Archive Month: February 2023

In Senegal, slam poetry is making its mark on urban culture and offering young people a way to voice their opinions about their lives and society. Seydina Aba Gueye has this report from Senegal, narrated by Salem Solomon.
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Holding the bulky brick cellphone he’s credited with inventing 50 years ago, Martin Cooper thinks about the future.

Little did he know when he made the first call on a New York City street from a thick gray prototype that our world — and our information — would come to be encapsulated on a sleek glass sheath where we search, connect, like and buy.

He’s optimistic that future advances in mobile technology can transform human lives but is also worried about risks smartphones pose to privacy and young people.

“My most negative opinion is we don’t have any privacy anymore because everything about us is now recorded someplace and accessible to somebody who has enough intense desire to get it,” the 94-year-old told The Associated Press at MWC, or Mobile World Congress, the world’s biggest wireless trade show where he was getting a lifetime award this week in Barcelona.

Besides worrying about the erosion of privacy, Cooper also acknowledged the negative side effects that come with smartphones and social media, such as internet addiction and making it easy for children to access harmful content.

But Cooper, describing himself as a dreamer and an optimist, said he’s hopeful that advances in cellphone technology have the potential to revolutionize areas like education and health care.

“Between the cellphone and medical technology and the Internet, we are going to conquer disease,” he said.

It’s a long way from where he started.

Cooper made the first public call from a handheld portable telephone on a Manhattan street on April 3, 1973, using a prototype device that his team at Motorola had started designing only five months earlier.

Cooper used the Dyna-TAC phone to famously call his rival at Bell Labs, owned by AT&T. It was, literally, the world’s first brick phone, weighing 2.5 pounds and measuring 11 inches. Cooper spent the best part of the next decade working to bring a commercial version of the device to market.

The call help kick-start the cellphone revolution, but looking back on that moment 50 years later, “we had no way of knowing this was the historic moment,” Cooper said.

“The only thing that I was worried about: ‘Is this thing going to work?’ And it did,” he said Monday.

While blazing a trial for the wireless communications industry, he hoped that cellphone technology was just getting started.

Cooper said he’s “not crazy” about the shape of modern smartphones, blocks of plastic, metal and glass. He thinks phones will evolve so that they will be “distributed on your body,” perhaps as sensors “measuring your health at all times.”

Batteries could even be replaced by human energy.

“The human body is the charging station, right? You ingest food, you create energy. Why not have this receiver for your ear embedded under your skin, powered by your body?” he imagined.

Cooper also acknowledged there’s a dark side to advances — the risk to privacy and to children.

Regulators in Europe, where there are strict data privacy rules, and elsewhere are concerned about apps and digital ads that track user activity, allowing tech and digital ad companies to build up rich profiles of users.

“It’s going to get resolved, but not easily,” Cooper said. “There are people now that can justify measuring where you are, where you’re making your phone calls, who you’re calling, what you access on the Internet.”

Smartphone use by children is another area that needs limits, Cooper said. One idea is to have “various internets curated for different audiences.”

Five-year-olds should be able to use the internet to help them learn, but “we don’t want them to have access to pornography and to things that they don’t understand,” he said.

The inspiration for Cooper’s cellphone idea was not the personal communicators on Star Trek, but comic strip detective Dick Tracy’s radio wristwatch. As for his own phone use, Cooper says he checks email and does online searches for information to settle dinner table arguments.

However, “there are many things that I have not yet learned,” he said. “I still don’t know what TikTok is.”
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A South African group is bringing films to African youth in impoverished areas with poor services through solar-powered, portable cinemas.  The group, Sunshine Cinema, works in four countries aiming to inspire more youth on the continent through African films. Zaheer Cassim reports from Pankop, South Africa.
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Протягом чотирьох місяців із моменту ухвалення зміни до закону так і не були внесені
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Europe’s existing telecom networks aren’t up to the job of handling surging amounts of internet data traffic, a top European Union official said Monday, as he defended a consultation on whether Big Tech companies should help pay for upgrades.

The telecom industry needs to reconsider its business models as it undergoes a “radical shift” fueled by a new wave of innovation such as immersive, data-hungry technologies like the metaverse, Thierry Breton, the European Commission’s official in charge of digital policy, said at a major industry expo in Barcelona called MWC, or Mobile World Congress.

Breton’s remarks came days after he announced a consultation on whether digital giants should help contribute to the billions needed to build the 27-nation bloc’s future communications infrastructure, including next-generation 5G wireless and fiber-optic cable connections, to keep up with surging demand for digital data.

“Yes, of course, we will need to find a financing model for the huge investments needed,” Breton said in a copy of a keynote speech at the MWC conference.

Telecommunications companies complain they have had to foot the substantial costs of building and operating network infrastructure only for big digital streaming platforms like Netflix and Facebook to benefit from the surging consumer demand for online services.

“The consultation has been described by many as the battle over fair share between Big Telco and Big Tech,” Breton said. “A binary choice between those who provide networks today and those who feed them with the traffic. That is not how I see things.”

Big tech companies say consumers could suffer because they’d end up paying twice, with extra fees for their online subscriptions.

Breton denied that the consultation was an attack on Big Tech or that he was siding with telecom companies.

“I’m proposing a new approach,” he later told reporters. Topics up for discussion include how much investment is needed and whether regulations need to be changed, he said.

“We will have zero taboo,” Breton said, referring to the conference’s approach that no topic is off limits. “Do we need to adapt it? Do we need to discuss who should pay for what? This is exactly what is the consultation today.”
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A top U.S. cybersecurity official launched a warning shot at major technology companies, accusing them of “normalizing” the release of flawed and unsafe products while allowing the blame for safety issues, security breaches and cyberattacks to fall on their customers.

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Jen Easterly called Monday for new rules and legislation to hold technology and software companies accountable for selling products that she says are released despite known vulnerabilities.

While massive hacking campaigns by China and other adversaries, including Russia, Iran and North Korea, are a major problem, “cyber intrusions are a symptom rather than a cause,” Easterly told an audience at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

“The cause, simply put, is unsafe technology products,” she said. “The risk introduced to all of us by unsafe technology is frankly much more dangerous and pervasive than the [Chinese] spy balloon, but somehow we’ve allowed ourselves to accept it.”

The push for regulation and legislation is not entirely new. Both Easterly and former National Cyber Director Chris Inglis, who stepped down earlier this month, warned during their confirmation hearings more than a year and a half ago that government action could be required if private companies refused to do more.

“Enlightened self-interest, that’s apparently not working. … Market forces, that’s apparently not working,” Inglis said at the time. 

Now, with China running a “massive and sophisticated” hacking program, and threats from other countries and from cyber criminals constantly growing, “we have to make a fundamental shift,” Easterly said.

CISA is in the process of laying out a set of core principles, Easterly said. Some of the most critical are to make sure that the burden for safety is never left solely to tech and software customers, that manufacturers be transparent about problems and how to fix them, and that products be “secure by design and secure by default.”

“Technology must be purposefully designed and developed and built and tested to significantly reduce the number of exploitable flaws before they’re introduced into the market for broad use,” Easterly said. 

“Ultimately such a transition to secure-by-design and secure-by-default products will help organizations and technology providers, because it’ll mean less time fixing problems, more time focusing on innovation and growth, and importantly it’ll make life much harder for our adversaries.”

Easterly said the U.S. government is already using its purchasing power to help make the change, requiring companies that want government contracts to meet higher security requirements.

She also praised a handful of companies, including Apple, Google, Mozilla and Amazon Web Services for moving to a more secure model but called efforts by others, including Twitter and Microsoft when it comes to the use of multifactor authentication, “disappointing.” 

VOA contacted Microsoft and Twitter for their reaction to Easterly’s specific criticism. Neither had provided a response as of the time of publication.

“We’ve normalized the fact that technology products are released to market with dozens, hundreds or thousands of defects when such poor construction would be unacceptable in any other critical field,” Easterly said, adding other industries have found ways to change.

“For the first half of the 20th century, conventional wisdom held that car accidents were solely the fault of bad drivers,” she said. “Cars today are designed to be as safe as possible. … Nobody would think of purchasing a car today that didn’t have seatbelts or airbags included as standard features, and no one would accept paying extra to have these basic security features installed.” 
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За даними американського Мінфіну, на сьогодні Сполучені Штати надали Україні майже 50 мільярдів доларів на безпекову, економічну та гуманітарну допомогу
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Затримку із перерахуванням пояснюють тим, що чекають на визначення процедури для цього
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The big beasts of the telecom industry kicked off their most important annual get-together in Barcelona on Monday, promising to lead a “tsunami of innovation”, as they try to shrug off a major slump across the technology sector.

Some 80,000 delegates are expected at the four-day Mobile World Congress (MWC), which is back to near full strength following years of pandemic-related disruption.

Industrial titans like Huawei, Nokia and Samsung are set to showcase their latest innovations, flanked by smartphone makers like Oppo and Xiaomi and network operators like Orange, Verizon and China Mobile.

“We are at the doors of a new change of era driven by the intersection of Telco, Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Web3,” said Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete, boss of Spanish operator Telefonica and current chairman of industry body GSMA, which organizes the Barcelona event.

He promised the telecoms industry would be at the forefront of the “tsunami of innovation”, adding: “Without telcos there is no digital future.”

But many of the firms are more concerned with finding a path back to profit as the global economy stutters and the wider tech sector slashes thousands of jobs.

In the first clear sign that the ills of the wider tech sector are reaching telecoms, equipment maker Ericsson announced 8,500 layoffs last week.

Overall sales of smartphones last year slumped by 11.3 percent compared with 2021, according to the IDC consultancy.

Research firm Gartner reckons sales of smartphones, tablets and computers will fall again by four percent this year.

And network operators are still struggling to make 5G pay, years after they spent billions in government auctions for the right to use the bandwidth.

‘Unsustainable situation’ 

A hugely popular idea for many at the show is to get the owners of bandwidth-hungry platforms like YouTube, Netflix and Facebook to pay network operators a “fair share”.

Christel Heydemann, boss of French operator Orange, said the five largest users — which she did not name — account for 55% of daily traffic on European networks, costing telecoms firms 15 billion euros ($16 billion) a year.

She said it was an “unsustainable situation” and welcomed a public consultation launched by EU commissioner Thierry Breton last week.

But Breton told the MWC on Monday that it was not a “binary choice” or a battle between telecoms and big tech.

He said the idea was for everyone to make sure Europe had the best possible network by 2030 and warned that telecoms firms “will have to adapt to survive”.

Critics of the “fair share” narrative point out that customers already pay the operators for use of their networks.

Netflix boss Greg Peters, who is unlikely to be enthusiastic about the fair share proposal, is expected at the MWC on Tuesday.

Huawei center stage 

The organizers are trumpeting the return of Chinese delegates as a vital boon to the event.

Chinese firms heavily sponsor the MWC and Huawei is once again getting pride of place, this time hosting the biggest dedicated pavilion in the event’s decades-long history.

The Chinese tech giant was the second biggest smartphone maker in the world in 2020 but retreated after US regulators accused it of being controlled by Beijing.

The firm is now under pressure in Europe, where Breton and other commissioners are pushing for its equipment to be removed from 5G network infrastructure.

Huawei boss Eric Xu said before the event he would use the MWC to display products that would “help carriers meet evolving demand and unleash more opportunities for new growth”.

In total, GSMA said the four-day show would host almost 750 operators and manufacturers and 2,000 exhibitors.
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Twitter Inc has laid off at least 200 employees, or about 10% of its workforce, the New York Times reported late on Sunday, in its latest round of job cuts since Elon Musk took over the micro-blogging site last October. 

The layoffs on Saturday night impacted product managers, data scientists and engineers who worked on machine learning and site reliability, which helps keep Twitter’s various features online, the NYT report said, citing people familiar with the matter. 

Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. 

The company has a headcount of about 2,300 active employees, according to Musk last month. 

The latest job cuts follow a mass layoff in early November, when Twitter laid off about 3,700 employees in a cost-cutting measure by Musk, who had acquired the company for $44 billion. 

Musk said in November that the service was experiencing a “massive drop in revenue” as advertisers pulled spending amid concerns about content moderation. 

Twitter recently started sharing revenue from advertisements with some of its content creators. 

Earlier in the day, The Information reported that the social media platform laid off dozens of employees on Saturday, aiming to offset a plunge in revenue. 
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NASA and SpaceX postponed a planned Monday launch of a four-member crew to the International Space Station due to a ground systems issue.

The decision came less than three minutes before the spacecraft was due to lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

A backup launch date had been set for Tuesday, but NASA said due to expected unfavorable weather conditions the next launch attempt will be March 2. 

The four-person crew includes two Americans, one Russian and one astronaut from the United Arab Emirates.

NASA said their planned six-month mission includes a range of scientific experiments including studying how materials burn in microgravity, collecting microbial samples from outside the space station and “tissue chip research on heart, brain, and cartilage functions.”
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The unlikely awards-season juggernaut “Everything Everywhere All at Once” marched on at the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, and even gathered stream with wins not just for best ensemble, Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan but also for Jamie Lee Curtis.

The SAG Awards, often an Oscar preview, threw some curve balls into the Oscars race in a ceremony streamed lived on Netflix’s YouTube page from Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles.

But the clearest result of the SAG Awards was the overwhelming success of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s madcap multiverse tale, which has now used its hotdog fingers to snag top honors from the acting, directing and producing guilds. Only one film (“Apollo 13”) has won all three and not gone on to win best picture at the Oscars.

After so much of the cast of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” had already been on the stage to accept awards, the night’s final moment belonged to 94-year-old James Hong, a supporting player in the film and a trailblazer for Asian-American representation in Hollywood. He brought up the ignoble yellowface history of the 1937 film “The Good Earth.”

“The leading role was played with these guys with their eyes taped up like this and they talked like this because the producers said the Asians were not good enough and they were not box office,” said Hong. “But look at us now!”

Hong added that the cast of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” wasn’t all Chinese, though he granted Jamie Lee Curtis had a good Chinese name. Curtis’ win was one of the most surprising of the night, coming over the longtime favorite, Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”), who had seemed to be on a clear path to becoming the first actor to win an Oscar for a performance in a Marvel movie.

A visibly moved Curtis said she was wearing the wedding ring her father, Tony Curtis, gave her mother, Janet Leigh.

“I know you look at me and think ‘Nepo baby,’” said Curtis, who won in her first SAG nomination. “But the truth of the matter is that I’m 64 years old and this is just amazing.”

The actors guild, though, lent some clarity to the lead categories. Though some have seen best actress as a toss-up between Yeoh and BAFTA winner Cate Blanchett (“Tar”), Yeoh again took home the award for best female lead performance.

“This is not just for me,” said Yeoh, the first Asian actress to win the SAG Award for female lead. “It’s for every little girl that looks like me.”

Quan, the former child star, also won for best supporting male actor. The “Everything Everywhere All at Once” co-star had left acting for years after auditions dried up. He’s also the first Asian to win best male supporting actor at the SAG Awards.

“When I stepped away from acting, it was because there were so few opportunities,” said Quan. “Now, tonight we are celebrating James Hong, Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Hong Chau, Harry Shum Jr. The landscape looks so different now.”

Best actor has been one of the hardest races to call. Austin Butler (“Elvis”), Brendan Fraser (“The Whale”) and Colin Farrell (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) have all been seen as possible winners. But it was Fraser who went home with the SAG Award for his comeback performance as an obese shut-in in “The Whale.”

“Believe me, if you just stay in there and put one foot in front of the other, you’ll get where you need to go,” said Fraser, who anxiously eyed the actor-shaped trophy and left the stage saying he was going to go look for some pants for him.

The SAG Awards are considered one of the most reliable Oscar bellwethers. Actors make up the biggest percentage of the film academy, so their choices have the largest sway. Last year, “CODA” triumphed at SAG before winning best picture at the Oscar s, while Ariana DeBose, Will Smith, Jessica Chastain and Troy Kotsur all won a SAG Award before taking home an Academy Award.

After the SAG Awards, presented by the film and television acting guild SAG-AFRTA, lost their broadcast home at TNT/TBS, Netflix signed on to stream Sunday’s ceremony. Next year’s show is to be on Netflix, proper.

Sunday’s livestream meant a slightly scaled-down vibe. Without a broadcast time limit, winners weren’t played off. A regal and unbothered Sam Elliott, winner for male actor in a TV movie or limited series for “1883,” spoke well past his allotted time. The show sped through early winners, including awards for Jean Smart (“Hacks”), Jeremy Allen White (“Bear”) and Jason Bateman (“Ozark”).

Another streaming effect: No bleeping.

Quinta Brunson and Janelle James of “Abbott Elementary” kicked off the ceremony with a few opening jokes, including one that suggested Viola Davis, a recent Grammy winner, is beyond EGOT status and has transcended into “ShEGOTallofthem.”

Brunson later returned to the stage with the cast of “Abbott Elementary” to accept the SAG award for best ensemble in a comedy series. Brunson, the sitcom’s creator and one of its producers, said of her castmates, “These people bring me back down to Earth.”

“The White Lotus” also took a victory lap, winning best ensemble in a drama series and another win for Jennifer Coolidge, coming off her wins at the Emmys and the Golden Globes. A teary-eyed Coolidge traced her love of acting to a first-grade trip to see a Charlie Chaplin film. She then thanked her date, a longtime friend, the actor Tim Bagley.

“You’re a wonderful date tonight,” said Coolidge. “I can’t wait until we get home.”

The ceremony’s first award went to a winner from last year: Jessica Chastain. A year after winning for her lead performance in the film “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” Chastain won best female actor in a TV movie or limited series for Showtime’s country music power couple series “George & Tammy.” Chastain jetted in from previews on the upcoming Broadway revival of “A Doll’s House.”

One award was announced ahead of the show from the red carpet: “Top Gun: Maverick” won for best stunt ensemble. Though some have cheered that blockbusters like “Maverick” and “Avatar: The Way of Water” are best picture nominees to the March 12 Oscars, the indie smash “Everything Everywhere All at Once” increasingly looks like the biggest blockbuster at this year’s Academy Awards.
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Last year, the top winners at the Screen Actors Guild Awards all corresponded exactly with the Academy Awards winners. Will Sunday’s SAGs offer the same preview?

The 29th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will begin at 8 p.m. EST Sunday and be streamed live on Netflix’s YouTube page. After the awards, presented by the film and television acting guild SAG-AFRTA, lost their broadcast home at TNT/TBS, Netflix signed on to stream the ceremony. Though future editions will be streamed live directly on Netflix, this year’s show, at Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles, will be on the streaming service’s YouTube page and its social media channels.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “The Banshees of Inisherin” come in with a co-leading five nominations. Each film is up for the Guild’s top award, best ensemble, along with “Babylon,” “The Fabelmans” and “Women Talking.”

The SAG Awards are considered one of the most reliable Oscar bellwethers. Actors make up the biggest percentage of the film academy, so their choices have the largest sway. Last year, “CODA” triumphed at SAG before winning best picture at the Oscars, while Ariana DeBose, Will Smith, Jessica Chastain and Troy Kotsur all won both a SAG Award and an Academy Award.

With both supporting categories seemingly sown up by Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) and Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”), Sunday’s SAG Award could offer the most clarity in the lead acting awards.

Best actress could go to either Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) or Cate Blanchett (“Tár”). While Andrea Riseborough’s much-debated campaign led to an Academy Awards nomination, some of the most notable Oscar snubs are up for best actress. Though nominated by the actors’ guild, Danielle Deadwyler (“Till”) and Viola Davis (“The Woman King”) were overlooked by the academy, prompting some to decry racial bias in Hollywood. Ana de Armas (“Blonde”) is also nominated.

In the best actor category, Austin Butler (“Elvis”), Brendan Fraser (“The Whale”) and Colin Farrell (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) all are considered contenders with a realistic shot of winning. The Guild also nominated Adam Sandler (“Hustle”) and Bill Nighy (“Living”).

On the TV side, nominated for best ensemble in a drama series are: “Better Call Saul,” “The Crown,” “Ozark,” “Severance” and “The White Lotus.” Up for best comedy series ensemble are the casts of “Abbott Elementary,” “Barry,” “The Bear,” “Hacks” and “Only Murders in the Building.”

Presenters on Sunday include Zendaya (who scored her first SAG nomination for her leading performance in “Euphoria,” Aubrey Plaza, Jenna Ortega, Adam Scott, Chastain and Jeff Bridges. Sally Field is to receive the SAG lifetime achievement award, an honor to be presented to her by Andrew Garfield.
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Angela Bassett won entertainer of the year at Saturday’s NAACP Image Awards on a night that also saw her take home an acting trophy for the television series “9-1-1.”

The Bassett-led Marvel superhero sequel “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” won best motion picture at the ceremony, which was broadcast live on BET from Pasadena, California.

Viola Davis won outstanding actress for the action epic “The Woman King,” a project she championed and starred in. Will Smith won for the slavery drama “Emancipation,” his first release since last year’s Academy Awards, where he slapped comedian Chris Rock on stage before winning his first best actor trophy.

“I never want to not be brave enough as a woman, as a Black woman, as an artist,” Davis said, referencing a quote from her character in the film, which she called her magnum opus. “I thank everyone who was involved with ‘The Woman King’ because that was just nothing but high-octane bravery.”

“Abbott Elementary” won for outstanding comedy series. Creator and series star Quinta Brunson invited her costars onstage and praised shows like “black-ish” for paving the way for her series.

The 54 NAACP Image Awards were presented Saturday in Pasadena, California, with Queen Latifah hosting. Serena Williams received the Jackie Robinson Sports award, which recognizes individuals in sports for high achievement in athletics along with their pursuit of social justice, civil rights and community involvement.
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Tom Cruise was honored for his nearly three decades of work as a producer, and “ Everything Everywhere All at Once ” solidified its status as the frontrunner for the best picture Oscar by taking the top prize at Saturday night’s Producers Guild of America Awards.

“We love you! We love you!” another Oscar favorite and one of the film’s stars, Ke Huy Quan, shouted gleefully from the stage as Jonathan Wang and the other producers of the multiversal dramedy accepted the award for best theatrical motion picture.

The award has proven to be perhaps the best indicator for what will win the top honor at the Oscars, with four of the past five and 11 of the past 14 PGA winners going on to win best picture.

PGA wins by “ CODA ” last year and “ Nomadland ” in 2021 set each apart as frontrunners before winning best picture.

The strong possibility of a big night at Sunday’s Screen Actors Guild Awards could further mark “Everything Everywhere” as the film to beat at the March 12 Academy Awards.

Cruise the actor caused a stir inside and outside with his presence at the show at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, but his producing career beginning in 1996 with “Mission: Impossible” earned him the David O. Selznick Award at the PGAs, a life achievement honor previously bestowed on Steven Spielberg, Kevin Feige, Mary Parent and Brian Grazer.

“My whole life I wanted to make movies,” said Cruise, wearing a tuxedo with his hair grown out to the length he wore it in “Mission: Impossible 2.” “I wanted to travel the world, and have adventure.”

Cruise talked about making his film debut in 1981’s “Taps” at age 18 and how producer Stanley Jaffe let him in on every part of the process.

“I was certain this was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” he said.

Cruise thanked Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of the original 1986 “Top Gun” and his producing partner on last year’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” which also was nominated for the top PGA award and is up for the best picture Oscar.

“You opened the door for me,” Cruise told Bruckheimer. “You welcomed me in and I will be grateful forever.”

Since the first “Mission: Impossible,” Cruise has regularly been a producer on the films in which he has starred, including “Vanilla Sky,” “The Last Samurai,” “Jack Reacher” and the other five films in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise.

He paid tribute in his acceptance to many other mentors and partners including Spielberg and former Paramount CEO Sherry Lansing, who presented the award.

“You’ve all enabled me the adventurous life that I wanted,” he said.

Cruise gave a closing shout-out to “all the audiences, for whom I work first and foremost, thank you for letting me entertain you.”

Other movies honored by the PGA included “Navalny,” which won for best documentary feature, “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” which took best animated film, and “Till,” which won the Stanley Kramer Award honoring a production or producer that illuminates and raises public awareness of important social issues.

In the PGA’s television categories, “The Bear” won for best comedy, “The White Lotus” won for best drama, “Lizzo’s Watch Out For The Big Grrrls” won for best reality or competition series, “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy” won for non-fiction series, “The Dropout” won best limited series and “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” won best TV movie.

Mindy Kaling received the Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television for her work producing shows including “The Mindy Project,” “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” “Never Have I Ever,” “Velma” and “The Office.”

“I’m a child of immigrants and that unexpectedly became my secret weapon,” Kaling said.

B.J. Novak, her former “Office” co-writer and co-star, presented Kaling with the award, saying she “cared about characters other people hadn’t cared about enough to put on TV, and they cared about things that other people on TV hadn’t cared about.” 

 
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