AMERICANS ARE SICK OF APPLE'S ROTTEN CORE

(AP) In 2010, there was a rash of suicides at Foxconn's Shenzhen plant. Plant managers installed nets to prevent more people from committing suicide by jumping from the roof. A May explosion at the company's Chengdu, China, plant killed three people and injured 15. A New York Times story published Jan. 26 reported on accidents and long hours in Foxconn factories, based on workers' accounts. Foxconn disputed allegations of back-to-back shifts and crowded living conditions.

Foxconn also manufactures products for Microsoft, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, according to the Associated Press.

AMERICANS ARE FINALLY GETTING SICK OF APPLE'S BLIND EYE: 

*A petition on Change.org, the advocacy site, asking Apple to "Protect Workers Making iPhones in Chinese Factories," has garnered more than 200,000 signatures.

*A similar petition on SumOfUs.org, demanding that Apple oversee the manufacture of an "ethical" iPhone 5," received almost 60,000 signatures.

"This new announcement shows the pressure is working -- more than a quarter million people have joined our call [the combined effort of SumOfUs.org and Change.org] for an ethical iPhone 5 and Apple has clearly heard us," said Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, Executive Director of SumOfUs.org, according to a statement emailed to The Huffington Post 

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THIS AMERICAN BILE

Mike Daisy, the monologist whose one-man show was excerpted for This American Life, wrote on his website that the news "is a welcome change."

"Apple has always been one of the most innovative companies in the world," Daisy wrote on Monday afternoon. "This is the moment when they must begin to show that they can also be the most humane."