Editor. Interested in science, technology, international affairs.
Joined January 2014
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Andrew Haffner retweeted
Mélenchon tells the Israeli ambassador that, if elected, he would take France to war with Israel in defense of Palestine. That is, of course, assuming there’s anything left of France’s finances by then.
Andrew Haffner retweeted
This is a real issue, glad to see it covered in @TheAtlantic
Young boys are being discouraged from getting into reading—and it’s because more books are missing one key element, @sophiah_n reports: theatlantic.com/culture/2026…
Andrew Haffner retweeted
This seems a strange way to describe someone who fought at the Somme, who lost nearly all his closest friends in battle, who drank the nectar of ancient poetry with C. S. Lewis, who wholly & irrevocably re-invented the fantasy genre.
Andrew Haffner retweeted
A group of fluffy king penguin chicks chasing a feral cat in the Falkland Islands
Andrew Haffner retweeted
Al Jazeera: "Get out of the Middle East and go back to Europe!"
Al Jazeera: "Why are you back in Europe???"
Al Jazeera's @nilsadler1 reports from Exarchia in Athens, where residents say short-term rentals, many Israeli-owned, are driving up rents and eroding the area’s character.
"The study found that within the 2019 and 2024 timeframe, Alberta was the only province where government employment didn’t outpace private sector employment."
Canada added no private sector jobs from 2019 to 2024 — U.S. did the exact opposite nationalpost.com/news/canada…
Andrew Haffner retweeted
Using precinct results from 11 states, we estimate ~75% of Democrats’ net gain came from the turnout gap and ~20% from vote switching. Exit polls imply 35% nationally, but turnout still leads. 8 in 9 Trump voters who didn’t vote GOP stayed home.
Andrew Haffner retweeted
Wow, a pretty damning article with diverse lines of evidence.
Most people do not realize just how easy the AP exams have gotten. They are not college level.
Why/how have they become so easy? What's going on?
This might shock you... A brutal new piece in Education Next just dropped, saying the decline in rigor of the AP in the last two decades is, in large part, because the content has been GUTTED. For example:
— AP Biology cut 40% of its material
— Required lines from the Aeneid in AP Latin halved
— Spanish Lit reading list cut from 56 works to 38
Then the questions themselves have become absurdly easier. Readability measures show English passages have fallen multiple grade levels, and some now include footnotes defining basic words...
A 2025 AP English prompt included footnote definitions for words like "optimism" and "pessimism."
At the same time, scoring was recalibrated so that more students pass: guessing penalties disappeared, rubrics grew more generous, readers were told to give students the benefit of the doubt, etc. — "no one at College Board had any incentive to maintain rigor."
College professors are now seeing students arrive with AP credit who lack basic content knowledge and writing ability. The College Board insists the exams have not become easier, but everybody familiar with them knows they've become an absolute joke.
Advanced Placement is no longer advanced. This is not college level.
It must be replaced.
Andrew Haffner retweeted
Given the scope of this sprawling beatdown, let’s compare it to another huge Senate wave year — 2014. Republicans gained NINE seats that cycle (which may well be in the ballpark of where Dems end up this year). It was a bloodbath, despite Dems projecting hopes/confidence til the very end. Sound familiar? Yeah. But there’s a big difference: Look at this map…
The dark red states represent GOP Senate gains in 2014. Nearly all came in pretty conservative places & most were in states Obama had lost two years prior. Democrats are now likely to gain Senate seats in multiple states that weren’t just carried by Trump two years ago…but were carried *by double digits.* That’s a next-level blowout. Also, it took multiple cycles for Dems to recover from 2014.
Andrew Haffner retweeted
A higher percentage rated corruption (54%) as "crucial" than the war with Iran (34%).
Andrew Haffner retweeted
How important was AI and data centers to your vote?
Crucial: 23%
Major factor / minor factor / non-factor: 77%
nbcnews.com/politics/2026-el…
Andrew Haffner retweeted
Last night I bought a 12 pack of squirt and the cashier asked “what are you planning on mixing with this?” And I got so mad that the only appropriate response I could say was “it’s a perfectly fine beverage on its own”
Andrew Haffner retweeted
One in 10 Canadians knows someone offered MAID for a ‘treatable’ condition
nationalpost.com/opinion/one…
Andrew Haffner retweeted
ultimately i am unclear on what the moral of the great pumpkin is. linus’s determination and faith are presented like virtues - except that his friends are, presumably, correct that it is all in vain. is the lesson that faith is a virtue, even if it is placed in something false?
Andrew Haffner retweeted
Today my office has released a major new report on student enrollment in NYC.
We found that k-12 enrollment in our public schools has fallen by 187k since 2013, with a projected decline of an additional 128k students by 2034.
As total enrollment declines, NYCPS is serving a student population with growing needs. The number of students with disabilities is increasing. In the most recent school year, approximately 73% of students were in poverty and 14% were homeless or living in temporary housing.
Our report finds the drop in enrollment is driven by declining births and families with children leaving NYC, with a particularly notable drop in public-school enrollment as students transition from elementary to middle school.
These trends have massive implications for our schools that we have only barely begin to grapple with. My hope is that this report will spur a long overdue conversation about what the era of falling student enrollment means for NYC, and what we can do to reverse or slow it. 🧵
