantly's blood could help Mukpo fight off the infection, officials say.

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, as NPR's Marilyn Geewax reports, 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 the virus 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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No athlete has ever been more delightful to listen to than Muhammad Ali, the big-headed, big-hearted, irreducibly quotable heavyweight boxer who elevated trash-talk to an art form and who was all of 21 when Columbia Records released his spoken-word album, I Am the Greatest. He defied sports-publicity custom by ducking any effort to "handle" him. He ran his own press conferences, waxing philosophic (and rhythmic) on any topic that crossed his nimble mind – most famously, his conversion to Islam, the immorality of the U.S. war in Vietnam, and his refusal, at great cost, to take part in it.

Despite the first-person title, writer-producer-director Clare Lewins' new documentary I Am Ali doesn't boast any new interviews with its now-72-year-old subject, already perhaps the most-profiled figure in sports history. What distinguishes Lewins' entertaining-if-not-terribly-revelatory film from the many Ali documentaries that have come before is its focus on this most public of personalities as a friend and father.

Besides the usual (wonderful) archival footage of the champ, a softer, more private version of Ali's lilting voice is present in the form of the audio tapes he made of his conversations with those closest to him. The first time we hear that voice, it's 1979 and he's phoning his mother-in-law's house to speak to one of his seven little girls. (His eldest was 11 at the time.) The child is not pleased when her 37-year-old dad tells her he intends to fight again. You don't need to know of Ali's sad, damaging performance in his last few bouts to be moved by this. Instead of showing photos of the speakers over this exchange, or over the others she excerpts, Lewins illustrates them with electronic waveforms of the recordings, demonstrating that a voice can be at least as revealing as a face.

Along with these tapes, which Hana Ali — seventh of the champ's brood of nine, from four marriages — has made public for the first time, Lewins got access to the champ's inner circle. Ali's longtime manager, Gene Kilroy, and trainer, Angelo Dundee, sit for new interviews. His younger brother, Rahman Ali, talks about how the kid born Cassius Clay would ask him to throw rocks at his head so he could practice evading punches. Along with daughters Maryum and her half-sister Hana, we meet one of the boxer's two sons, Muhammad Ali, Jr. (Yes, he was targeted by bullies in school, and no, he had no yen for fighting, the poor kid.) Ali's old foe George Foreman, whom he'd dubbed "The Mummy" in the run-up to their 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle," shows up to praise Ali as one of the finest men he ever met. NFL legend Jim Brown and Mike Tyson and even Sir Tom Jones (his presence is unusual, at least a little) are all on the guest list, piling on anecdotes and accolades.

It's never boring. Lewins keeps the space skipping along, using famous '70s R&B/soul hits from the likes of Stevie Wonder, Bill Withers, and the Staple Singers to keep it bouncy. But as with most documentaries and biopics that opt to cover a life instead of a revealing sliver thereof, it's all a little too gauzy to lodge in your memory. (The best Ali documentaries of the last couple of decades – When We Were Kings, Thrilla in Manila, Facing Ali and the ESPN 30 for 30 film Muhammad and Larry – have all narrowed their focus to specific fights/eras. Even Michael Mann's frustrating 2001 biopic Ali, which starred Will Smith as the champ, confined its investigation to one decade.)

And like most documentaries made with the cooperation of the subject and/or the subject's family, it's hardly as critical as it might be. The closest it comes to suggesting the man might've had a flaw is when Veronica Porsche points out that Ali began seeing her — she was 18, he was 32 — without mentioning he was already married. She eventually became his third wife, but he wasn't faithful to her, either. It's not at all surprising that monogamy might prove difficult for one of the most famous, charismatic, and extroverted men of the 20th century, but no one says anything even as gently candid as that.

What we learn is that the one-third of his children who appear in this movie say he was an involved and loving dad who saw to it that all of his kids knew one another and spent time together as one family. Kilroy even contributes an anecdote about a friendship Ali formed in the early '70s with a little boy battling leukemia. "I'm going to beat George Foreman and you're going to beat cancer," Ali kept telling the boy, but only Ali held up his end, sadly.

Since it's so close to hagiography, it's appropriate that its most unfamiliar story — to me, at least — comes when George Lois, a famous ad man who figured prominently in a recent This American Life episode, talks about how he got the idea to pose Ali as the Christian martyr St. Sebastian for a 1968 issue of Esquire published soon after he refused induction into the Army. Ali got on the phone with Elijah Muhammad to make sure it was okay for him to "dress up" — that is, affix bloody arrows to his bare chest — as a famous Christian. Elijah gave his blessing only after Ali passed the phone to Lois and the two men had a 15-minute theological teleconference. Ali lived as he believed.

One of his beliefs, expressed to explain his habit of taping his family and friends, was this: "History is so beautiful. At the time we're living in life, we don't realize it." It's the reason documentaries exist. I Am Ali's contributions to the mountain of extant Ali scholarship are slight, but the privilege of eavesdropping on a man who inspired so many while he asks his little girl Maryum if she's yet determined her purpose on Earth is not.

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is a "tragedy not seen in modern times," said Sierra Leone's president Ernest Bai Koroma.

At the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on Thursday, Koroma and the presidents of Guinea and Liberia are pleading with the international community for help battling the Ebola epidemic. In the three hardest-hit countries, the virus has already killed nearly 4,000 people.

Goats and Soda

After Losing Parents To Ebola, Orphans Face Stigma

"Our people are dying, children are being orphaned," Koroma told representative nations via a video conference.

He said the need for resources and support is critical — not only to help care for the increasing number of Ebola victims and pay health care workers but also to kickstart the country's collapse economies and rebuild shattered communities once the crisis is over.

"The general international response has been up to this moment slower than the rate of transmission of the disease," he added. "This slower-than-the-virus response needs to change."

Each of the West African presidents presented a checklist of their country's needs.

Guinea's President Conde made a plea for medicine and money for food and other supplies. He said the three countries were in a fragile situation. Conde's appeal came as Doctors Without Borders reported a massive spike in new Ebola cases in Guinea.

Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf — also speaking by video conference — said quickly identifying and isolating new cases was paramount to curbing the virus. But that would require a swift and coordinated international effort.

Could Ebola Be Slowing Down In Liberia? Oct. 9, 2014

Goats and Soda

The U.S. Ebola Hospitals In Liberia Are Going Up ... Slowly

Goats and Soda

A Strong Voice From The Ebola Front: Lorenzo Dorr

That mean the construction and testing centers should be completed within a time frame of a month, she said. And by mid-November, all these facilities should be functioning with both local and international health workers.

Major aid groups like Doctors Without Borders have had at least some presence in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia for months, but they say they've been stretched to the limit. Now the U.K. and the U.S. are deploying military personnel to help build testing facilities and treatment units.

The U.S. won't send doctors to run those units, but they will be training many of the health care workers slated to staff the facilities.

Koroma predicts Sierra Leone will need more than 5,000 such workers, including 750 doctors and 3,000 nurses. They will also need money to pay local staff.

"Millions of dollars are required to pay the thousands of health workers that will be deployed," he said. "Millions of dollars are needed to shore up drugs, food and other basic supplies and logistics."

This is clearly an instance that donors much rally around, says Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund.

The U.N. estimates it will cost nearly a billion dollars to stop the outbreak. And while there was a positive response from those attending the World Bank meeting, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said international aid needed to increase twentyfold.

There should be absolutely no holding back on resources, added David Nabarro, the U.N.'s special envoy on Ebola: "Every dollar spent now may well be worth more than $20 or $30 spent in two-months time. This is a moment when there must be no postponement of financing decisions, no postponement of action because we haven't agreed on things."

The pledges of help are good, Koroma said, but they must be followed up with action.

Guinea

Sierra Leone

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