Read kids a story and their brains light up

Scientists wanted to study how children engage with stories, so they tried three methods while scanning their brains. Only the method that mimicked being read to – still images with a voice soundtrack – engaged not just areas of the brain but the connections between them. [NPR] Mark Wilson/Getty Images The Supreme Court decides workers can only band together to sue an employer if their contracts let them Recent years have seen the rise of so-called “forced arbitration” clauses that push consumers’ and workers’ legal complaints out of the courts. This week, justices ruled that if an employer uses such a clause, workers have to pursue claims individually in arbitration, not through a class-action lawsuit. For workers with small claims like unpaid overtime hours, doing so may cost more than they’re trying to get. ["It gives employers the green light to eliminate their single largest employment law risk with the stroke of a pen," a management lawyer said](. PeopleImages/Getty Images For a cheaper, safer fix for back pain, start with a physical therapist, not a surgeon A new study finds that a less-intensive start makes you far less likely to need an opioid prescription and a bit less likely to wind up in the emergency room. Physical therapists’ specialized knowledge of muscular-skeletal pain and posture-improving exercises might fix some problems, the study’s authors suggested. [Overall, patients saw "significantly lower out-of-pocket costs — on the average, $500.”]( LA Johnson/NPR Storytime's magic: It makes a child’s brain work just hard enough A recent study found that 4-year-olds struggle to connect with an audio-only story, while animation washes over them, lighting up their brain’s language and visual processing centers but little else. But audio, combined with visual cues from still images, helped them forge connections between different neurological areas. [Add in the emotional and physical closeness and back-and-forth dialogue of reading with someone else, and you’ve got a clear, brain-building winner](. Saeed Adyani/Netflix Woman: ‘I've never had anybody yell at me like that.’ Co-worker: ‘Certain people have certain processes.’ On the vexing ‘Arrested Development’ interview Actor Jeffrey Tambor spoke openly in an interview last year about yelling at two women he worked with on Transparent until they cried or told him they were afraid of him. That track record didn’t stop his male Arrested Development co-stars from jumping to his defense as actress Jessica Walter described his unprecedented verbal abuse toward her to The New York Times. [NPR critic Linda Holmes asks: Why try to normalize such behavior? Why minimize the hurt of someone they claim to love? Why is this OK in any workplace?]( Google Maps/Screenshot by NPR Judge praises 30-year-old’s minutes of online legal scholarship, but says: No, seriously, get out of your mom and dad’s house Christina and Mark Rotondo resorted to legal action after several months of notes and nudges to their son failed to get him to move out of their home in upstate New York. Their son, Michael, contended that his eight years living there without paying rent or doing chores constituted an informal agreement. He wanted six months to sort his life out. The judge told him to pack his bags. ["The notion that, you know, that I'm just out of there, it really seems most unreasonable," Michael Rotondo told reporters](. You received this message because you're subscribed to our Best of NPR emails. | [Unsubscribe]( | [Privacy Policy]( | NPR 1111 N. CAPITOL ST. NE WASHINGTON DC 20002 [NPR]