Good Monday morning.
I have never been much of a napper, perhaps because I’ve never been much of a sleeper, full stop. I sleep in fits and starts and have been plagued with extremely vivid dreams and often terrifying nightmares since I was very young. These days, I’m lucky if I get in four solid, uninterrupted hours of z’s.
It is what it is. I have adjusted. Being awake at an ungodly hours enables me to be very productive, though I’m sure I annoy the daylights out of everyone in my orbit by sending multitudes of pre-dawn emails and texts (only if I see people have “do not disturb” on – I’m not a monster).
I do all the things that experts suggest in hopes of maximizing my sleep potential.
I don’t consume caffeine after noon. I keep the bedroom cool. I wear an eye mask and earplugs. I limit my blue light intake before bed. I create a so-called “sleep routine”. I try to keep a consistent sleep schedule. I do deep breathing, brain games, visualization. I take melatonin and magnesium supplements (I know this is controversial). I drink chamomile tea.
Despite all of this, I remain a crummy sleeper.
One thing I do NOT do is nap. I know that a brief midday snooze can help make up the deficits induced by a bad night’s sleep, improve your mood, focus, and performance and has a variety of health benefits, such as lower blood pressure and a stronger immune system. It might also help guard against the brain shrinkage that occurs as we age.
But this is predicated on one’s ability to nap correctly, which is to say limiting the sleep time to about 30 minutes to avoid grogginess.
If I lay down in the middle of the day and am able to fall asleep, I’m likely to remain asleep for a lot longer than half an hour (left to my own devices, I mean, without setting an alarm).
This completely messes up the aforementioned sleep schedule, could worsen insomnia, AND, data shows, can actually have a negative impact on your health. Napping for more than 60 minutes, research indicates, could increase your risk of Type 2 diabetes and heart problems.
If you are going to indulge in a nap, the best time to do it is between 1 and 4 p.m. Apparently, there’s something called a “coffee nap“, which involves drinking a cup of coffee right before you lay down for your afternoon siesta, ensuring that (assuming you’re able to fall asleep before the caffeine kicks in) you wake up with maximum alertness.
Though Spain and Italy are perhaps best known for their cultural embrace of napping, it turns out that Canadians report napping the most of any country’s residents, with an average of 2.5 naps per month.
This might be because a lot of Canadians also report being sleep deprived – about 41 percent, which is actually higher than the almost 33 percent of U.S. adults who don’t get enough sleep. I was surprised to see the data that Americans aren’t far behind, with 2.3 naps per month, flying in the face of our all work-no play hustle culture reputation.
In case you’re playing a bit of catch-up, Daylight Savings Time kicked in yesterday, which means all the clocks moved up an hour and we “lost” 60 minutes of sleep (unless you went to bed super early Saturday night). If you’re feeling a little groggy today, you’ll be happy to know that it’s National Nap Day, giving you the perfect excuse to shut your phone and computer off and try to catch up on those z’s.
However, you might not want to miss a single minute of what is on tap to be a perfectly beautiful gift of a day, weather-wise, with sunny skies and highs in the mid-60s. AMAZING. A brief taste of spring. Tomorrow will be even better, so don’t waste it. Because things are, sadly, going to go downhill from there for the rest of the week.
In the headlines…
Iran has named Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the former Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as its supreme leader — a move that suggests a push for stability as the Islamic Republic navigates the most significant threat to its survival in its nearly 50 years.
A newly released video adds to the evidence that an American missile likely hit an Iranian elementary school where 175 people, many of them children, were reported killed.
The families of the six US Army Reserve soldiers who were killed week in Kuwait watched as their loved ones were brought home during a dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Saturday.
Another American service member has died in the war with Iran, the Pentagon said yesterday, bringing the number of American troops killed in the conflict to seven.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that “there will be more casualties” in the ongoing U.S. operation against Iran, with seven American service members having died so far in the fighting.
Hegseth vowed he and Trump will do whatever it takes to topple the Iranian regime, and didn’t rule out sending US ground troops into Tehran as Operation Epic Fury rages on. “We’re willing to go as far as we need in order to be successful,” he said.
The average price of U.S. gasoline reached $3.48 a gallon, according to data from the AAA motor club. That is a nearly 17 percent increase since the first U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28. Gas hasn’t been at these levels since 2024.
Democrats seized on a surge in oil prices on Sunday, arguing that it was an immediate consequence of the war in Iran that would inflame an affordability crisis, as Republicans sought to downplay the data.
Trump said that increasing prices of oil are “a very small price to pay” for “safety and peace” amid the U.S. conflict with Iran.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries yesterday did not commit to either supporting or opposing additional funding for the Pentagon amid the war in Iran.
Democratic Govs. Kathy Hochul and Gavin Newsom turned a blind eye to the billions of dollars in Medicaid fraud they let go down the drain, Medicaid czar Dr. Mehmet Oz alleged.
Hochul yesterday joined union teachers, nurses, firefighters and public employees statewide, demanding a fix to the New York State and Local Retirement System.
Hochul held a private meeting in Albany last Friday with Tom Homan, the White House border czar appointed by Trump, to directly express her position on the federal government’s immigration policies.
Hochul left a meeting with Homan believing the federal government won’t dramatically escalate immigration enforcement in the state without her blessing.
New York Democratic state lawmakers plan to propose a tax hike on wealthy New Yorkers and corporations – pitting themselves against Hochul, who has repeatedly said no to the idea and is up for reelection this year.
New York’s Democratic governor wants to weaken one of the nation’s most ambitious climate laws in the name of affordability.
Two seemingly unrelated policies – one to reduce car insurance costs, the other to allow driverless taxis – are tangled up in Albany politics.
Over the last two years, Texas added more wind and solar power than New York has in the last two decades, a gap that has increased even as the mandates required by the state’s 2019 Climate Act are looming.
Their “Tax the Rich” campaign targets millionaires, but Democratic Socialists of America in New York are now pushing for a slew of tax hikes that would slam middle-class New Yorkers.
Nassau Executive Bruce Blakeman is set to deliver his State of the County address this week. He will do so as he continues to juggle his current role while also running for governor.
Fists flew and pepper-spray blew outside of Gracie Mansion on Saturday afternoon as New Yorkers clashed with far-right influencer Jake Lang and his posse, leading to a slew of arrests and a bomb scare.
Lang and his cronies were confronted by scores of counter-protesters outside of the home of Mayor Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor — and a smoking improvised device was thrown, sending demonstrators scrambling for cover.
The police in Manhattan arrested six people on Saturday, including one who they said threw smoking projectiles filled with bolts and screws, during a clash between far-right protesters and counter-protesters that turned violent outside Gracie Mansion.
Mamdani and his wife were inside Gracie Mansion, their official residence on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, when two people were arrested after attempting to set off a pair of “suspicious devices” as two protest groups clashed outside.
A device ignited during Saturday’s protests outside Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s official residence, was in fact an “improvised explosive device” that could have “caused serious injury or death,” the commissioner of the NYPD confirmed.
“The NYPD Bomb Squad has conducted a preliminary analysis of a device that was ignited and deployed at a protest yesterday and has determined that it is not a hoax device or a smoke bomb,” Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch said in a post on X. “
The FBI said in a statement that its Joint Terrorism Task Force is assisting city police and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York with the investigation.
Emir Balat, 18, and 19-year-old Ibrahim Kayumi, who are both from Pennsylvania, were arrested after the protest but have yet to be charged.
Kayumi and Balat, 18, both self-radicalized in recent years, reportedly traveled to Turkey and other terror-training hot spots, law enforcement sources close to the case said.
A third “suspicious device” was found in a Hyundai tied to one or both suspects parked on East End Ave. between 81st and 82nd Sts., the NYPD posted on X.
Mamdani broke his silence yesterday, calling the protest outside his official residence “rooted in bigotry and racism” and condemning the use of explosive devices that led to six arrests the day before.
“Violence at a protest is never acceptable,” Mamdani wrote on X. “The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are.”
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal was roasted after he blamed the wrong protesters for hurling suspected explosive devices during dueling demonstrations outside Gracie Mansion Saturday.
Mamdani’s wife is facing renewed scrutiny after a report that she liked a social media post dismissing an investigation into sexual violence committed during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack in Israel as a “mass rape” hoax.
Rama Duwaji allegedly liked a February 2024 Instagram post claiming The New York Times’ investigation into sexual violence during the Oct. 7 attack was “fabricated,” according to The Free Press.
Mamdani on Friday sought to create a wall between his leadership of New York City and the private views of his wife, Rama Duwaji, after being asked about her social media activity surrounding the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Mamdani’s administration will be considering converting the city’s free on-street parking areas to metered parking as the Big Apple grapples with a $5.4 billion budget gap.
Mamdani and the Department of Buildings announced a series of new rules to take down unnecessary sidewalk sheds and reduce the amount of scaffolding needed for some construction projects.
Angela Burton, a finalist whose candidacy to lead the New York City Administration for Children’s Services drew attention for her self-description as a child protective services “abolitionist,” is no longer being considered for the post, she said on Friday.
Multiple people were arrested amid a clash between pro-Iranian regime demonstrators, who erected a shrine to the slain Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, the former supreme leader of Iran, and anti-Khamenei protesters at Washington Square Park on Friday.
Many Black, middle-class NYC property owners say they’d be among the biggest victims of the Democratic Socialists of America’s proposed tax hikes.
Mamdani’s focus on freezing the rent as part of his affordability platform has unleashed a new political force of younger renters.
Mamdani has ended a funny political tradition: Every new mayor of New York City for the past 50 years has tried to bring their party’s national convention to the Big Apple.
Firebrand Queens Republican Vickie Paladino is hitting back at her City Council colleagues with a blistering lawsuit as she faces potential censure over social-media posts deemed Islamophobic.
A veteran Jewish teacher filed a discrimination suit against the elite United Nations International School in Manhattan for allegedly ignoring her complaints of antisemitism and retaliating against her for calling out Jew hatred.
Maj. Sorrfly Davius, a New York City police officer has died of a medical episode while deployed with the Army National Guard in Kuwait.
The NYPD on Friday released body-camera footage of officers encountering Department of Homeland Security agents after last week’s federal immigration arrest of Columbia University student Ellie Aghayeva.
As the NYPD touts historic low crime rates across New York City, newly released data shows a disturbing trend in the Bronx: The city’s fourth largest borough by population accounts for half of the city’s murders so far this year.
A white NYPD precinct commander allegedly groped a black female underling and declared, “I want to make biracial babies with you,” according to a bombshell lawsuit.
New York City’s traffic signals are suffering the consequences of two major winter storms and a deep freeze that lasted for weeks. Complaints about broken traffic signals have surged to 15,543 so far this year, up 42% compared to the same period in 2025.
A 160-bed men’s shelter planned for Staten Island’s South Shore is sparking pushback from local officials and residents, who have expressed concerns about its location and have urged more input from the local community.
Patients who have Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance and usually see doctors at Mount Sinai in New York City have been in a bind since the start of the year due to a contract dispute.
New Yorkers came out in droves yesterday to enjoy an early taste of spring as temperatures rose to the 60s for the first time in months, melting stubborn remnants of snow and offering the city a respite from the winter blues.
The Canajoharie Creek is flooding, though the National Weather Service expects the water will only flood land near the creek.
A coalition of progressive activists two years ago began pushing Troy to adopt protections designed to hinder retaliatory evictions and allow some renters to challenge steep rent hikes in court. Last week, things finally fell into place.
The recent jump in gas prices in the Capital Region and beyond is largely due to heightened conflict in the Middle East, specifically involving Iran, that’s caused disruptions in the global crude oil supply market.
University at Albany students are using artificial intelligence to combat misinformation created by AI.
Assemblyman John T. McDonald could face a challenger for the first time in six years. Former GOP Rensselaer Common Council candidate Joe Adamo III, 26, intends to face off against McDonald in the rarely competitive, deep blue 108th Assembly District.
St. Peter’s Nursing and Rehabilitation Center will be closing after nearly seven decades, St. Peter’s Health Partners announced Friday, because it cannot afford to shoulder the cost of upgrading the aging building.
A state of emergency was declared in South Glens Falls after a sewer line break sent tens of thousands of gallons of raw sewage into a canal next to the Hudson River.
Troy Police are investigating after a video surfaced last showing a woman berating a city parking enforcement officer and briefly driving away in the officer’s city-issued vehicle.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
