Mount Sinai, Uniformed Services University join forces to predict and prevent diseases before they start

Multidisciplinary study uses blood samples to identify disease years early, including cancers, heart disease, and autoimmune disorders

The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

NEW YORK, NY (March 2, 2026)—What if doctors could tell you a disease was coming years before you felt a single symptom—and stop it in its tracks? That is the goal of a sweeping new research initiative launched by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in collaboration with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine (HJF).

The project, called “ORIGIN: Omics to Characterize Preclinical Stages of Non-Infectious Diseases,” brings together 10 specialties across Mount Sinai Health System in an ambitious multidisciplinary disease-prevention study.

The study will analyze stored blood samples from up to 13,000 active-duty U.S. service members, drawn years before any diagnosis, using advanced molecular “omics” tools such as proteomics, exposomics, metabolomics, genomics, and more. By identifying risk factors and early warning signals, ORIGIN aims to lay the groundwork for predicting and ultimately preventing some of today’s most common and devastating diseases.

A Decade of Partnership, Now Expanded to a Global Scale

“For years, we have dreamed of being able to tell a patient: ‘We see this coming, and here is what we can do about it,’” said Jean-Frédéric Colombel, MD, Professor of Medicine (Gastroenterology) and Co-Director, The Helmsley Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Co-Principal Investigator, ORIGIN. “ORIGIN is the realization of that dream. By studying the blood of service members years before they get sick, we can map the molecular road to disease and ultimately develop tools to change course. This is medicine at its most proactive, and it could benefit not just military families, but every American.”

For more than a decade, Dr. Colombel has partnered with USU researchers to study inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in military personnel using the Department of Defense Serum Repository (DoDSR), which contains millions of longitudinal blood samples. Their research identified molecular signals in the blood years before IBD was diagnosed.

ORIGIN dramatically expands that model. Where the earlier effort focused on one disease, ORIGIN will study more than 25 conditions simultaneously, including rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, neurodegenerative disease, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), colon cancer, lung cancer, and heart failure. The effort is powered by the Precision Immunology Institute at Mount Sinai (PrIISM), whose cross-disciplinary model is specifically designed to break down the walls that traditionally separate medical specialties—enabling cardiologists, immunologists, neurologists, oncologists, and environmental and data scientists to work as one team.

Why the Military? A Unique Window Into Human Health

U.S. military service members receive comprehensive, routine health monitoring from the moment they enlist, creating an extraordinary long-term medical record that is unlike anything available in the civilian world. The DoDSR holds serial blood samples from millions of service members, many collected a decade or more before any illness emerged. For researchers, this is a scientific treasure.

ORIGIN will use this resource to answer questions that have never been answerable before, including:

• What is happening in the body five years before someone is diagnosed with lupus?
• What molecular changes precede early-onset colon cancer—a disease on the rise in younger adults—by three years?
• How do military-specific environmental exposures like burn pits and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS, aka “forever chemicals,” which are found at more than 700 U.S. military sites) alter the body’s biology and raise disease risk?

USU’s data analysts will select and match cases and controls from the Military Health System Data Repository, coordinate with the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Division to deidentify all records, and ensure the proper governance and security of the data and serum before it is shared with the Mount Sinai research team for analysis.

“The men and women warfighters of this country deserve cutting-edge medical care,” said Daniel J. Adams, MD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at USU and USU’s Principal Investigator for ORIGIN. “Our collaboration with Mount Sinai directly advances our USU mission to support the readiness, health, and well-being of our military community, using the unparalleled resource of the DoD Serum Repository to decode the early biology of chronic diseases. The insights from ORIGIN will help us protect service members today and advance medicine for decades to come.”

Breaking Medical Silos: The PrIISM Approach

One of the most exciting aspects of ORIGIN is the way it is structured. ORIGIN is designed to break from the traditional model of studying one disease at a time. Instead, 10 departments across Mount Sinai Health System are collaborating under PrIISM to look for shared biological pathways across different conditions.

Using advanced “omics” technologies, researchers will analyze proteins, metabolites, environmental exposures, and immune responses from blood samples, integrating these data through sophisticated computational modeling. By uncovering common molecular roots of disease, the team hopes to develop treatments and prevention strategies that work across multiple conditions—and ultimately reclassify illness based on molecular biology rather than the organ it affects.

“ORIGIN is exactly the kind of bold, boundary-breaking science that PrIISM was built to support,” said Miriam Merad, MD, PhD, Director, PrIISM, and Mount Sinai’s Co-Principal Investigator for ORIGIN. “By uniting 10 departments and bridging the worlds of military medicine and academic research, we are creating something entirely new—a molecular atlas of how disease begins. The potential to prevent illness before it starts, and to rewrite how we classify and treat dozens of conditions, is truly transformative for patients everywhere.”

A Study With Real-World Impact

The study timeline covers samples collected between October 2003 and September 2025, and the project is expected to run for at least 10 years—with findings that could reshape clinical guidelines, drug development, and public health policy for generations.

Diseases targeted by ORIGIN include conditions that are increasingly common among younger Americans, such as early-onset colon cancer, PTSD, and Crohn’s disease, making its findings urgently relevant far beyond the military community.

# # #

About the Mount Sinai Health System 

Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with 48,000 employees working across seven hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, more than 600 research and clinical labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time—discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it. 

Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 9,000 primary and specialty care physicians and 10 free-standing joint-venture centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida. Hospitals within the System are consistently ranked by Newsweek’s® “The World’s Best Smart Hospitals, Best in State Hospitals, World Best Hospitals and Best Specialty Hospitals” and by U.S. News & World Report's® “Best Hospitals” and “Best Children’s Hospitals.” The Mount Sinai Hospital is on the U.S. News & World Report® “Best Hospitals” Honor Roll for 2025-2026.  

For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and YouTube. 

---

Subject of Research

People

 

New technology could use sunlight to break down ‘forever chemicals’

University of Bath

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

An international team of scientists led by the University of Bath has developed a new catalyst – a substance that speeds up chemical reactions – that uses sunlight to break down so-called ‘forever chemicals’ prevalent in the environment and known to accumulate in the human body with unknown long-term health effects.

They hope this technology could in the future be scaled up and used to detect or remove these persistent chemicals from the environment.

Published today in the journal RSC Advances, the authors report a prototype, easy-to-make carbon-based catalyst which could be used to break down polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a group of water-repellent and incredibly stable chemicals used in products ranging from non-stick saucepans to make-up.

Since PFAS are very chemically stable, they don’t degrade naturally and they’ve been shown to accumulate in the body, water systems, food chain and the wider environment. It’s not fully known what long-term effects they have on human health and the environment, but some studies have linked them to an increased risk of cancer.

Scientists from the University of Bath worked with colleagues from the University of São Paulo (Brazil), University of Edinburgh (Scotland) and Swansea University (Wales) to develop a photocatalyst based on carbon nitrite combined with a rigid microporous polymer.

The polymer helps bind PFAS to the catalyst, which uses light to break it down into carbon dioxide and fluoride, a chemical found in some toothpastes.

First author of the paper, Dr Fernanda C. O. L. Martins, worked on the project during a 6-month placement at the University of Bath as part of her PhD studies at the University of São Paulo.

She said: “PFAS are used in many different products, from waterproof clothing to lipstick, but they accumulate in the body and in the environment over time, with toxic effects.

“Our project has combined an easy-to-make carbon-based catalyst with a polymer called PIM-1 to make PFAS breakdown more efficient, especially at neutral pH, which would be naturally found in the environment.”

As well as using it to break down PFAS, the technology could also be used in a sensor for forever chemicals, by detecting the fluoride that is given off. Whilst it is currently at the prototype stage, and the research team is now looking for industrial partners to scale up and optimise the technology.

Professor Frank Marken, from the University of Bath’s Department of Chemistry and Institute of Sustainability and Climate Change (ISCC), led the project. He said: “Currently it’s very difficult to detect PFAS, requiring expensive equipment in a specialist lab.

“We hope that our technology could in the future be used in a simple portable sensor that can be used outside the lab, for example to detect where there are higher levels of PFAS in the environment.”

---

Journal

RSC Advances

DOI

10.1039/D5RA07284K 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Intrinsically microporous polymer (PIM-1) enhanced degradation of heptadecafluoro-1-nonanol at graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4)

 

New review identifies pathways for managing PFAS waste in semiconductor manufacturing

University of Illinois Grainger College of Engineering

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Representative chemical structures of the diverse PFAS used in semiconductor manufacturing are shown, indicating the diversity of structural elements, including carboxylic and sulfonic acids, ethers, side-chains, cylic and bicyclic groups.

view more 

Credit: The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

As semiconductor manufacturing rapidly expands to meet growing global demand for generative AI and advanced electronics, a new review published in Environmental Science & Technology assesses the current state of science, technology and policy around managing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) waste in the industry and outlines recommendations for a path forward.

PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” play a central role in modern chipmaking due to their unique properties and essential function in complex chemical processes like photolithography and etching, yet their links to environmental and health concerns pose an ongoing challenge for the industry.

“Managing the waste from these facilities is a massive undertaking,” said Xiao Su, a professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who advised on the review. “A single large factory can produce thousands of cubic meters of wastewater per day, containing a ‘soup’ of diverse PFAS mixed with various solvents, metals and salts.”

A National Science Foundation-funded workshop held in August 2024 convened experts from academia, industry and government to discuss solutions to the problem. The review paper resulted from that meeting.

“This review is really a consensus statement on where we see the field right now, and where it needs to go for the semiconductor PFAS problem to be solved in a way that allows the industry to grow sustainably,” said lead co-author Devashish Gokhale, a postdoctoral researcher in Su’s research group at Illinois.

Gabriel A. Cerrón-Calle, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University, and Mitchell L. Kim-Fu, Department of Chemistry at Oregon State University, are the other lead co-authors.

The paper, which synthesized insights from the workshop and over 160 published studies, highlights three priority areas for addressing PFAS waste in semiconductor manufacturing: improved monitoring, effective separation and safe destruction.

The authors explored how advanced tools such as AI paired with advanced, high‑resolution mass spectrometry could help identify where PFAS originate, and how they transform during processing. They also examined technologies for breaking chemical bonds, including plasma discharge and electrochemical oxidation, as well as much needed separation methods for concentration, including novel absorbents, membranes and electrochemical approaches.  

Many of these technologies were originally developed for municipal water systems, however, and significant adaptation would be needed to handle the complexity of industrial waste.

“Traditional water treatment methods often fail to catch these chemicals, especially the ‘short’ and ‘ultrashort-chain’ versions that are common in semiconductor waste,” Su said. “Furthermore, because many chemical formulas are proprietary trade secrets, researchers often struggle to even identify exactly which PFAS are present in the waste streams.”

“There's also this challenge of how everything is so integrated and how many steps it has,” Gokhale said. “A typical semiconductor fabrication facility could easily have hundreds or even a thousand manufacturing steps, and these are all integrated with each other. If you develop new treatment solutions, they need to be able to fit inside this complex operation without affecting everything else that's highly optimized.”

Beyond technical challenges, the paper identifies several other areas that need to be considered for progress to happen. These include gaining a better understanding of PFAS’ transmutable chemical properties, determining the likely direction of future regulations, gaining access to real industrial waste streams for lab work, and scaling up lab technologies for industrial settings.

Because interest in finding solutions to the PFAS problem in semiconductor manufacturing continues to increase, Gokhale sees this as an exciting time for researchers in the area.

“There are a lot of high-value applications in the semiconductor industry, which is growing very rapidly,” he said. “This is really a unique opportunity for folks to translate their academic research into industrial practice in an area where there could be significant industrial investment and government interest.”

The paper makes clear that deeper collaboration between industry, academia and policymakers is critical for finding solutions to the issues outlined in the review.

“The ultimate goal is to integrate these tools into compact, cost-effective systems that can be implemented in either existing or future space-constrained factories,” Su said. “By fostering partnerships between academia, government and industry, the sector aims to reach a ‘zero-discharge’ future that supports both technological advancement and environmental safety.”

In addition to Su, professors Jennifer A. Field, Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology at Oregon State University, and Paul Westerhoff, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University, co-supervised the paper, which also includes the contributions of numerous workshop participants from both industry and academia.

The review was supported by the National Science Foundation’s Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems (CBET) under grant #2432110.

---

Editor’s Note:

To reach Xiao Su, email x2su@illinois.edu; Jennifer Field, email jennifer.field@oregonstate.edu; Paul Westerhoff, email: p.westerhoff@asu.edu

The paper, “Challenges and Opportunities in PFAS Waste Management for Semiconductor Manufacturing,” is available online at doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c10109.

---

Journal

Environmental Science & Technology

DOI

10.1021/acs.est.5c10109 

Article Title

Challenges and Opportunities in PFAS Waste Management for Semiconductor Manufacturing

Article Publication Date

11-Feb-2026

Britain unveils first national plan to curb 'forever chemicals' risks

Britain unveiled its first national plan to curb “forever chemicals,” seeking to cut risks to human health and the environment, the government said. PFAS, used in products from cookware to food packaging, persist for decades and accumulate in nature, posing threats likely to endure for hundreds of years.


Issued on: 03/02/2026
By: FRANCE 24

People walk through the city centre in Liverpool, Britain November 27, 2025

 © Temilade Adelaja, Reuters

Britain unveiled Tuesday its first-ever plan to tackle "forever chemicals" and reduce the risks they pose to health and the environment.

PFAs (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a group of some 10,000 human-manufactured chemicals used in everything from pizza boxes to cookware, to waterproof clothing.

They take an extremely long time to break down -- earning them their "forever" nickname -- and instead build up in the environment.

There is growing evidence their widespread use has created risks that "will likely remain for hundreds of years", according to the UK's Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs.


It said in a statement the new government plan aims to "understand where these chemicals are coming from, how they spread and how to reduce public and environmental exposure".

The full extent of PFAs in England's estuaries and coastal waters "will be assessed for the first time," it added.

PFAs are present in food and drinking water.

Chronic exposure to even low levels has been linked to liver damage, high cholesterol, reduced immune responses, low birth weights and several kinds of cancer.

Under the plan, "a consultation will be launched later this year on introducing a statutory limit for PFAS in England's public supply regulations."

Should permitted levels be exceeded, this would make it easier for regulators to "enforce against water companies breaking the rules".

"It's crucial that we protect public health and the environment for future generations," said Environment Minister Emma Hardy in the statement.

She noted the government would work with regulators, industry, and local communities "to ensure 'forever chemicals' are not a forever problem".

Safer alternatives to everyday items, such as period pads and waterproof clothing, could also be developed.

Traces of the chemicals have been found everywhere from Tibet to Antarctica and contamination scandals have gripped Belgium and the United States among other nations.

Their use is increasingly being restricted across the world due to adverse health effects.

A handful of US states, including California, implemented a ban on the intentional use of PFAS in cosmetics beginning in 2025, and several other states are slated to follow in 2026.

The European Union has also been studying a ban on the use of PFAs in consumer products.

A report last week said their continued use could cost Europe up to 1.7 trillion euros ($2 trillion) by 2050 because of their impact on people's health.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

The Actual Gavin Newsom Is Much Worse Than You Think

Norman Solomon

 February 6, 2026

FacebookTwitterRedditBlueskyEmail

Photograph Source: Caassemblyedits – CC BY-SA 4.0

California Governor Gavin Newsom has made headlines this winter by vowing to defeat a proposal for a one-time 5 percent tax on billionaires in the state. Many national polls now rank him as the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, but aligning with the ultra-wealthy is not auspicious for wooing the party’s voters. Last year, Reuters/Ipsos pollsters reported that a whopping 86 percent of Democrats said “changing the federal tax code so wealthy Americans and large corporations pay more in taxes should be a priority.”

Newsom has drawn widespread praise for waging an aggressive war of words against President Trump. But few people outside of California know much about the governor’s actual record. Many Democratic voters will be turned off to learn that his fervent opposition to a billionaire tax is part of an overall political approach that has trended more and more corporate-friendly.

A year ago, Newsom sent about 100 leaders of California-based companies a prepaid cell phone “programmed with Newsom’s digits and accompanied by notes from the governor himself,” Politico reported. One note to the CEO of a big tech corporation said, “If you ever need anything, I’m a phone call away.” While pandering to business elites, Newsom has slashed budgets to assist the poor and near-poor with healthcare, housing and food – in a state where 7 million live under the official poverty line and child poverty rates are the highest in the nation.

The latest Newsom budget, released last month, continues his trajectory away from social compassion. “The governor’s 2026-27 spending plan balances the budget by dodging the harsh realities of the Republican megabill, H.R. 1, and maintains state cuts to vital public supports, like Medi-Cal, enacted as part of the current-year budget,” the California Budget & Policy Center pointed out. “Governor Newsom’s reluctance to propose meaningful revenue solutions to help blunt the harm of federal cuts undermines his posture to counter the Trump administration.” The statement said that the proposed budget “will leave many Californians without food assistance and healthcare coverage.”

So far, key facts about Newsom’s policy priorities have scarcely gone beyond California’s borders. “National media have focused on Newsom as a personality and potential White House candidate and have almost completely ignored what he has and has not done as a governor,” said columnist Dan Walters, whose five decades covering California politics included 33 years at The Sacramento Bee. “It’s a perpetual failing of national political media to be more interested in image and gamesmanship rather than actual actions, the sizzle rather than the steak, and Newsom is very adept at exploiting that tendency.”

Walters told me that Newsom “has generally avoided direct conflicts with his fellow millionaires, such as discouraging tax increases, and has danced between corporations and labor unions on bread-and-butter issues such as minimum wages. He’s also quietly moved away from environmental issues, most notably shifting from condemnation of the oil industry for price gouging and pollution to encouraging the industry to increase production and keep refineries operating.”

Newsom angered climate activists last fall by signing his bill to open up thousands of new oil wells. Noting that “Newsom just championed a plan to dramatically expand oil drilling in California,” the Oil and Gas Action Network said that he “can’t claim climate leadership while giving Big Oil what it wants.” Third Act, founded by Bill McKibben, responded by denouncing “Newsom’s Big Oil backslide” and accused the governor of “backtracking on key climate and community health commitments.”

Great efforts to curb the ubiquitous toxic impacts of PFAS “forever chemicals” hit a wall in October when Newsom vetoed legislation to ban them in such consumer items as cookware, dental floss and cleaning products. “This bill had huge support from both within the state and beyond, and yet, apparently, the governor was interested only in the one sector opposing it – the cookware industry,” said Clean Water Action policy director Andria Ventura. The organization put the veto in context, observing that “the governor seems determined to move away from his pro-environment past.”

 

As with the environment, so with workers’ rights. In 2023, Newsom vetoed a bill to provide unemployment compensation to workers on strike. In 2024, he vetoed a bill to help protect farmworkers from violations of heat safety regulations, while temperatures in California’s agricultural fields spike above 110 degrees.

The latest Gallup polling of the party’s rank-and-file indicates a wide ideological gap between Newsom and the party’s base. Fifty-nine percent of Democrats described themselves as “liberal” or “very liberal,” while 32 percent said “moderate,” and 8 percent “conservative” or “very conservative.” And the trendline is striking: Democrats’ self-identification as liberal or very liberal has doubled in the last two decades.

It might be tempting to believe that Newsom’s services to corporatism and the rich are less important than the possibility that he would be an adept Democratic nominee to defeat the GOP ticket in 2028. But pursuit of such “moderate” politics was harmful to Democratic turnout in 2016 and 2024. Newsom’s current political attitude is similar to the timeworn approach that undermined the candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris.

Newsom says he’s eager to pitch a big tent for the Democratic Party, declaring that he welcomes the likes of former U.S. senator Joe Manchin as well as New York’s socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani in the fold. “I want it to be the Manchin to Mamdani party,” Newsom said in November. “I want it to be inclusive.” He did not mention that during the Biden presidency, while in the Senate, Manchin wrecked prospects for transformational Build Back Better legislation and other measures that would have benefitted tens of millions of Americans.

It’s telling that Newsom and former president Bill Clinton, a longtime backer, have voiced profuse mutual admiration. Interviewed after he came off the stage with the former president in a joint appearance at a Clinton Global Initiative event a few months ago, Newsom praised “the ability to reach across the aisle.” That formula is a throwback to what propelled Clinton into the presidency with a pledge to find common ground, only to toss the working class overboard from the Oval Office. The disastrous results – made possible by Clinton’s reaching “across the aisle” – included passage of the NAFTA trade pact, the “welfare reform” law that harshly undermined poor women with children, the mass-incarceration-boosting crime bill and the media monopoly-enabling Telecommunications Act.

Launching his podcast “This Is Gavin Newsom” a year ago, the host began warmly showcasing extremist bigots by featuring Charlie Kirk as his first guest. When Kirk was assassinated in September, Newsom lavished praise on him, tweeting: “The best way to honor Charlie’s memory is to continue his work: engage with each other, across ideology, through spirited discourse.” From the governor’s office, Newsom issued a statement that explained: “I knew Charlie, and I admired his passion and commitment to debate.”

The praise raises the question: how far right would someone need to be before no longer meriting Newsom’s admiration for “passion”? Clearly, Kirk wasn’t far right enough to be disqualified. He only said things like asserting that “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America,” proclaiming “we made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s” and castigating Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and others as affirmative-action hires: “You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”

Newsom’s show has continued to give a friendly platform to such extreme right-wingers as Steve Bannon and Ben Shapiro. In effect, Newsom is engaged in a podcast form of triangulation – by turns validating and disputing his guests’ attacks on progressivism.

On no issue is Newsom more out of step with the Democratic electorate than U.S. support for Israel. Last summer, a Quinnipiac survey found that 77 percent of Democrats believed Israel was guilty of genocide in Gaza – but last month Newsom said the opposite, declaring “I don’t agree with that notion.” Like most Democratic officeholders who combine their denial of genocide with support for the nonstop weapons flow to Israel, Newsom lays blame narrowly on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that he is “crystal clear about my love for Israel and condemnation of Bibi.” The same Quinnipiac poll found that fully three-quarters of Democrats were opposed to sending further military aid to Israel, a position that Newsom refuses to take at the same time that he dodges questions about the right-leaning Israel lobby group AIPAC.

Newsom can expect a direct challenge from another California Democrat likely to be on debate stages when the party’s presidential campaigns get underway next year. Congressman Ro Khanna said of Newsom in January: “He doesn’t want to offend the AIPAC donors. He doesn’t want to offend the donor class. And that explains his position on going to give Netanyahu a blank check right after October 7, on not being willing to ever call out the funding we were giving, and not willing to call out that clearly it was a genocide, and then not willing to challenge the billionaire class on tax policy.”

For anyone who wants a truly progressive Democratic Party, Gavin Newsom is bad news.

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, is published by The New Press.