award

Harrison Ford received a standing ovation Sunday as he accepted the SAG-AFTRA Life Achievement Award.

“It’s a little early isn’t it?” Ford joked, noting that “it’s a little weird to be getting a lifetime achievement award at the half-point of my career.”

The 83-year-old is one of the industry’s highest-grossing actors after catapulting to global stardom with his role as Han Solo in the “Star Wars” franchise, a legacy further cemented by his lead role in “Indiana Jones” movies.

Ford fought back tears, thanking his fellow actors, writers, directors and cast members. He “found a calling. A life in storytelling. An identity in pretending to be other people,” he said.

“While we’re all at different stages of our lives and careers in this room, we all share something fundamental. We share the privilege of working in the world of ideas, of empathy, or imagination,” Ford said. “Because of that privilege, I’ve come to know myself.”

Ford said he was “not an overnight success,” spending the first 15 years of his career jumping between acting and carpentry before landing an acting role.

Ford thanked film producer and casting director Fred Roos and his longtime manager Pat McQueeney, all of whom he said were integral to his success.

“They’re no longer with us, but it feels important that I think of them now. I feel them here tonight. They would be happy for me,” Ford said.

SAG-AFTRA’s recognition on Sunday is one of several lifetime achievement awards bestowed upon the actor over his extensive six-decade career, which is defined by two of Hollywood’s biggest film franchises.

A highlight reel of Ford’s various acting performances played ahead of his accepting the award.

The award was presented by actor Woody Harrelson, who lauded Ford’s varied achievements and called him a “timeless American treasure.”

“There’s too much of me in this tribute to Harrison, but I’m an actor, what do you expect?” Harrelson quipped. The actor first met Ford after following him into a sushi restaurant and the pair “sealed their friendship” over lunch, during which “at one point, we laughed — and I’m not kidding — for three minutes straight,” Harrelson said.

“This is a life achievement award and he has lived a full one,” Harrelson said.

Ford hasn’t shown signs of slowing down in recent years. The actor plays therapist Paul Rhoades in the Apple TV show “Shrinking,” which earned him his first-ever Emmy nomination last year. He also recently starred in the “Yellowstone” prequel “1923” and appeared in his first Marvel movie, “Captain America: Brave New World.”

Ford “thinks working more is the antidote to aging,” Harrelson said. The actor recently reprised his iconic role as a swashbuckling archaeologist in the 2023 sequel “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.”

Despite Ford’s massive success in the industry, the actor has yet to win a major competitive acting award. The Life Achievement Award is the first that Ford snagged from the guild. He was nominated last year for actor in a comedy series for his role in “Shrinking” but lost to Martin Short for his performance in “Only Murders in the Building.”

Ford said he was “quite humbled” to be honored with the award in a room full of actors, “many of whom are here because they’ve been nominated to receive a prize for their amazing work, while I’m here to receive a prize for being alive.”

“Sometimes we make entertainment. Sometimes we make art. Sometimes we’re lucky and we make them both at the same time,” Ford said.

The awards show’s highest honor is given to performers who foster the “finest ideals of the acting profession.” Ford joins a list of seasoned actors who have received the award, including Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand, Morgan Freeman and Robert De Niro.

SAG-AFTRA described Ford as “one of cinema’s most enduring leading men” whose performances “have become woven into the fabric of our culture,” in a December release announcing the honor.

Finalists and honorees for the 46th Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were announced Wednesday.

Writer-curator Ekow Eshun is among the biography finalists for “The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them,” which parses Black masculinity as embodied by various civil rights activists, philosophers and other visionaries. Contenders in the fiction categories ranged from seasoned novelists like Michael Connelly to breakouts including Saou Ichikawa, whose debut novel, “Hunchback,” was longlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize.

Many selected books evoke the greatest anxieties of our time, from government-sanctioned historical revisionism to the ongoing proliferation of AI.

“The Joy Luck Club” author Amy Tan will be honored with this year’s Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement. Nonprofit We Need Diverse Books and novelist Adam Ross will receive the Innovator’s Award and Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, respectively.

Winners in the remaining categories will be revealed at the 46th L.A. Times Book Prizes on April 17 at USC’s Bovard Auditorium. The ceremony is a prelude to the annual L.A. Times Festival of Books, which this year runs April 18-19.

The Oakland-born Tan will be given the marquee Robert Kirsch Award, which celebrates literature with regional and thematic connections to the Western United States, for her highly awarded body of work exploring multicultural identity and its complex effects on familial bonds.

“Throughout her extraordinary career, Amy Tan has transformed American literature by shining a light on the emotional complexities of family, identity and cultural inheritance,” said Times senior editor for Books Sophia Kercher. “Her work confronts the social and cultural legacies of the American West with rich details of the immigrant experience.”

Tan’s 1989 debut novel, “The Joy Luck Club,” which interweaves the stories of four Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters in San Francisco, is a staple of the modern literary canon and was previously a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. “The Joy Luck Club,” along with the essays, memoirs and novels Tan has since penned — most recently 2024’s “The Backyard Bird Chronicles” — have also led her to be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and earned her a National Humanities Medal from President Biden.

We Need Diverse Books, a viral 2014 Twitter campaign turned nonprofit, is being honored with the Innovator’s Award for its efforts toward promoting diversity and inclusion in children’s and young adult publishing.

According to the WNDB website, upon the nonprofit’s launch more than a decade ago, only 8% of children’s books published in the U.S. were written by authors of color. In 2023, that figure rose to 47%, in no small part due to WNDB’s grants, library partnerships and other advocacy work, per the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“We Need Diverse Books has played an important role in publishing by championing stories that reflect our world, and opening doors for writers and readers,” said Times Executive Editor Terry Tang. “We are thrilled to recognize them with this year’s Innovator’s Award, honoring their unwavering commitment to access and representation in literature.”

Ross rounds out the L.A. Times Book Prize honorees as the winner of the Christopher Isherwood Prize for “Playworld,” a semi-autobiographical novel about a teen growing up in 1980s New York that is described as “less a bildungsroman than a story of miseducation.”

In addition to the achievement awards, the Book Prizes recognize titles in 13 categories: audiobooks, autobiographical prose (the Christopher Isherwood Prize), biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award), graphic novel/comics, history, mystery/thriller, poetry, science fiction, science and technology and young adult literature. Each category’s finalists and winners are chosen by panels of writers specializing in that genre.

For more information about the Book Prizes, including the complete list of finalists, visit latimes.com/BookPrizes.

Robert Kirsch Award

Amy Tan

Innovator’s Award

We Need Diverse Books

The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose

Adam Ross, “Playworld: A Novel”

The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

Andy Anderegg, “Plum”

Krystelle Bamford, “Idle Grounds: A Novel”

Addie E. Citchens, “Dominion: A Novel”

Justin Haynes, “Ibis: A Novel”

Saou Ichikawa translated by Polly Barton, “Hunchback: A Novel”

Achievement in Audiobook Production, presented by Audible

Molly Jong-Fast (narrator), Matie Argiropoulos (producer); “How to Lose Your Mother”

Jason Mott, Ronald Peet, and JD Jackson (narrators), Diane McKiernan (producer); “People Like Us: A Novel”

James Aaron Oh (narrator), Linda Korn (producer); “The Emperor of Gladness: A Novel”

Imani Perry (narrator), Suzanne Mitchell (producer); “Black in Blues”

Maggi-Meg Reed, Jane Oppenheimer, Carly Robins, Jeff Ebner, David Pittu, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Mark Bramhall, Petrea Burchard, Robert Petkoff, Kimberly Farr, Cerris Morgan-Moyer, Peter Ganim, Jade Wheeler, Steve West, and Jim Seybert (narrators), Kelly Gildea (producer); “The Correspondent: A Novel”

Biography

Joe Dunthorne, “Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance”

Ekow Eshun, “The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them”

Ruth Franklin, “The Many Lives of Anne Frank”

Beth Macy, “Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America”

Amanda Vaill, “Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution”

Current Interest

Jeanne Carstensen, “A Greek Tragedy: One Day, a Deadly Shipwreck, and the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis”

Stefan Fatsis, “Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary”

Brian Goldstone, “There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America”

Gardiner Harris, “No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson”

Jordan Thomas, “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World”

Fiction

Tod Goldberg, “Only Way Out: A Novel”

Stephen Graham Jones, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter”

Mia McKenzie, “These Heathens: A Novel”

Andrés Felipe Solano translated by Will Vanderhyden, “Gloria: A Novel”

Bryan Washington, “Palaver: A Novel”

Graphic Novel/Comics

Eagle Valiant Brosi, “Black Cohosh”

Jaime Hernandez, “Life Drawing: A Love and Rockets Collection”

Michael D. Kennedy, “Milk White Steed”

Lee Lai, “Cannon”

Carol Tyler, “The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of Grief”

History

Char Adams, “Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore”

Bench Ansfield, “Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City”

Jennifer Clapp, “Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters”

Eli Erlick, “Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950”

Aaron G. Fountain Jr., “High School Students Unite!: Teen Activism, Education Reform, and FBI Surveillance in Postwar America”

Mystery/Thriller

Megan Abbott, “El Dorado Drive”

Ace Atkins, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World: A Novel”

Lou Berney, “Crooks: A Novel About Crime and Family”

Michael Connelly, “The Proving Ground: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel”

S.A. Cosby, “King of Ashes: A Novel”

Poetry

Gabrielle Calvocoressi, “The New Economy”

Chet’la Sebree, “Blue Opening: Poems”

Richard Siken, “I Do Know Some Things”

Devon Walker-Figueroa, “Lazarus Species: Poems”

Allison Benis White, “A Magnificent Loneliness”

Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction

Stephen Graham Jones, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter”

Jordan Kurella, “The Death of Mountains”

Nnedi Okorafor, “Death of the Author: A Novel”

Adam Oyebanji, “Esperance”

Silvia Park, “Luminous: A Novel”

Science & Technology

Mariah Blake, “They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals”

Peter Brannen, “The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World”

Karen Hao, “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI”

Laura Poppick, “Strata: Stories from Deep Time”

Jordan Thomas, “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World”

Young Adult Literature

K. Ancrum, “The Corruption of Hollis Brown”

Idris Goodwin, “King of the Neuro Verse”

Jamie Jo Hoang, “My Mother, the Mermaid Chaser”

Trung Le Nguyen, “Angelica and the Bear Prince”

Hannah V. Sawyerr, “Truth Is: A Novel in Verse”

NOEL Gallagher has confirmed he will reunite with brother Liam – three months after their Oasis reunion tour wrapped.

The brothers reunited after 16 years for a sensational five month tour – starting in Wales and ending in Brazil.

The Sun revealed last week that Noel will be getting a starring role when the Brit Awards come to his home city of Manchester this month.

The Wonderwall hitmaker will be honoured with Songwriter of the Year during the ceremony at Co-op Live.

Although some fans were left divided over Noel winning the prize in a year that he has not released any new material.

Meanwhile, Noel hit back over the decision to award him Songwriter of the Year at the upcoming Brit Awards. 

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Speaking on talkSPORT Drive about the award, Noel said: “I haven’t written a song for two years.

“I’m not sure how I’ve got away with that one but I’ll take it.”

Asked about the controversy, he responded: “Is there? I don’t know. Why, what’s it now?”

Host Andy Goldstein said: “Some people are questioning the fact that you’ve won it and haven’t written a song.”

Noel replied: “Well, I think the Brits is all based on record sales, and I’m not sure there was another single songwriter that sold… I mean, we sold a million records last year.

“Didn’t even get off the couch and I’m not sure there’s a songwriter that can match that.

“But you know, if anybody’s got a problem with it, meet me there. We’ll have it out on the red carpet.

“If any of those wet wipes songwriting teams, all 11 of them, want to write a song between the lot of them, want to have it out on the red carpet, I’m there.”

Noel then revealed that he and Liam are planning on reuniting for a Carabao Cup final, which takes place in March.

Revealing whether Liam will be at the BRITs with him, Noel said: “I haven’t, no, we’re just organising tickets for the Carabao Cup final today, but no, I haven’t spoke to him about that, no.”

The Sun revealed that mastermind behind Oasis‘s incredible back catalogue of hits would be receiving the award later this month.

A source said: “Noel has more than earned his stripes and after the phenomenal effect of Oasis’ reunion tour last summer, the time felt right to give him the honour.

“The cultural impact of Noel’s songwriting is hard to quantify. It’s not just the timeless hits from Oasis, like Wonderwall, Champagne Supernova and Live Forever, that he is being honoured for, but also the career-defining songs he wrote for his solo albums with High Flying Birds.

“The Brits are planning a special visual tribute to Noel too, which will showcase some of the highlights of his work before he picks up the awards.”

He famously said in 2013 that he’d never attend the ceremony again, after moaning it had lost its rock ‘n’ roll magic when he spotted Muse drummer Dominic Howard smoking an e-cigarette on the balcony above him.

Noel, below, said: “It was an instantly forgettable night. There was nothing going on at the Brits, there was nothing going on at the after-show parties.

“There are no characters left in the music business. I saw the drummer from Muse smoking an electronic cigarette. I had to say to him, ‘Really?”

Noel added: “That will be the last time I attend that show unless I get some award for . . .  ‘and the award this year for the only person in England writing his own songs, oh that’s right, there’s only one nominee’.”

This year marks 30 years since Noel and brother Liam enjoyed their biggest night at the Brits.

They picked up three gongs — Best Group, Best Album for (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? and Best Video for Wonderwall.

In a widely anticipated outcome that felt like a long-overdue coronation, Paul Thomas Anderson won the top honor at Saturday’s Directors Guild of America Awards for his Thomas Pynchon-inspired political thriller “One Battle After Another.” The ceremony was held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.

It was the director’s first DGA win after two prior nominations, in 2008 for “There Will Be Blood” and in 2022 for his San Fernando Valley reminiscence “Licorice Pizza.”

Speaking at the podium after receiving the award from last year’s winner, “Anora” director Sean Baker, a humbled Anderson thanked the guild, mentioning recent EGOT winner Steven Spielberg, sitting in the audience right in front of him. “It reminds me, being in this room, of ‘Close Encounters,’ ” Anderson said. “We’re all brought here for a reason — some cosmic thing brought us to this room. It was that call to the mountain. It’s that feeling that we all love making s— and we need to do it.”

Anderson also devoted much of his speech to remembering his first-assistant director Adam Somner, who died from thyroid cancer in November 2024. “May you be blessed with the relationship I had with him,” the director said, “and if you have one already, hold them close and remind them that you love them.”

True to tradition, the evening was both a celebration of achievements in directing and an occasion for much pro-guild testifying — from nominees, winners and Christopher Nolan, presiding over his first ceremony as DGA president. “We are the best at what we do,” Nolan said, touching on last year’s 40% dip in DGA member employment with a note of solidarity and urgency. “We are the storytellers. We are the people who have to innovate.”

All five nominees for theatrical feature film are invited to give a speech during these annual awards, with the eventual winner speaking twice. Guillermo del Toro, up for his personal take on “Frankenstein,” saluted Nolan: “I love saying ‘President Nolan’ because it’s so good to say ‘President’ with a good word after it,” he cracked to hearty applause. (The joke was echoed by several podium speakers.)

Ryan Coogler, a DGA nominee for “Sinners,” thanked the guild for his health insurance and mentioned his longtime dream — not of filmmaking but of joining a union, like some of the adults in his life growing up.

“Lately I’ve been learning about alchemy, “ said Chloé Zhao, representing “Hamnet,” her domestic drama about the grief-stricken family life of William Shakespeare. “You need fire and you need a chalice. To me, that fire is my creativity. It’s my birthright to create. And that chalice is the community that holds me.”

Indicating the respect the DGA commands among actors, several A-listers attended the ceremony to introduce their directors: Leonardo DiCaprio for Anderson, Jacob Elordi for Del Toro and Timothée Chalamet, the latter celebrating his “Marty Supreme” director Josh Safdie with sincerity and gentle deprecation. “I don’t think Josh will ever be ‘institutional,’ ” Chalamet said. “I think Josh will forever be an insurgent filmmaker and I don’t think the world would be right otherwise.”

An Oscar victory path is now clear for Anderson, previously nominated for the academy’s directing honor three times, for “There Will Be Blood,” “Phantom Thread” and “Licorice Pizza,” but never a winner. Twenty of the last 23 recipients of the DGA’s top prize have gone on to take the Oscar for directing.

Here is a complete list of the night’s nominees, with winners in bold:

Outstanding directorial achievement in theatrical feature film

Paul Thomas Anderson, “One Battle After Another” (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Ryan Coogler, “Sinners” (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Guillermo del Toro, “Frankenstein” (Netflix)
Josh Safdie, “Marty Supreme” (A24)
Chloé Zhao, “Hamnet” (Focus Features)

Michael Apted Award for outstanding directorial achievement in first-time theatrical feature film

Charlie Polinger, “The Plague” (Independent Film Co.)
Hasan Hadi, “The President’s Cake” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Harry Lighton, “Pillion” (A24)
Alex Russell, “Lurker” (Mubi)
Eva Victor, “Sorry, Baby” (A24)

Outstanding directorial achievement in documentary

Mstyslav Chernov, “2000 Meters to Andriivka” (PBS)
Geeta Gandbhir, “The Perfect Neighbor” (Netflix)
Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni, “Cutting Through Rocks” (Assembly Releasing)
Elizabeth Lo, “Mistress Dispeller” (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus, “Cover-Up” (Netflix)

Outstanding directorial achievement in dramatic series

Amanda Marsalis, “The Pitt,” “6:00 P.M.” (HBO Max)
Liza Johnson, “The Diplomat,” “Amagansett” (Netflix)
Janus Metz, “Andor,” “Who Are You?” (Disney+)
Ben Stiller, “Severance,” “Cold Harbor” (Apple TV+)
John Wells, “The Pitt,” “7:00 A.M.” (HBO Max)

Outstanding directorial achievement in comedy series

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, “The Studio,” “The Oner” (Apple TV+)
Lucia Aniello, “Hacks,” “A Slippery Slope” (HBO Max)
Janicza Bravo, “The Bear,” “Worms” (FX on Hulu)
Christopher Storer, “The Bear,” “Bears” (FX on Hulu)
Mike White, “The White Lotus,” “Denials” (HBO Max)

Outstanding directorial achievement in limited and anthology series

Shannon Murphy, “Dying for Sex,” “It’s Not That Serious” (FX on Hulu)
Jason Bateman, “Black Rabbit,” “The Black Rabbits” (Netflix)
Antonio Campos, “The Beast in Me,” “Sick Puppy” (Netflix)
Lesli Linka Glatter, “Zero Day,” “Episode 6” (Netflix)
Ally Pankiw, “Black Mirror,” “Common People” (Netflix)

Outstanding directorial achievement in movies for television

Stephen Chbosky, “Nonnas” (Netflix)
Jesse Armstrong, “Mountainhead” (HBO Max)
Scott Derrickson, “The Gorge” (Apple TV+)
Michael Morris, “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” (Peacock)
Kyle Newacheck, “Happy Gilmore 2” (Netflix)

Outstanding directorial achievement in variety

Liz Patrick, “SNL50: The Anniversary Special” (NBC)
Yvonne De Mare, “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” “Julia Roberts; Sam Smith” (CBS)
Andy Fisher, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” “Stephen Colbert; Kumail Nanjiani; Reneé Rapp” (ABC)
Beth McCarthy-Miller, “SNL50: The Homecoming Concert” (Peacock)
Paul Pennolino, “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” “Public Media” (HBO Max)

Outstanding directorial achievement in sports

Matthew Gangl, 2025 World Series – Game 7 – Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Toronto Blue Jays (Fox Sports)
Steve Milton, 2025 Masters Tournament – Augusta National Golf Club (CBS Sports)
Rich Russo, Super Bowl LIX – Philadelphia Eagles vs. Kansas City Chiefs (Fox Sports)

Outstanding directorial achievement in reality / quiz & game

Mike Sweeney, “Conan O’Brien Must Go,” “Austria” (HBO Max)
Lucinda M. Margolis, “Jeopardy!,” “Ep. 9341” (Syndicated)
Adam Sandler, “The Price Is Right,” “10,000th Episode” (CBS)

Outstanding directorial achievement in documentary series / news

Rebecca Miller, “Mr. Scorsese,” “All This Filming Isn’t Healthy” (Apple TV+)
Marshall Curry, “SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night,” “Written By: A Week Inside the SNL Writers Room” (Peacock)
Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin, “Billy Joel: And So It Goes,” “Part Two” (HBO Max)
Alexandra Stapleton, “Sean Combs: The Reckoning,” “Official Girl” (Netflix)
Matt Wolf, “Pee-Wee as Himself,” “Part 1” (HBO Max)

Outstanding directorial achievement in commercials

Kim Gehrig (Somesuch), “You Can’t Win. So Win.” – Nike | Wieden+Kennedy
Miles Jay (Smuggler)
Spike Jonze (MJZ)
Andreas Nilsson (Biscuit Filmworks)
Steve Rogers (Biscuit Filmworks)

Veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford confirmed he will keep playing for at least one more season after being named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player for the first time.

The Los Angeles Rams star was the slight favourite for the award and beat New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye by one first-place vote.

The 37-year-old became the oldest quarterback to win the MVP for the first time and it is the 13th straight win by a QB.

Stafford had been rumoured to be considering retirement and while on stage with his four daughters in San Francisco, said: “I’ll see you guys next year.”

“It’s something I’d been thinking about, whether I wanted to keep playing or not,” he added.

“I ended the season on a healthy note, had a bunch of team-mates in the crowd and my daughters with me, so it felt like the right thing to do in the moment. I’m happy to be coming back.”

Stafford was unable to register a play-off win in 12 years with the Detroit Lions, but after being traded to the Rams in 2021, he won the Super Bowl in his first season and has now been named MVP.

The former first overall draft pick is just the second quarterback after Tom Brady (2007) to lead the NFL in touchdown passes, passing yards and touchdown-interception ratio over the past 50 seasons.

He led the Rams to the NFC Championship game but the Seattle Seahawks won to book their spot in Sunday’s Super Bowl, where they will face the Patriots in Santa Clara.

Seattle’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba was named Offensive Player of the Year at the NFL’s end-of-season awards night after leading the league for receiving yards.

New England’s Mike Vrabel won Coach of the Year having led the Patriots to the Super Bowl in his first season as their head coach.

Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett was named Defensive Player of the Year for the second time in three years after claiming the single-season sack record.

BEIJING — Beijing on Monday criticized the Dalai Lama ’s first Grammy win, describing the music industry award for an audiobook, narration and storytelling as “a tool for anti-China political manipulation.”

The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, who lives in exile in India, took the award on Sunday for his book, “Meditations: The Reflections of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.”

He said in a statement on his website that he saw the award “as a recognition of our shared universal responsibility.”

“I receive this recognition with gratitude and humility,” he added.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said: “It is well known that the 14th Dalai Lama is not merely a religious figure but a political exile engaged in anti-China separatist activities under the guise of religion.”

“We firmly oppose the relevant party using the award as a tool for anti-China political manipulation,” he added.

The Dalai Lama, who is seen by many as the face of Tibet’s struggle for autonomy, has lived in exile since 1959, when Chinese troops crushed an uprising in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.

China, which governs Tibet as an autonomous region, has been accused of trying to stamp out the Tibetan language, culture and identity.

Beijing and the Dalai Lama also spar over the spiritual leader’s eventual successor. Tibetan Buddhists believe the Dalai Lamas are reincarnations of a spiritual leader first born in 1391.

Beijing maintains the next Dalai Lama will be born in Tibet and recognized by the ruling Communist Party, whereas the Dalai Lama has said his successor will be from a free country and that China has no role in the process.

Bad Bunny’s “Débi Tirar Más Fotos” was named album of the year at Sunday night’s 68th Grammy Awards — the first time a Spanish-language LP has won the Recording Academy’s most prestigious prize.

Bunny delivered the speech primarily in Spanish.

“I want to dedicate this award to all the people who had to leave their homeland, their country, to follow their dreams,” he said as the audience rose to its feet.

“Puerto Rico, believe me when I say that we are so much bigger than 100 by 35 and there is nothing that exists that we can’t accomplish,” he said in Spanish. “Thank God, thank you to the academy, thank you to all the people who have believed in me throughout my whole career. To all the people who worked on this album. Thank you, mami, for giving birth to me in Puerto Rico. I love you.”

“For all the people who have lost a loved one and even then have had to continue moving forward and continue with so much strength, this award is for you all.”

Intricately arranged with the sounds of the singer and rapper’s native Puerto Rico, “Débi Tirar Más Fotos” was released to rave reviews in January 2025 and quickly reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Last summer, Bad Bunny supported the project with a 30-date concert residency at San Juan’s José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum; he followed that with the announcement of a world tour that avoided the United States, in part, he told I-D magazine, because of his concern that immigration agents might turn up at shows.

Prior to Sunday’s win, “Débi Tirar Más Fotos” — the title translates in English to “I Should Have Taken More Photos” — was named album of the year at November’s Latin Grammy Awards. Next weekend, Bad Bunny (whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) will headline the halftime show at Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara.

He won earlier in the night for música urbana album and global music performance.

The other LPs nominated for album of the year were Justin Bieber’s “Swag,” Sabrina Carpenter’s “Man’s Best Friend,” Clipse’s “Let God Sort Em Out,” Lady Gaga’s “Mayhem,” Kendrick Lamar’s “GNX,” Leon Thomas’ “Mutt” and Tyler, the Creator’s “Chromakopia.”

In 2025, Beyoncé took the prize with “Cowboy Carter.”