Six teenagers from South Hadley, Massachusetts will be in court to face a series of charges stemming from the suicide of Phoebe Prince this past January. Prince was 15 years old and a new student at South Hadley High School-- arriving from Ireland at the beginning of the school year. The online magazine Slate.com takes a close look at the months leading up to Phoebe Prince's suicide. We speak with Emily Bazelon of Slate.com.

Shirley Sherrod says that she's not sure if she'd return to her job at the Agriculture Department even if asked. Sherrod was forced to resign this week after a conservative blogger circulated a video clip of Sherrod at a local NAACP event saying that she initially didn't give a white farmer as much help as she could have 24 years ago. Sherrod says the video distorted her full speech, which described how she came to realize the white farmer needed her help and which she says was intended to promote racial reconciliation. Now Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday that he would reconsider the department's decision to oust Sherrod.

After winning his seventh consecutive Tour de France in 2005, Lance Armstrong said he was retiring. But he didn't: he competed in the Tour again in 2009 and this year. Now he says after this race, he will carry out his promise to retire. And though Armstrong has no chance of winning this year, he's still making headlines. Meanwhile, with four days of racing remaining, a controversial battle between defending champion and current leader Alberto Contador of Spain and Andy Schleck of Luxembourg may make for some fireworks in coming days. We speak to David L'Heureux, senior online editor for Bicycling Magazine.

The federal government says a relief tunnel should finally reach BP's broken well by this weekend, possibly sealing the well permanently. The Associated Press reports that if this happens, the well will join 27,000 other abandoned wells in the Gulf.  And no one — not industry, not the government — is checking to see if they're leaking. We speak with Jeff Donn, national writer for the AP.

You've probably heard of the "slow food" and "slow money" movements. There's also a "slow reading" movement, that encourages people to savor the written word, not on a screen, but on a page and often read aloud. There isn't much formal research on whether it helps students do well in school or later in life, but proponents say slow reading makes a world of difference. We speak with Professor Thomas Newkirk, who teaches writing at the University of New Hampshire and its annual summer Writers Academy. Helene Kenney and Evan Howard are students attending the academy.

• Air, "Mike Mills"
• Sigur Ros, "Nybatteri"
• Peter Dixon, "Nagog Woods"
• Paul Simon, "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover"
• Ashley MacIsaac, "Sleepy Maggie"
• Ahmad Jamal, "Patterns"
• Moby, "Myopia"