Good morning, it’s Tuesday.
Today is National Dream Day, which seems as good a time as any to confess that I have never put much stock in dreams.
To be clear, I’m speaking of the sort of dreams one experiences while asleep, not the aspirations one holds during waking hours, which is what this day is ostensibly for. However, I find the former topic – what goes on in our heads while we’re semi-conscious – to be more interesting, at least from a scientific standpoint, especially since it’s National Sleep Awareness Month, and we, as a society, are chronically under-rested.
One reason that I don’t think much about my dreams is that the ones I have are VERY intense and cinematic, compliments of melatonin. Yeah, I know, it’s dangerous, unproven, unregulated, etc.; don’t come at me non-insomniacs, you don’t know what it’s like to go sleepless for nights on end.
In other words, I don’t know what’s coming out of my brain organically, and what’s induced chemically by outside influences. It is not unusual for me to wake up exhausted by my dreams and/or nightmares and also to have some difficulty – at least at first – differentiating fact from fiction. This isn’t the greatest way to start the day.
There are plenty of dream interpretation websites, books, and beliefs out there. If you dream about your teeth falling out, for example, a common interpretation is that you’re anxious, stressed, insecure, or fearing loss – particularly as it relates to aging and/or self-image.
According to scientists, dreams actually serve a formal purpose, helping us consolidate memories, process emotions, and even rehearse situations yet to come. Nightmares, which apparently are more prevalent among girls than boys, are basically dreams that go awry and become frightening and/or disturbing.
As an aside, I had my share of nightmares – still do, from time to time, and even wake myself up screaming. Yes, it’s usually the same dream or a variation on the same theme. Someone chasing me, someone trying to hurt and/or kill me. Again, this supposedly has something to do with stress, anxiety and/or avoidance in one’s waking life.
Nightmares have nothing to do with sleepwalking, (formally known as somnambulism, a form of parasomnia — an undesirable behavior or event during sleep), and also aren’t exactly the same thing as night terrors, which usually occur during childhood and are not remembered upon waking.
Night terrors are something you grow out of – usually – while nightmares, obviously, given my experience as an adult, are not. You may or may not grow out of sleepwalking, and some people have been known to do some pretty extreme things while asleep – like drive a car, get dressed, pee in places other than the toilet, etc.
There’s still quite a bit that we don’t understand when it comes to dreams, nightmares, and sleepwalking. According to the NIH, between 50 and70 million Americans have sleep disorders, and 1 in 3 adults do not regularly get the recommended amount of uninterrupted sleep they need to protect their health.
Of course, any research that might be done at the federal level on this – and many other – pressing matter is probably out the window for the moment.
I guess we’ll just have to sleep on it.
Today will be a true spring dream, according to the forecast. Temperatures will rise into the mid-60s! Skies will be generally sunny, with just a few scattered clouds. ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN.
In the headlines…
U.S. stocks had their worst day this year, falling sharply in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs and fears of an impending recession.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 900 points yesterday and the big basket of stocks in the S&P 500 tumbled 2.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq plunged 4%.
DOGE chief Elon Musk said that he is running his businesses “with great difficulty,” as shares of his automotive firm Tesla suffered their worst drop in a half-decade, and as his social media company X experienced several outages.
Musk quickly blamed the X issues on a cyberattack stemming from Ukraine, without providing evidence.
He also posted on X that Democratic donors were responsible for seeding protests against Tesla, again without evidence. In response to the SpaceX explosion, he said on X: “Rockets are hard.”
Media Matters, the liberal watchdog organization, yesterday sued X for breach of contract over Musk bringing suits against the nonprofit in Texas, Ireland and Singapore in a legal maneuver the nonprofit calls “a vendetta-driven campaign of libel tourism.”
DOGE is likely covered under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a federal judge ruled late yesterday, rejecting the Trump administration’s position that the group does not have to respond to public records requests.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to release foreign aid payments owed under certain existing contracts but stopped short of staving off mass contract cancellations that resulted from a subsequent review.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration had finished its six-week purge of programs of the six-decade-old USAID, and said he would move the 18% of aid and development programs that survived under the State Department.
The Trump administration is eyeing major payroll reductions at the National Park Service, signaling big cuts at a high-profile agency heading toward the warmer months.
In a sweeping interview, RFK Jr., the health and human services secretary, outlined a strategy for containing the measles outbreak in West Texas that strayed far from mainstream science, relying heavily on fringe theories about prevention and treatments.
He issued a muffled call for vaccinations in the affected community, but said the choice was a personal one. He suggested that measles vaccine injuries were more common than known, contrary to extensive research.
The interview, which lasted 35 minutes, was posted online by Fox News last week, just before Trump’s address to Congress. Segments had been posted earlier, but the full version received little attention.
The Justice Department’s pardon attorney was dismissed a day after she refused to recommend that the actor Mel Gibson, a prominent Trump supporter, should have his gun rights restored, according to the attorney and others familiar with the situation.
As Trump is threatening to upend years of work on the CHIPS Act. Chip company executives, worried that funding could be clawed back, are calling lawyers to ask what wiggle room the administration has to terminate signed contracts.
Last week, the Commerce Department laid off 40 of the CHIPS office employees, nearly a third of the entire team. The administration has also reportedly begun discussing changes to projects that received chip-related subsidies
Local government crews in Washington began yesterday morning to remove the Black Lives Matter mural that was painted near the White House nearly five years ago.
The mural, spelling “BLACK LIVES MATTER” in bright yellow letters, covered two blocks of 16th Street NW. It was painted in June 2020, turning the pavement into a pedestrian zone called Black Lives Matter Plaza.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to a law in Colorado that bans “conversion therapy” aimed at young people questioning their sexual orientations or gender identities.
The conservative-led court is taking up the case amid actions by Trump targeting transgender people, including a ban on military service and an end to federal funding for gender-affirming care for transgender minors.
Ontario’s premier, the leader of Canada’s most populous province, announced that effective yesterday, it is charging 25% more for electricity to 1.5 million Americans in response to Trump’s trade war.
Residents of New York, Minnesota and Michigan can expect to pay more for power. Ontario Premier Doug Ford ordered the Independent Electricity System Operator to implement a $7-per-megawatt-per-hour fee on all power exports to the three states.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has a commanding lead in a hypothetical 2026 Democratic primary, according to a Siena College poll released yesterday, and her overall favorability (40-50%) and job approval (46-48%) ratings saw little change from last month’s poll.
According to the poll, the governor has the backing of 46% of Democrats, far above support levels of 11% for Lt. Governor Antonio Delgado and 10% for Rep. Ritchie Torres. Neither has formally announced they are running for the office.
The poll also showed that support for congestion pricing has ticked up, with 42 percent of New York City voters in favor of it, as Trump has moved to shut it down.
Hochul, a Democrat, is expected to slow-walk the special election to replace Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, according to three people familiar with her thinking.
The state declared the end of a strike that had hobbled New York’s prisons for more than three weeks, but will keep National Guard troops deployed in the facilities as they move to fire more than 2,000 correction officers who declined to return to work yesterday.
Roughly 75% of corrections officers have returned to their posts, effectively ending a three-week wildcat strike that prompted lockdowns at facilities around the state, the head of the New York state prison system said.
“We are committed to building a dedicated, resilient workforce and attracting the next generation of correctional leaders,” Commissioner Daniel Martuscello said. “We will work to ensure the new department will be safer and more effective for everyone.”
The whiplash in Washington, D.C., has reverberated through the state Legislature, which must grapple with a weaker enforcement of labor laws and the threats of rolling back billions of dollars in federal aid as they seek to protect workers.
Senior Vice Chancellor and General Counsel Kapil Longani discussed the impact of Trump’s return to the White House on the SUNY system’s 64 colleges and universities.
The Department of Education’s civil rights arm warned 60 colleges and universities yesterday that they could be next to have federal funding taken away over antisemitic discrimination and harassment on campus.
The five dozen included six of the eight Ivy League institutions — Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Princeton and Yale — and local schools Rutgers, Rutgers-Newark, Sarah Lawrence, three branches of SUNY, The New School and Wellesley.
“U.S. colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by U.S. taxpayers. That support is a privilege and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal anti-discrimination laws,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said.
A federal judge halted the deportation of Columbia University graduate student and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil as thousands of protesters flooded lower Manhattan, calling for his release.
Khalil, a permanent resident of the United States, was arrested in his Manhattan apartment and sent to Louisiana. His detention sets up a fight over free speech.
A green card holder who is legally in the U.S. as a permanent resident, Khalil, 30, is believed to be the first person targeted by the Trump administration in its pledge to deport international students who protested against Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Trump warned that Khalil’s arrest by federal immigration authorities is the first “of many to come” amid his administration’s crackdown on students and alleged “agitators” protesting Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
Secretary of State Rubio was “presented with intelligence” that determined Khalil — a Syrian-born Palestinian who received his graduate degree from the elite school in December — was a threat to national security, a White House source said.
Khalil’s arrest has divided the American Jewish community, which finds itself trying to reconcile a longstanding focus on Jewish safety and support for Israel with a historical commitment to civil liberties.
With public safety becoming a key focal point of the New York City mayor’s race, Eric Adams lashed out yesterday at opponents who he says don’t give him credit for making huge inroads in reducing gun violence, implying they are not on “Team New York.”
The NYPD has seized more than 1,000 illegal guns from the city’s streets so far this year – a milestone that Adams applauded Monday as he pointed the finger at repeat offenders for bringing weapons into the Big Apple.
There have been fewer shootings in New York City in the first two months of this year than in the same period in “recorded history,” according to Adams and NYPD officials.
The husband of a major Adams ally is working for rival Andrew Cuomo in his bid to unseat the embattled New York City mayor in a crowded Democratic primary.
New York taxpayers have coughed up a whopping $60 million in legal fees stemming from the scandals that ensnared Cuomo’s administration, according to a bombshell new state report that comes as the former governor seeks to become mayor.
Cuomo has proposed legislation to register e-bikes with special city plates — and then hold food delivery apps liable for accidents in a bid to curb reckless driving and deadly crashes.
Brooklyn Councilwoman Susan Zhuang, who was charged with chomping on a cop at a raucous anti-homeless shelter rally in July, has announced she is endorsing Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine in the Democratic primary for city comptroller.
An influential interest group is proposing to move Madison Square Garden, which sits on top of the station, across the street and replace it with a much bigger train hall and a park.
The retired NYPD lieutenant who has accused former Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey of coercing her into sex filed a complaint with Internal Affairs over two leaked nude videos of her that are circulating on messaging apps, her lawyer said.
Amid the egg production shortage caused by the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in poultry, more than 50 City convenience stores, known for their made-to-order hot food options, are making sandwiches with the plant-based Just Egg.
Wendy Williams was taken away from her New York assisted living facility by ambulance after cops were called in for a wellness check when the ex-talk show queen tossed a handwritten note out the window begging for help.
The brush fires that tore through parts of Suffolk County over the weekend were accidentally sparked by a fire used to make s’mores, police said.
New York City, Long Island and most of the Hudson Valley are under a burn ban until March 16 amid dry conditions and gusty winds.
Nearly 40% of the Watervliet Arsenal’s civilian workforce could lose their jobs as part of Trump administration efforts to vastly scale down the size of the federal workforce.
The National Weather Service in Albany will not be able to fly all of its weather balloons, due to staffing issues, the service announced in a bulletin.
Pope Francis has improved enough to no longer be considered in imminent danger from pneumonia and other infections, the Vatican said, but added that he would require more days of treatment in the Rome hospital where he has been for nearly a month.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
