INDICATORS

Pew Research Center - On a typical day, a third of the adults in the United States take a nap. More men than women report that they caught a little snooze in the past 24 hours -- 38% vs. 31%. This gender gap occurs almost entirely among older adults. More than four-in-ten ( 41%) men ages 50 and older say they napped in the past day, compared with just 28% of women of the same age. Below the age of 50, men and women are about equally likely to say they napped in the past day (35% vs. 34%). There are distinctive racial patterns to napping. Half of the black adults in our survey say they napped in the past 24 hours, compared with just a third of whites and Hispanics.

Napping is quite common at the lower end of the income scale; some 42% of adults with an annual income below $30,000 report they napped in the past day. As income rises, napping declines. However, at the upper end of the scale (adults whose annual income is $100,000 or above) the tendency to nap revives and reverts to the mean.

Napping spikes among the old -- but only among the very old. More than half of adults ages 80 and older say they napped in the past day. Among every other age group in the survey -- including both the young (ages 18 to 29) and the old (ages 70 to 79) -- about a third say they napped in the past 24 hours.

Reuters - The United States is the most admired country globally thanks largely to the star power of President Barack Obama and his administration, according to a new poll. It climbed from seventh place last year, ahead of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan which completed the top five nations in the Nation Brand Index. "What's really remarkable is that in all my years studying national reputation, I have never seen any country experience such a dramatic change in its standing as we see for the United States for 2009," said Simon Anholt, the founder of NBI, which measured the global image of 50 countries each year. Canada took the biggest hit in the latest survey, falling to seventh from fourth place, while China climbed several spots to 22nd, which Anholt believes in due in part to the successful staging of the Olympics. . . At the opposite end of the survey Colombia and Kenya tied for 47th place. Angola was number 49 and Iran came in last at number 50.