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A highly popular episode of This American Life in which monologuist Mike Daisey tells of the abuses at factories that make Apple products in China contained "significant fabrications," the show said today.

The Shins are a dream-pop outfit from Portland, Ore. Arising as a side project while singer/songwriter James Mercer lived in New Mexico, the band took on a life of its own after a number of singles such as "New Slang" were featured in films, pulling the young indie rock group into the national spotlight.

Illinois is in the worst fiscal shape of any state in the country.

Its pension system is $85 billion short of what it will need to pay promised retirement benefits, while it's already $8 billion behind on its everyday bills — money for schools, hospitals and private vendors for work already done and approved.

All of that could be good news next week — at least politically — says Illinois state Treasurer Dan Rutherford.

The "family friend" who told The Oregonian that its editorial page editor was in his car on Saturday when he died of a heart attack turns out to have been another editor at the newspaper. She says she was trying to protect Caldwell's family from the public embarrassment that would come with the truth: that he had been in the apartment of a young woman with whom he was allegedly having sex.

What happens if the target of a recall election decides to call it quits before the actual election?

If it's Wisconsin, the recall election apparently happens anyway.

When an Ohio high school student killed three classmates in a shooting rampage several weeks ago, it once again brought a national spotlight to a problem widely believed to be epidemic in schools.

The reality, experts say, is exactly the opposite: Violent crime in schools has decreased significantly since the early 1990s.

Why are some nations rich and others poor? In a new book called Why Nations Fail, a pair of economists argue that a lot comes down to politics.

To research the book, the authors scoured the world for populations and geographic areas that are identical in all respects save one: they're on different sides of a border.

It's just an update, but people made lines in cities around the world to buy Apple's latest incarnation of the iPad.

Look at this line outside an Apple store in London:

And this scene at a Manhattan Apple store:

NPR's David Folkenflik was in New York City and he filed this report for our Newscast unit:

"In Manhattan, lines wrapped full city blocks at Apple Stores last night as fans waited to buy the new device in person — and that's just for an upgrade on the iPad.

Have pity on these poor fruit flies.

Researchers made a bunch of male fruit flies into boozehounds by pushing them on females unreceptive to their advances.

After a few days of striking out, the male losers, referred to as the "rejected-isolated" group in a study published online by Science, drowned their sorrows in alcohol.

Alain de Botton is the author of Religion for Atheists.

A survey published in the U.K. in January predicted that within 20 years, the majority of the British population will define themselves as having no religion. In the British isles, religion has become something of a sideshow, even a joke. Remember that this is the land that gave us The Life of Brian. Even the BBC has caught on with a satirical series called Rev., about a hapless comedic clergyman who has no faith but has a strong inclination to be good.

Some of the documents seized last May after U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden at his compound in Pakistan show that the al-Qaida leader "boldly commanded his network to organize special cells in Afghanistan and Pakistan to attack the aircraft of President Barack Obama and Gen.

Dharun Ravi, the former Rutgers University student "accused of using a webcam to spy on his gay roommate's love life has been convicted of bias intimidation and invasion of privacy in a case that exploded into the headlines when the victim of the snooping committed suicide" in September, 2010, The Associated Press writes.

The 20-year-old "could face 10 years in prison when he's sentenced," the AP adds.

Is the battle for the GOP presidential nomination about history? Or is it about math? Santorum may be getting big headlines with his primary wins, but it's Romney who is advancing further to the magic 1,144 number. And more defeats mean more pressure on Gingrich to pull out. Plus: a tribute to the late Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater. NPR's Ron Elving and Ken Rudin have the latest in this week's political roundup.

The Oscar-winning actor George Clooney was arrested this morning, after he and supporters, including congressmen stepped onto the grounds of the Sudanese embassy in Washington D.C.

The Washington Post reports:

The student council at the University of California Irvine approved a resolution Thursday demanding that Dr. Hazem Chehabi, Syria's honorary consul in Southern California, be removed from the post of chair at the UC Irving Foundation, which supports the school and is trying to raise $1 billion for it.

Scientists on the trail of "pine nut mouth," a nasty metallic aftertaste that some people get after eating the tender little nuts, have been stumped in their latest effort to zero in on the cause of the mysterious affliction.

Two Senate Democrats want the Justice Department to share more details about how it interprets a key provision of the Patriot Act. The lawmakers say the public has a right to know about a sensitive intelligence gathering program.

So Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden and Colorado Democrat Mark Udall have sent a letter of complaint to the attorney general. The senators say people would be stunned to know how the government is going about getting business records and other information under the U.S. Patriot Act.

These interviews were originally broadcast on March 17, 1988, March 16, 1989, and Oct. 14, 1997. You can listen to the original broadcasts in their entirety here.

Good morning.

Our early headlines:

-- Karzai At 'End Of The Rope,' Says Witnesses Dispute U.S. Account Of Killings.

-- Soldier Accused Of Massacre 'Just Snapped,' Official Says.

Saying that Sunday's murders of 16 civilians has him at "the end of the rope," Afghan President Hamid Karzai "lashed out at the United States" today, The Associated Press reports.