The Red Cross says a restructuring of its blood services division won’t have much of a local impact. The agency announced this week that 400 to 500 jobs will be cut nationwide under the plan. It says a drop in monetary donations and rising costs forced the restructuring. “Locally the impact of the restructuring has been minimal. Three positions in the River Valley Region were affected by restructuring,” said Katy Maloy,spokeswoman for the Red Cross River Valley Blood Services Region, which includes the Louisville area and parts of Indiana and Illinois.

As China prepares to mark the 90th anniversary of its Communist Party on July 1, there are signs of a new ideological struggle over former leader Mao Zedong's legacy.

The conflict is being played out online amid a backdrop of heightened nostalgia for the revolutionary days, as a young leftist takes on an elderly economist who dared to publicly criticize the founder of the People's Republic of China.

With Greece in political and economic turmoil, financial market participants worry what effect it will have on the rest of the world. Euro-zone countries helped fund a previous rescue package for Greece. But French and German banks are still highly exposed to potential losses in Greece.

And that has investors in the U.S. and elsewhere worried about potential fallout.

If Greece is unable to pass austerity measures and cannot secure more international aid, it will start defaulting on $165 billion worth of debt this summer.

After exploring the notion that there are about 2 million "open" jobs in the U.S., All Things Considered today looks into Bloomberg Businessweek's conclusion that "up to 28 million Americans [are] stuck in jobs they would have left in ordinary times."

By Patrick Jarenwattananon

The kids these days: They want to sound like Mark Turner. Well, at least the saxophone students do, and sure, certainly not all of them. But he's still probably the most influential tenor man of his generation. Why is that?

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear is selling surplus state property again. This time it's a vacant lot in Frankfort. Since taking office in 2007, Gov. Beshear says his administration has generated nearly $7.5 million through surplus real estate sales. Included in that figure is nearly $79,000 Beshear says the state got for a vacant, two-acre industrial lot in Frankfort.

Full disclosure: If you're the typical American filmgoer, this reviewer knows more about Green Lantern than you do. This is not meant as a boast, but a simple statement of fact, given the character's relatively low level of name recognition and this reviewer's relatively high level of geekery.

How do you deliver a message of social justice, peace, or environmental consciousness in a way that guarantees an audience? Find out in the songs of Christy Moore, Dougie MacLean, Máire Brennan, Sally Barker and others.

This episode originally aired the week of June 9.

For more information on this program, please visit www.thistleradio.com.

The head of Louisville's Sewer District says the fish kill on the Ohio River last night may have resulted from an algae bloom, rather than a chemical spill as was previously reported. The sheen on the Ohio River was noticed south of Rubbertown by cameras at Dow Chemical’s plant, and about 20 Asian Carp were found dead. It was initially thought to be a chemical release from somewhere upriver, but water sampling by three separate entities was negative.

This may not come as a surprise, but a survey released today by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that people who use Facebook several times a day average 9 percent more "close, core ties in their overall social network compared with other internet users."

The survey notes that the average American has just over two (2.16) friends they'd call confidants. That number is up from 1.93 in 2008.