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Scott Adams, Dilbert comic strip creator, dies at age 68 after battle with prostate cancer

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Scott Adams, Dilbert comic strip creator, dies at age 68 after battle with prostate cancer


Scott Adams, the cartoonist who created the “Dilbert” comic strip, has died at the age of 68, his first ex-wife revealed on Tuesday.  Adams said last year that he was diagnosed with an aggressive prostate cancer.

Adams’ ex-wife, Shelly Miles, announced the news of his death during a live stream of his YouTube show, “Real Coffee with Scott Adams.” 

She read a “final message” from Adams on the show, in which he wrote that he had “an amazing life” and gave it everything he had. He urged people to “be useful” and said, “please know I loved you all to the very end.” 

Scott Adams, cartoonist and author and creator of “Dilbert,” poses for a portrait in his home office on Jan. 6, 2014 in Pleasanton, California. 

Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images


Adams said on an episode of his show last May that he had “the same cancer that Joe Biden has … prostate cancer that has also spread to my bones.”

He made the announcement a day after Biden announced his own diagnosis. 

President Trump posted about Adams’ death on Tuesday, calling him “a fantastic guy, who liked and respected me when it wasn’t fashionable to do so.”

“He bravely fought a long battle against a terrible disease,” Mr. Trump said on Truth Social. “My condolences go out to his family, and all of his many friends and listeners. He will be truly missed. God bless you Scott!”

Vice President JD Vance called Adams “a true American original, and a great ally to the President of the United States and the entire administration.”

Dilbert the comic strip first appeared in 1989, poking fun at office culture. It ran for decades in numerous newspapers until 2023, when it was canceled by most newspapers over comments by Adams that various publishers denounced as racist, hateful and discriminatory.  

Among other things, Adams referred to Black people as members of a “hate group” and urged White people “to get the hell away from Black people.” Newspapers such the Los Angeles Times and the USA Today network as well as distributor Andrews McMeel Universal announced they would no longer work with the cartoonist or run his strip.

Adams took to YouTube at the time to defend himself and disclosed details about the impact of losing business, saying he was likely to lose 80% of his income from Dilbert due to the cancellations.

In the message Miles read on the show Tuesday, Adams said that he wanted to explain his life. He said he spent the first part of it focusing on making himself a worthy husband and parent as a way to find meaning, then later “donated” himself to the world and evolved from Dilbert cartoonist to “an author of what I thought would be useful books.”

“From that point on I looked for ways I could add the most to peoples’ life, one way or another,” he wrote.

Poking fun at corporate culture and, later, “wokeness” 

Adams earned a bachelor’s degree from Hartwick College and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. He worked a corporate job at the Pacific Bell telephone company in the 1980s, sharing his cartoons to amuse co-workers. He drew Dilbert as a computer programmer and engineer for a high-tech company and mailed a batch to cartoon syndicators.

The first “Dilbert” comic strip officially appeared April 16, 1989, long before such workplace comedies as “Office Space” and “The Office.” It portrayed corporate culture as a Kafkaesque world of heavy bureaucracy and pointless benchmarks, where employee effort and skill were underappreciated.

Adams was the 1997 recipient of the National Cartoonist Society’s Reuben Award, considered one of the most prestigious awards for cartoonists. That same year, “Dilbert” became the first fictional character to make Time magazine’s list of the most influential Americans.

“Dilbert” strips were routinely photocopied, pinned up, emailed and posted online, a popularity that would spawn bestselling books, merchandise, commercials for Office Depot and an animated TV series, with Daniel Stern voicing Dilbert.

While Adams’ career fall seemed swift, careful readers of “Dilbert” saw a gradual darkening of the strip’s tone and its creator’s mindset.

He attracted attention for controversial comments, including saying in 2011 that women are treated differently by society for the same reason as children and the mentally disabled — “it’s just easier this way for everyone.” In a blog post from 2006, he questioned the death toll of the Holocaust.

In June 2020, Adams tweeted that when the “Dilbert” TV show ended in 2000 after just two seasons, it was “the third job I lost for being white.” But, at the time, he blamed it on lower viewership and time slot changes.

Adams’ views were reflected in some of his strips. In one in 2022, a boss says that traditional performance reviews would be replaced by a “wokeness” score. When an employee complains that could be subjective, the boss said, “That’ll cost you two points off your wokeness score, bigot.”

Adams put a brave face on his fall from grace, tweeting in 2023: “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.”



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22 India-backed terrorists killed in Khyber intelligence-based operation, says ISPR

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22 India-backed terrorists killed in Khyber intelligence-based operation, says ISPR


Security personnel stand guard in Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. — AFP/File
  • IBO conducted on reported presence of India-backed militants: ISPR.
  • Says weapons and ammunition also recovered from killed terrorists.
  • Sanitisation operation continues to eliminate any other militants.

Security forces and law enforcement agencies neutralised at least 22 India-sponsored terrorists during an intelligence-based operation in the Khyber district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on April 21, a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said on Friday.

According to the military’s media wing, the joint operation was conducted in response to the reported presence of India-backed militants, also known as Fitna al-Khawarij.

It added that during the operation, the terrorists resorted to indiscriminate firing out of panic and in an attempt to avoid capture. As a result, a 10-year-old innocent child was martyred.

The ISPR added that weapons and ammunition were also recovered from killed India-sponsored terrorists, who remained actively involved in numerous terrorist activities in the area.

“Sanitisation operation is being conducted to eliminate any other Indian-sponsored kharji found in the area,” the ISPR said, adding that the relentless counter-terrorism campaign under vision “Azm-e-Istehkam” will continue at full pace to wipe out the menace of foreign-sponsored and supported terrorism from the country.

“Such sacrifices of our innocent civilians further strengthen our resolve.”

Pakistan has witnessed a spike in cross-border militant activity, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, both of which share a border with Afghanistan, since the Afghan Taliban took control in 2021.

In response to the escalating attacks, Pakistan launched “Operation Ghazab lil-Haq,” during which approximately 796 Afghan Taliban fighters and allied militants were killed, according to Information Minister Attaullah Tarar.

More than 1,000 Afghan Taliban fighters and terrorists were also injured during the Operation Ghazab lil-Haq. The minister had said that 286 posts of the Afghan Taliban regime had been destroyed and 44 captured.

In October 2025, the two countries were also involved in border clashes after Afghan Taliban fighters and allied militants carried out unprovoked assaults on Pakistan’s border positions.

The ensuing fighting resulted in the deaths of over 200 Taliban and affiliated militants, while 23 Pakistani soldiers were martyred in the line of duty.





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Mariska Hargitay expresses love for Christopher Meloni’s ‘Law & Order’ series

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Mariska Hargitay expresses love for Christopher Meloni’s ‘Law & Order’ series


Mariska Hargitay expresses love for Christopher Meloni’s ‘Law & Order’ series

Mariska Hargitay has revealed she was moved to tears after seeing Christopher Meloni’s emotional response to the cancellation of Law & Order: Organized Crime, describing it as the closing of a significant chapter for her longtime co-star and friend.

Speaking to Extra, Hargitay said she watched Meloni’s Instagram video about the show ending and was immediately overcome. 

“I saw it and burst out in tears, first of all,” she said. 

“I immediately burst out in tears because it has, just like [Meloni] said, and he was so beautiful and open, because it has been a great ride. And it has been so beautiful and intimate and such a huge part of his life and was life-changing for him.”

She also said the news had come as a genuine shock. 

“Chris is working and in demand and such a magnificent actor. But it’s, in a way, closing a chapter. So when that happens, one needs to take inventory. It’s a real marker in your life.”

Law & Order: Organized Crime was officially cancelled after five seasons earlier this month. 

Meloni marked the occasion with a heartfelt video on Instagram. 

“I wanted to take this moment to say thank you to the fans who not only helped give the character of Elliot Stabler life and longevity, but for sticking with him and welcoming him back. It was a good ride,” he said.

The series, which premiered in 2021, followed Stabler, the character Meloni first played on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as he returned to New York after a decade away to rebuild his life and take on organised crime. 

It aired on NBC for its first four seasons before moving to Peacock for its fifth and final season, which concluded in June 2025. 

The cast also included Danielle Moné Truitt, Rick Gonzalez, Ainsley Seiger and Dean Norris.





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Luke Grimes shares what disappoints ‘Yellowstone’ fans the most

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Luke Grimes shares what disappoints ‘Yellowstone’ fans the most


Luke Grimes shares what disappoints ‘Yellowstone’ fans the most

Luke Grimes has been playing cowboy Kayce Dutton on Yellowstone since 2018, but some fans are still coming to terms with a fundamental truth: he is an actor, not an actual cowboy.

The 42-year-old, who now continues the character’s story in the CBS spinoff Marshals, told Toronto radio station CHUM 104.5 that the strangest fan encounters often involve a version of the same realisation.

Some viewers, he said, “loved that show so much that they were, on a certain level, upset that it wasn’t real.” 

The most common version of this comes in the form of a complaint. “A lot of times you’ll get the, ‘You’re not a real cowboy.'” 

His response is straightforward. 

“Well, of course I’m not, I’m an actor. That’s why I’m able to do this. If I was a real cowboy, I’d be, like, herding cattle right now. I wouldn’t be on this show.”

Even his one-year-old son, whom he shares with wife Bianca Rodrigues Grimes, has his own take on the cowboy persona. 

“My son thinks my cowboy hat is really funny,” Grimes told PEOPLE at the Marshals LA premiere. 

“He doesn’t understand why I have that big thing on my head.” That said, the baby loves visiting the set and got excited when he was brought along.

New episodes of Marshals air Sundays at 8pm ET on CBS.





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