NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal will put his DJ skills on display at his own carnival-style event after a popular electronic dance music festival in Miami.
FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2017 file photo, Shaquille O'Neal, performing as DJ Diesel, appears at KAABOO 2017 in San Diego, Calif. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)
O'Neal said that "Shaq's Fun House" will debut March 24, immediately following day one of the three-day Ultra Music Festival. Both events are taking place during Miami Music Week.
He said the one-night, invite-only affair will feature EDM performers, a cabaret show and "over-the-top" carnival attractions. It will be held at an unannounced warehouse venue.
"Despite all the problems that are going on in the world, there are two (things) that'll bring people together: it's sports and music," he said in an interview Wednesday. O'Neal added that there will be "flame throwers, people swinging from ceilings, a lot of costumes. We want this to be very different than any other festival."
"Shaq's Fun House" will run from 2 a.m. to sunrise.
O'Neal will perform under his stage name DJ Diesel. The four-time NBA champion said he came up with the concept after he performed at the EDM festival TomorrowWorld, held near Atlanta, in 2015.
"I want to do something big and develop a brand that represents this younger world," he said.
O'Neal won't announce who is performing at his event because he wants to surprise the audience. Performers at the Ultra Music Festival include David Guetta, the Chainsmokers and Afrojack.
O'Neal, 46, has been performing at small and big venues since the age of 14, even DJ'ing at parties during his college days at Louisiana State University. He released multiple rap albums in the 1990s, and in recent years he's performed at music festivals around the world.
At "Shaq's Fun House," O'Neal said he'll play a mixture of EDM, hip-hop and classic songs.
"I like to read the crowd and see what they like, but I want to hit them with that base, edgy trap. I like all types of music. I'm mixture of AoB and Skrillex," he said, referring to the electronic soul duo and Grammy-winning dub-step DJ-producer.
"That's my alias, the black AoB-Skrillex."
NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Times and The Washington Post were awarded three Pulitzer Prizes apiece on Monday for work in 2023 that dealt with everything from the war in Gaza to gun violence, and The Associated Press won in the feature photography category for coverage of global migration to the U.S.
Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the aftermath produced work that resulted in two Pulitzers and a special citation. The Times won for text coverage that the Pulitzer board described as “wide-ranging and revelatory,” while the Reuters news service won for its photography. The citation went to journalists and other writers covering the war in Gaza.
The prestigious public service award went to ProPublica for reporting that “pierced the thick wall of secrecy” around the U.S. Supreme Court to show how billionaires gave expensive gifts to justices and paid for luxury travel. Reporters Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, Brett Murphy, Alex Mierjeski and Kirsten Berg were honored for their work.
The Pulitzers honored the best in journalism from 2023 in 15 categories, as well as eight arts categories focused on books, music and theater. The public service winner receives a gold medal. All other winners receive $15,000.
The 15 photos in AP’s winning entry were taken across Latin America and along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas and California in a year when immigration was one of the world’s biggest stories. They were shot by AP staffers Greg Bull, Eric Gay, Fernando Llano, Marco Ugarte and Eduardo Verdugo, and longtime AP freelancers Christian Chavez, Felix Marquez and Ivan Valencia.
“These raw and emotional images came about through day-to-day coverage of a historic moment in multiple countries documenting migrants at every step of their treacherous journeys,” said Julie Pace, the AP’s senior vice president and executive editor.
The United States has seen more than 10 million border arrivals in the last five years, with migrants arriving from a wide range of new locations like Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti and Africa, in contrast with earlier eras.
The AP has won 59 Pulitzer Prizes, including 36 for photography. The news cooperative was named a finalist for the national reporting Pulitzer on Monday for its coverage of hundreds of thousands of children who disappeared from public schools during the pandemic.
In citing the Times for its work in Israel and Gaza, the Pulitzer board mentioned its coverage of the country’s intelligence failures, along with the attack and Israel’s military response.
The award comes even as The Times has faced some controversy about its coverage; last month a group of journalism professors called on the publication to address questions about an investigation into gender-based violence during the Hamas attack on Israel.
The Times’ Hannah Dreier won a Pulitzer in investigative reporting for her stories on migrant child labor across the United States. Contributing writer Katie Engelhart won the newspaper’s third Pulitzer, in feature writing, for her portrait of a family struggling with a matriarch’s dementia.
The Washington Post staff won in national reporting for its “sobering examination” of the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, which came with some gut-wrenching photos. “We were eager to find a way to cover it differently and change the conversation about mass shootings,” Peter Walstein, the Post’s senior national enterprise editor, said in the newspaper.
The Post’s David E. Hoffman won in editorial writing for a “compelling and well-researched” series on how authoritarian regimes repress dissent in the digital age. Its third award went to contributor Vladimir Kara-Murza, for commentaries written from a Russian prison cell.
The New Yorker magazine won two Pulitzers. Sarah Stillman won in explanatory reporting for her report on the legal system’s reliance on felony murder charges. Contributor Medar de la Cruz won in illustrated reporting and commentary for his story humanizing inmates in the Rikers Island jail in New York City.
The staff of Lookout Santa Cruz in California won in the breaking news category for what the prize board called “nimble community-minded coverage” of flooding and mudslides. On its website Monday, Lookout Santa Cruz said that it made its coverage free at a time of crisis in the community, and also used text messages to reach people without power.
“In short, we did our jobs,” the staff said in an unsigned article, “and we heard so many thanks for it. The Pulitzer is icing on that cake.”
The Pulitzers gave a second award in national reporting to the Reuters staff for an “eye-opening” series that probed Elon Musk’s automobile and aerospace businesses.
In local reporting, Sarah Conway of City Bureau and Trina Reynolds-Tyler of the Invisible Institute won for an investigative series on missing Black girls and women in Chicago, which showed how racism and the police contributed to the problem.
The Pulitzer in criticism went to Justin Chang of The Los Angeles Times for evocative and genre-spanning coverage of movies. The Pulitzer board's second special citation went to the late hip-hop critic Greg Tate.
The Pulitzers are administered by Columbia University in New York, which itself has been in the news for student demonstrations against the war in Gaza. The Pulitzer board met away from Columbia this past weekend to deliberate on its winners.
For the first time, the Pulitzers opened eligibility to broadcast and audio companies that also operate digital news sites, such as CNN, NPR and the broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC. None of these companies won, however.
The Columbia Journalism School also administers the duPont-Columbia Awards, which recognize audio and visual journalism and are presented in the winter.
The Pulitzers also announced that five of the 45 finalists this year used artificial intelligence in research and reporting of their submissions. It was the first time the board required applicants for the award to disclose use of AI.
The prizes were established in the will of newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer and first awarded in 1917.
David Bauder writes about media for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder.
Hannah Dreier, second from right, as colleagues applaud during a Pulitzer Prize gathering in the newsroom of The New York Times in New York, Monday, May 6, 2024. Dreier won a Pulitzer in investigative reporting for her stories on migrant child labor across the United States. (Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times via AP)
Venezuelan migrants wave a U.S. flag at a television helicopter that flew over the Rio Grande, in Matamoros, Mexico, Friday, May 12, 2023, a day after pandemic-related asylum restrictions called Title 42 were lifted. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
A woman carries her child after she and other migrants crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico, to be processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Migrants cross the Rio Grande river into the United States from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Wednesday, March 29, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez)
A group of migrants sleep in a makeshift campsite as they wait to apply for asylum after crossing the border, Wednesday, May 10, 2023, near Jacumba, Calif. The group had been camping just across the border for days, waiting to apply for asylum in the United States. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Migrants cross the Rio Bravo on an inflatable mattress into the United States from Matamoros, Mexico, on May 9, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Migrants who crossed into the U.S. from Mexico pass under concertina wire along the Rio Grande river, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
A Venezuelan migrant stands covered in a wrap while texting, on the banks of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Saturday, May 13, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Migrants travel inside train cars of a northbound freight train, in Irapuato, Mexico, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Migrants, mainly from Central America, who were traveling to the U.S. inside a tractor-trailer, are detained by Mexican immigration agents and National Guard members, in Veracruz, Mexico, Sunday, July 23, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)
A Venezuelan migrant laughs as she jokes with her husband, who gave her a few flowers he picked in the grass, as they wait along the rail lines in hopes of boarding a freight train heading north in Huehuetoca, Mexico, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
Migrants walk across the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama in hopes of reaching the U.S., Tuesday, May 9, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
Haitian migrants wade through water as they cross the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama in hopes of reaching the U.S., Tuesday, May 9, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
Migrants planning to start walking across the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama in hopes of reaching the U.S. gather at the trailhead camp in Acandi, Colombia, Tuesday, May 9, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
Migrants sit under a sign marking the Panama-Colombia border during their trek across the Darien Gap, Tuesday, May 9, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
Migrants reach through a border wall for clothing handed out by volunteers as they wait between two border walls to apply for asylum Friday, May 12, 2023, in San Diego. Hundreds of migrants remain waiting between the two walls, many for days. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
FILE - Signage for The Pulitzer Prizes appear at Columbia University, May 28, 2019, in New York. Pulitzer Prizes are due to be announced on Monday, May 6, 2024, traditionally the most-anticipated day of the year for those hoping to earn print journalism's most prestigious honor. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
