Gates Foundation Cutting Staff

Headline USA Editor
-
0
Gates Foundation Cutting Staff

(Headline USA) The Gates Foundation announced Wednesday that it will spend a record $9 billion in 2026, maximizing its spending in key areas such as global health. At the same time it will begin reducing the number of staff positions it has by as much as 500 over five years. This announcement comes in the wake of last year’s surprise decision to shutter the foundation in 2045.

The planned layoffs mark another major shift for one of the largest and most influential foundations in the world at a time when many of its long-term priorities, such as addressing poverty and improving global health, have been undermined by cuts in U.S. government spending by the Trump administration.

Bill Gates said last year that the foundation would spend $200 billion over the next 20 years and then close as part of his plan to give away the bulk of his wealth. This week, he and other members of the foundation’s board approved the largest budget in the foundation’s history, topping last year’s budget of $8.74 billion. With that new dollar amount, the foundation will increase budgets for several programs, including women’s health, vaccine development, polio eradication, AI, and U.S. education.

The board also approved a proposal to cap operating costs — including staff, salaries, infrastructure required to run the organization, facilities, and travel expenses — at no more than $1.25 billion, or approximately 14% of the foundation’s budget. To meet that goal, the grantmaker will cut up to 500 of its 2,375 staff positions by 2030, including some open roles that may remain unfilled. The effort to reduce the staff count along with other expenses will be done incrementally and reviewed annually rather than coming in “a big wave,” foundation CEO Mark Suzman told the Chronicle of Philanthropy in an interview.

“We will do this thoughtfully, carefully, and systematically,” he said. “We’ll be recalibrating it every year. That 500-person target is a maximum target. I very much hope that we won’t have to do it as large as that number.”

Suzman said he and other board members felt the operating costs cap was necessary. If left unchecked, the foundation’s operating expenditures, currently around 13% of the budget, were projected to approach 18% by the end of the decade, Suzman said. The board wants to ensure that the foundation is spending money prudently and with a focus on maximizing the dollars spent and resources provided to the people the foundation serves, he said.

The Gates Foundation is also the world’s largest foundation to decide to close, and many in philanthropy have wondered how its leaders will go about planning an exit strategy, said Elizabeth Dale, acting executive director and Frey Foundation Chair for Family Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University’s philanthropy center. She works with a group of about 20 foundations that are spending down their endowments. 

Sunsetting a foundation with the massive wealth of the Gates Foundation is unprecedented and will likely require strong strategic planning, Dale said before the release of the new budget and staffing details.

“My sense is that they spent the last year really trying to home in on their priorities and their strategy,” she said.

Many of the foundation’s core areas of work and achievement over the past decades have suffered due to humanitarian aid cuts from the United States and other countries last year, making philanthropic support more critical. In a recent blog post, Bill Gates noted that the “world went backwards” last year when it comes to child deaths, with the number going up for the first time this century, from 4.6 million in 2024 to 4.8 million in 2025.

“The next five years will be difficult as we try to get back on track and work to scale up new lifesaving tools,” Gates wrote. “Yet I remain optimistic about the long-term future.” 

In an effort to address that backsliding, the foundation is expected to accelerate spending in three priority areas over the next two decades: maternal and child health, infectious disease prevention, and poverty reduction, Suzman said. It also is expected to increase some grant sizes over time, though not across the board.

In the same post, Gates also discussed the challenges that artificial intelligence poses, warning that the technology could disrupt the job market and be misused by “bad actors” if more attention isn’t paid to how it’s developed, governed, and deployed.

At the same time, Gates has championed AI adoption. The foundation was among a coalition of funders that last July pledged to offer $1 billion in grants and investments to help develop AI tools for public defenders, social workers, and other frontline workers in the United States over the next 15 years. And, Suzman noted, AI is one of the foundation’s portfolio areas that will continue to expand.

The foundation also is expanding its footprint in India and Africa. Earlier this week, it announced the creation of a new Africa and India Offices Division. Staff on the HIV and tuberculosis teams at Gates Foundation headquarters in Seattle also will be downsized as that work largely shifts to offices in Africa, he said.

Though the foundation has announced plans to close, Suzman continues to remind people internally and externally that 20 years is still a significant amount of time for the Gates Foundation to operate and make an impact.

“We are moving into what I believe is going to be the most impactful period of the Gates Foundation in its history,” he said. “We’ve learned a huge amount over the last quarter century. We’ve built expertise, credibility, and partnerships. We now have a set of goals that are allowing us to focus with greater intentionality.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

Florida Officers Wounded in Ambush While Stopping Suspect in Fatal Shooting, Police Chief Says

Headline USA Editor
-
0
Florida Officers Wounded in Ambush While Stopping Suspect in Fatal Shooting, Police Chief Says

(Headline USA) Two police officers were shot Wednesday while responding to shots fired at a business in the city that is home to the University of Florida, but they didn’t have life-threatening injuries, officials said.

The two responding officers were ambushed as the suspect was trying to leave a Gainesville, Florida business district, busy with rush-hour traffic, where he had just fatally shot someone at a nearby lumber yard, Gainesville Police Chief Nelson Moya said at a news conference.

The officers exchanged gunfire with the suspect, killing him. One officer was wounded in the arm, and the other was wounded in the leg. They were being treated at a nearby hospital and expected to fully recover, the police chief said.

“Their heroism and actions resulted not only in neutralizing someone who was out to commit murder but to ensure that the rest of our public was safe,” Moya said. “The community is not in danger at this time because of anything related to this incident.”

Neither the suspect nor the homicide victim were immediately identified by authorities. 

While there was “clear intent” by the suspect to harm the homicide victim, detectives are still investigating a motive for the fatal shooting at the lumber yard, according to the police chief.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

FBI Searches a Washington Post Reporter’s Home as Part of a Classified Documents Investigation

Headline USA Editor
-
0
FBI Searches a Washington Post Reporter’s Home as Part of a Classified Documents Investigation

(Headline USA) FBI agents searched a Washington Post reporter’s home on Wednesday as part of a leak investigation into a Pentagon contractor accused of taking home classified information, the Justice Department said.

Hannah Natanson, who has been covering President Donald Trump’s federal government reforms, had a phone, two laptops and a Garmin watch seized in the search of her Virginia home, the Post reported. Natanson has reported extensively on the federal workforce and recently published a piece describing how she gained hundreds of new sources — leading one colleague to call her “the federal government whisperer.”

The Post was told that Natanson and the newspaper are not targets of the probe, executive editor Matt Murray said in an email to colleagues.

“Nonetheless, this extraordinary, aggressive action is deeply concerning and raises profound questions and concern around the constitutional protections for our work,” Murray wrote. “The Washington Post has a long history of zealous support for robust press freedoms. The entire institution stands by those freedoms and our work.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the search was done at the request of the Defense Department and that the journalist was “obtaining and reporting classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor.”

“Leaking classified information puts America’s national security and the safety of our military heroes in serious jeopardy,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X. “President Trump has zero tolerance for it and will continue to aggressively crack down on these illegal acts moving forward.”

The warrant says the search was related to an investigation into a system engineer and information technology specialist for a government contractor in Maryland who authorities allege took home classified materials, the Post reported. The worker, Aurelio Perez-Lugones, was charged earlier this month with unlawful retention of national defense information, according to court papers. He has not been charged with sharing classified information, and he has not been accused in court papers with leaking.

Perez-Lugones, who held a top secret security clearance, is accused of printing classified and sensitive reports at work. In a search of his Maryland home and car this month, authorities found documents marked “SECRET,” including one in a lunchbox, according to court papers.

An FBI spokesperson declined to comment on Wednesday. The Washington Post said Wednesday that it was monitoring and reviewing the situation. An email seeking comment was sent to lawyers for Perez-Lugones, who is expected to appear in court on Thursday for a detention hearing.

First Amendment groups expressed alarm at the search, saying it could chill investigative journalism that holds government officials to account.

“Physical searches of reporters’ devices, homes, and belongings are some of the most invasive investigative steps law enforcement can take,” Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press president Bruce Brown said. “While we won’t know the government’s arguments about overcoming these very steep hurdles until the affidavit is made public, this is a tremendous escalation in the administration’s intrusions into the independence of the press.”

The Justice Department over the years has developed, and revised, internal guidelines governing how it will respond to news media leaks.

In April, Bondi issued new guidelines saying prosecutors would again have the authority to use subpoenas, court orders and search warrants to hunt for government officials who make “unauthorized disclosures” to journalists.

The moves rescinded a policy from President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration that protected journalists from having their phone records secretly seized during leak investigations. 

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

Protected Status to End for Somalis in U.S.

Headline USA Editor
-
0
Protected Status to End for Somalis in U.S.

(J.D. Davidson, The Center Square) While fraud investigations surrounding millions of taxpayer dollars and day cares in Minnesota continue, the Trump administration ended temporary protection status for Somalis.

The status change is expected to impact the nearly 2,500 Somalis living in the United States under TPS and another 1,400 with pending applications.

However, between 80,000 and 100,000 Somalis reportedly live in Minnesota.

“Temporary means temporary,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. “Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status. Further, allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests. We are putting Americans first.”

The TPS designation for Somalia ends March 17. Somalis who do not have legal status in the country must report their departure from the U.S., according to Homeland Security. Additionally, U.S. taxpayers will cover the cost of the plane ticket for those leaving the country and provide a $1,000 exit bonus.

At least 98 people have been charged, including 85 Somalians, for their role in a scheme targeting 14 high-risk Medicaid-funded services through Minnesota Department of Human Services programs, Attorney General Pam Bondi said. Sixty have already been found guilty, with some pleading guilty this month.

In October, Gov. Tim Walz shut down all 14 programs and ordered a third-party audit of Medicaid billing at Human Services. Earlier this month, he appointed a new director to implement a statewide fraud prevention program.

Homeland Security and the FBI continue to investigate more fraud in Minneapolis.

The firestorm first broke about the Minneapolis fraud cases following the release of reports in late November saying millions of taxpayer dollars had been stolen from the Minnesota welfare system and then sent to the Somali-based terror group Al-Shabaab.

That was according to original reporting from Chris Rufo and Ryan Thorpe that was published in City Journal. It detailed how, throughout the fall, the then-acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, Joe Thompson, was investigating several different cases of fraud in the state. At that time, Thompson called it a “crisis.”

Much of that attention has been focused on reports of fraud among the city’s significant Somali population. Since then, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has opened an investigation into the accusations of fraud.

 

Israel Spends $900K on Influencer Campaign as MAGA Influencers Cash In

Headline USA Editor
-
0
Israel Spends $900K on Influencer Campaign as MAGA Influencers Cash In

(José Niño, Headline USA) Israel made plans over the past year to spend $900,000 on an influencer campaign targeting American audiences, according to disclosure documents, as the country fights negative sentiment on the right. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with conservative social media stars on at least two U.S. visits, per a report by the Wall Street Journal. 

“We have to fight back. How do we fight back? Our influencers,” Netanyahu said at a September meeting at the Israeli Consulate in New York, according to a video posted by influencer Debra Lea. “That community, they’re very important.”

A firm called Bridges Partners registered as a foreign agent for Israel and disclosed plans for the influencer program dubbed “Esther Project,” which would cost up to $250,000 a month at full capacity.

The Israeli campaign reflects a sweeping transformation in Washington lobbying that has created a new class of operatives blurring the lines between consulting, advocacy and journalism, according to a Wall Street Journal report. “It becomes very easy for a foreign or a corporate interest group to significantly shape Americans’ views of political issues in secret if they can launder their message through an army of influencers,” said Brendan Fischer of the Campaign Legal Center.

Qatar has also pursued influencers, sponsoring November trips to Doha with VIP Formula One tickets worth over $10,000. “TBH I had ZERO clue that [Doha] was such a cultural hub,” wrote conservative commentator Rob Smith on Instagram.

These campaigns frequently shape White House policy. If Trump assistant Natalie Harp notices a policy position gaining steam among social media stars, she’s known to print out posts and give them to the president per the WSJ.

Last summer, Trump’s former aide Alex Bruesewitz urged the president to reclassify marijuana. “Nearly 70% of Republican voters support Trump on this. No brainer!,” he told over 640,000 followers on X. What Bruesewitz left out was that marijuana industry interests had just paid him $300,000.

Lea, 25, has advised House Speaker Mike Johnson and been paid to promote various industries. “I girl bossed my way to the top, literally from TikTok to the White House,” she said. “Creators have the attention right now,” said Caitlin Sinclair, who received $67,500 from the MAHA PAC. “In 2026, I believe attention is going to be the currency of power.”

A White House spokesperson said the administration “is adapting to the new media landscape in 2025.”

José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino

President Trump Urges Iran Protests To Continue, Says ‘Help Is on Its Way’

Headline USA Editor
-
0
President Trump Urges Iran Protests To Continue, Says ‘Help Is on Its Way’

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) President Trump on Tuesday called for the protests in Iran to continue and said “help is on its way,” suggesting he was making another threat of military intervention.

“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

The president also said he cut off contact with Iranian officials, a comment that came after he suggested he was open to diplomacy with Tehran. “I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA!!!” Trump added.

“MIGA” refers to “Make Iran Great Again,” a slogan Trump used during the 12-day US-Israeli war against Iran back in June 2025 when he floated the idea of regime change in the country. He also recently posed with a “Make Iran Great Again Hat” alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has said the president is ready to kill Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, responded to Trump’s post, saying the “names of the main killers of the people of Iran” were the US president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Also on Tuesday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed it disrupted “Israeli-linked terror teams” and seized US-made weapons.

Iranian officials have warned that the US would face a severe response to any attack. “Come and see what will happen to American ships and military bases in the region,” the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, said at a pro-government rally over the weekend.

“Come and burn in the fire of the Iranian nation so severely that it becomes a lasting lesson in history for all oppressive US rulers. Come and find out what will happen to you and to the region,” he added.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.

Official for Former NYC Mayor Eric Adams Charged w/ Bribery

Headline USA Editor
-
0
Official for Former NYC Mayor Eric Adams Charged w/ Bribery

(Headline USA) An official who served in the administration of former New York City Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to federal criminal charges.

Tony Herbert, 61, who had served as City Hall’s liaison to the city’s public housing residents, entered the plea in Manhattan federal court after his arrest on bribery, kickback and fraud charges. He was released on $50,000 bail.

Herbert was accused of giving unfair advantages to certain businesses in return for $16,000 in bribes.

As he left the courthouse, he told reporters: “These charges are bogus. I was doing my job.”

A criminal corruption case against Adams came to an end last spring when the Justice Department dropped the case against him. The controversy over the plan to drop charges led Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, Danielle Sassoon, to resign her position rather than carry it out.

Adams, who dropped out of the election for New York City mayor, was replaced at the start of this year by Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

 

Fed Charges: Yemeni, Hatian Nationals Stole Millions in SNAP benefits

Headline USA Editor
-
0
Fed Charges: Yemeni, Hatian Nationals Stole Millions in SNAP benefits

(Bethany Blankley, The Center Square) It’s not just Somali nationals in Minnesota who’ve been charged in a widescale scheme to defraud taxpayer-funded federal welfare programs. Haitian and Yemeni immigrants have also been charged with stealing tens of millions of dollars from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during the Biden administration.

SNAP is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and state agencies. Recipients use EBT (electronic benefit transfer) cards to purchase qualifying SNAP food items.

U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, Republicans from Texas, argue foreign nationals who defraud the federal government should face consequences, including revoking potential citizenship privileges and deportation, The Center Square reported.

If their bill becomes law, it could apply to two Haitians who owned Boston-area bodegas charged in a $7 million SNAP fraud scheme, among many others.

Haitians Antonio Bonheur, a naturalized citizen, and Saul Alisme, a legal permanent resident, were charged with food stamp fraud by the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts. Alisme’s Haitian passport was issued in March 2021, expiring in February 2031, according to the criminal complaint. He was issued a Social Security card in November 2024 – the same month Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey’s administration reported the alleged fraud to the Biden administration.

Bonheur’s 150-square foot store began accepting SNAP in September 2021; Alisme’s 500-square foot store began accepting SNAP around May 2025, according to the charges. Despite the small square footage, they received up to $500,000 a month in SNAP money, “outpacing full-service supermarkets,” investigators allege.

Bonheur’s monthly SNAP redemptions “regularly exceeded $100,000 – with many months exceeding $300,000 and, at times, $500,000. By comparison, one full-service supermarket in the same area redeems approximately $82,000 per month in SNAP benefits,” according to the charges.

The majority of the transactions exceeded $95 worth of purchases, an amount “typically associated with large supermarkets, not small variety stores with limited food inventory,” investigators say.

Undercover operations revealed that “SNAP benefits were allegedly trafficked for cash” at the stores where “defendants themselves allegedly worked the cash registers and personally exchanged SNAP benefits for cash” and sold liquor in exchange for SNAP benefits, the charges allege.

They also allegedly sold MannaPacks produced by the nonprofit Feed My Starving Children, authorities allege. The vitamin-and-mineral fortified rice meal and potato packs are specifically formulated to help malnourished and impoverished children living overseas. They were selling them for $8 each, “profiting from food intended for humanitarian relief,” the DA’s office said.

“Because both stores carried little legitimate food inventory and generated minimal lawful revenue, the defendants allegedly relied almost entirely on USDA-funded SNAP redemptions as their source of income,” the charges allege.

“To conceal the nature and source of these funds, the defendants allegedly maintained numerous secondary bank accounts through which SNAP proceeds were transferred, withdrawn as cash and redeposited to create the appearance of legitimate business activity while obscuring the true source of funds.

In another case, a bodega in Brooklyn, New York, was “Ground Zero” for an alleged Yemeni immigrant scheme that stole $20 million of SNAP benefits from thousands of low-income individuals and families living in at least 10 states.

Last February, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York charged Dawood Kassim (Badr al din Kassim) and Dia Alqalisi (Diaaldeen Alqalisi) with SNAP fraud.

The charges allege they conducted fraudulent SNAP transactions out of Throop Farm Market in Bedford-Stuyvesant. This involved allowing SNAP recipients to exchange SNAP benefits for cash or non-SNAP eligible goods, including beer, in exchange for a kickback, the charges allege, . It also involved using counterfeit and stolen SNAP EBT cards, stealing more than $7 million from SNAP recipients living outside of New York, according to the charges.

The detention memo filed in Kassim’s case states he was born in Yemen but later became a U.S. citizen, the U.S. Attorney’s Office confirmed to The Center Square.

Kassim is listed as a licensed real estate agent with United 726-728 Realty LLC in New York. The license is active since 2022, according to state records.

Alqalisi appears to claim to be born in the U.S. to Yemeni immigrant parents, is a CUNY graduate, former Virtusa Information Technology intern and Uber driver whose stated hobby is “reading on ethical hacking,” according to his WayUp profile.

Oklahoma residents were particularly hard hit by the scheme, a local NBC News affiliate reported. State authorities said they had no way of reimbursing the residents whose EBT funds were stolen in New York.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has required state agencies to share state SNAP data to ensure that “illegal immigrants aren’t getting benefits meant for American families.” As of December, 29 states had complied. Twenty-one Democratic states refused to comply and sued. Rollins said the USDA has “already uncovered massive fraud.”

The USDA is encouraging fraud to be reported online or by calling 1-800-424-9121.

Bud Light Fallout Continues As Anheuser-Busch Shuts Iconic Brewery

Mark E. Johnson
-
0
Bud Light Fallout Continues As Anheuser-Busch Shuts Iconic Brewery

(Mark E. Johnson, Contributor) – Less than three years after an image of crossdressing influencer Dylan Mulvany on a can of Bud Light caused a major blowback against America’s favorite beer brand, Anheuser-Busch’s legendary plant in Merrimack, New Hampshire has produced its last bottle of Bud.

The international beverage giant previously announced that it would close this plant, formerly a home and training facility for the famed Budweiser Clydesdales, as well as one in Fairfield, CA, early this year.

A-B is also selling its Newark, NJ brewery after 75 years of operations to Goodman Group, which plans industrial and logistics redevelopment. Production from the three facilities will shift to other US-based plants.

“This is truly the end of an era for Merrimack and the State of New Hampshire,” wrote the Seacoast Current as the iconic brewery sent its last case of Budweiser down the conveyor line, marking the end of a 54-year run of bottling America’s best-selling suds.

About 125 New Hampshire brewery employees will be given relocation or severance options, including relocation stipends and skills training for a new location. A company spokesperson said about 475 full-time workers across all three facilities will be impacted.

CNN reported in 2024 that the world’s largest brewer may have lost as much as $1.4 billion in sales because of the backlash to its promotion featuring female impersonator Mulvaney.

Mulvaney is a biological man who likes to pretend he is a woman, and likes it even better when the mainstream media plays along with his ruse and calls him by his preferred pronouns, she/her.

Not only did social conservatives and people of faith abandon the A-B brand in disgust after the failed attempt at promoting woke tranny culture, “regular Joes” simply did not want to be reminded of a pervert taking a bubble bath each time they popped open a cold one.

“I was a Bud Light guy seven days a week,” one former aficionado from the Merrimack area told HEADLINE USA. “I walked in the door of my neighborhood dive and Jimmy would already have my frosty mug on the bar by the time I bellied up. But after they put that fru*t on their can, I switched permanent to Sam Boston – actually an upgrade anyway.”

Sam Boston is short for Sam Adams Boston Lager, which is brewed by the Boston Beer Co. – not in Boston [except for a small demonstration brewery] but in the former Stroh’s brewery near Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Mulvaney for his part doesn’t realize that he isn’t famous anymore, and no one really wants to hear from him. In March 2025, the shameless publicity hound attempted to regain some of his former traction by posting a video touting his support for International Women’s Day.

As the video spread online, many accused Mulvaney of simply pretending to be a woman to get attention, which essentially describes everyone who calls themselves “transgender” –

‘This POS with a penis, Dylan Mulvaney, had the audacity to celebrate International Women’s Day by promoting HIS new book about how to be a girl,’ one X user wrote.

‘How in the f**k would he know?’ she asked, rhetorically. ‘These people are mentally insane.’

The New Hampshire brewery was widely considered a cool place to visit even if you weren’t old enough to drink, featuring the Clydesdales’ barn, acres of manicured grounds, and beer garden where visitors could sample the wares.

Mark E. Johnson is in his 50th year as a writer for national news and opinion publishers including Headline Health, Mayo Clinic Press, Prevention, The Conservative Caucus, and many more. 

Scott Adams, Creator of the Satirical ‘Dilbert’ Comic Strip, Dies at 68

Mark E. Johnson
-
0
Scott Adams, Creator of the Satirical ‘Dilbert’ Comic Strip, Dies at 68

(Mark E. Johnson, Contributor) Scott Adams, the cartoonist who turned his frustrations as a corporate middle manager into Dilbert, a wildly popular comic strip lampooning workplace culture that ended abruptly when newspapers abandoned him following racist remarks on his podcast, passed away Tuesday at his California home at age 68.

His former wife Shelly Adams confirmed his death, according to the New York Times, noting he had been in hospice care. Adams revealed in May that he had been diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer and expected to live only a few more months.

For over three decades, Dilbert chronicled the ridiculous nature of high tech workplaces while mocking management culture. The strip featured its namesake character as a frustrated engineer trapped in a cubicle at a technology firm, accompanied by his intelligent, anthropomorphic dog Dogbert, who fantasized about controlling the world.

Supporting characters included workplace colleagues Alice, Asok and Wally, the incompetent Pointy Haired Boss, and Catbert, the fire red feline serving as the malicious human relations director.

During its height, Dilbert reached approximately 2,000 newspapers across the globe through syndication, placing it alongside other massively popular strips including Peanuts, Doonesbury and Garfield.

Adams published many Dilbert collections and authored business books, notably The Dilbert Principle, which argues that “the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage — management.”

The comic strip spawned a brief animated television series, stuffed Dilbert toys, computer games and the Dilberito, a frozen vegetarian burrito that failed commercially after several years on supermarket shelves. Dilbert starred in a $30 million Office Depot advertising campaign in 1997.

Adams’s political views eventually seeped into his comic strips. A 2022 strip showed a boss announcing that traditional performance reviews would be replaced by a “wokeness” score. When an employee complained the system could be subjective, the boss responded, “That’ll cost you two points off your wokeness score, bigot.”

Following his 2023 cancellation, Adams projected confidence on social media, tweeting, “Only the dying leftist Fake News industry canceled me (for out of context news of course). Social media and banking unaffected. Personal life improved. Never been more popular in my life. Zero pushback in person. Black and White conservatives solidly supporting me,” according to CBC.

More than 1,000 newspapers terminated Dilbert after Adams made racist statements during his podcast in 2023, marking a dramatic conclusion to one of the most successful comic strips in syndication history.

Mark E. Johnson is in his 50th year as a writer for national news and opinion publishers including Headline Health, Mayo Clinic Press, Prevention, The Conservative Caucus, and many more. 

1...298299300...3,820Page 299 of 3,820