Latest news with #Turnage
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Business
- Yahoo
25K+ DC residents could lose Medicaid. Now what? Here's what you can do.
WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — Mayor Muriel Bowser's proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2026 would leave more than 25,000 D.C. residents without health insurance due to Medicaid cuts. On May 2, the Bowser Administration urged Congress to maintain the District's Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, saying that changes will have severe impacts on the city's entire health care system. DC Council votes to pause July 1 wage bump under Initiative 82 Twenty days later, on May 27, cuts to Medicaid were announced during her budget presentation, with more than 25,000 residents expected to be impacted. Adults without children and adult caregivers between 138%-200% of the federal poverty level would be moved to D.C. Health Benefits Exchange, according to the mayor's presentation. The D.C. Health Benefits Exchange is expected to help around 90% of those losing access to Medicaid under the proposed eligibility changes, said Wayne Turnage, D.C. deputy mayor of health and human services. 'It won't be precisely the same benefits structure, but it will be very close,' Turnage said. See full interview with Turnage below: The Basic Health Plan is being developed by the Executive Director of the DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority, Mila Kofman, in order to serve those individuals. Those eligible for the exchange program will need to apply once the program is fully up and ready in order to receive those benefits. DC police recinds request to close Dupont Circle park during WorldPride after pushback from DC community For the other 10% not covered by the program being developed, you may need to consider health insurance. Shadow Rep. Oye Owolewa (D) said these changes could potentially lead to a health care 'crisis' in the District, but he plans to take every step to ensure residents are prepared. 'As a pharmacist, an elected official, Ward 8 resident, we are reaching out to all of our residents who take or use D.C. Medicaid,' Owolewa said. 'We are trying to find them alternative strategies to get health care. We are also going to be doing a lot of men's health round tables to make sure folks who are using D.C. Medicaid, or folks who are 21 years or older, know how to get their health insurance.' Many who lose access to Medicaid may need to rely on hospitals and clinics that offer uncompensated care, said Zach Gaumer, managing principle of Health Management Associates' Washington, D.C. office. The company specializes in Medicaid and Medicare policy consulting for providers, payers, etc. 'Medicaid is often thought of as the insurance of last resort for low-income individuals,' Gaumer said. 'In a lot of cases, what happens to individuals when they lose Medicaid coverage is that they go uninsured. They have to turn to sources of care that are uncompensated.' Residents may also be able to go directly to their providers for additional resources and help on where they can get care at a reduced price or even at no cost, Gaumer said. Health care prices are the number one reason people go uninsured, he added. 'It's very expensive to insure individuals at this point in time, and it can be thousands of dollars a month to buy insurance,' Gaumer said. Republicans eye cuts to Medicaid If you become ineligible for Medicaid, there are still ways to have lower health insurance plans and pay less for premiums. The Health Insurance Marketplace allows low-income families to explore health care plans that are tailored to their income. Affordable Care Act (ACA) Health Insurance Benefits and Coverage, also known as 'Obamacare,' matches individuals with health care plans with the goal of being affordable. This is offered by private health insurance companies rather than through the federal government. Register here. DC Health Link offers users the option to compare plans to see if they qualify for lower monthly premiums. To assist with premiums, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) offers tax credits to help cover premiums. It's a refundable tax credit for eligible individuals and families to cover premiums purchased through the Health Insurance Marketplace. To get this credit, you must meet certain requirements and file a tax return with Form 8962, Premium Tax Credit (PTC). This includes not being eligible for Medicare. Click here for full eligibility requirements. Fredericksburg mother voice fears about potential Medicaid cuts D.C. Exchange has a hotline of (855) 532-5465 that's available Monday through Friday to assist with questions. PAN Foundation The organization helps with health insurance premium grants for patients being treated for various disease states. U.S. Citizenship is not a requirement, and you must have an income that falls at or below 500% of the Federal Poverty Level. The grant can help cover a portion of the premium costs for the following diseases: Fabry disease premium Hemolytic uremic syndrome premium Hemophilia premium Hypophosphatasia premium Inherited retinal disease premium Lysosomal acid lipase deficiency premium Myasthenia gravis premium Neurofibromatosis premium Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria premium Pompe disease premium Short bowel syndrome premium Additional programs can help with prescription costs, HIV/AIDS treatment and more. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Turnage Commits to Georgia Tech
Staff Reports THE FLATS – Georgia Tech women's basketball head coach Karen Blair announced on Wednesday Brianna Turnage has signed a grant-in-aid to join the Yellow Jackets for her final year of eligibility. Turnage brings three seasons of experience competing in the Atlantic Coast Conference to The Atlanta, Ga., native, Turnage played her first three seasons at Florida State, appearing in 90 games and earning the start in 30. The 6-1 guard helped the Seminoles to three-straight NCAA Tournament appearances (2023, 2024, 2025), while finishing in the top six of the ACC standings all three years. Each season Turnage was a Seminole, Florida State posted 20-plus wins and at least 12 ACC victories.'We are so thrilled to welcome Brianna back home to Atlanta,' said Blair. 'She is a winner and knows what it takes to compete at the highest level having already participated in three NCAA Tournaments. Our staff loves the versatility that she brings on the court.'Turnage played in all 33 games last season for the Seminoles, averaging 13.9 minutes per game and finishing fourth with 12 blocks. She pulled down a career-high 11 rebounds against Jacksonville, while just missing double-figure scoring totals several times. Against Drexel, Turnage went 3-for-3 from three-point distance to finish with nine her sophomore campaign, Turnage tallied 11 points against Alabama State, going 4-for-4 from the field, and secured seven rebounds. The Georgia native recorded a pair of double-figure rebounding outings, securing 10 rebounds against Clemson and Syracuse. She just missed a double-double against Boston College with nine rebounds and a career-high six assists. Her freshman season saw Turnage take the floor in 23 outings and recording a double-double against Presbyterian behind 14 points and 10 rebounds.
The Guardian
15-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The week in classical: Festen; Das Rheingold review – a dark, jubilant, five-star Turnage triumph
In the feverish build up to Festen, Mark-Anthony Turnage's new opera to a libretto by Lee Hall, one question has dominated. Why make an opera based on Thomas Vinterberg's cult 1998 film, in which a son accuses his father of child abuse? The implication: why not think of something new. Since nearly the entire operatic repertoire, from Monteverdi's L'Orfeo (1607) to Puccini's Tosca onward, is based on extant sources – myth, plays, novels and, now it exists, cinema – the question should hardly detain us, beyond initial acknowledgment. Opera needs stories that can be sung. Festen, as well as being a dark exploration of human frailty, offers the potential for arias, choruses, crowd scenes, intimate duets, orchestral interludes: the stuff of opera. The result, which finds Turnage (b.1960) at the peak of his powers, is a dazzling and jubilantly entertaining work. It was premiered last Tuesday by the Royal Opera, conducted by Edward Gardner, directed by Richard Jones and designed by Miriam Buether, with a flawless cast, orchestra and chorus. Turnage's first opera was Greek (1988), a prodigious early work based (via Sophocles, and Steven Berkoff's play) on Oedipus Rex updated to the Thatcher era, as aggressive and affecting now as when new. The Silver Tassie (2000), Anna Nicole (2011) and Coraline (2018) followed. A composer loyal to his collaborators, he is back working with some of the same team. Richard Jones directed Anna Nicole, about the American Playboy model, in a production memorable for pneumatic breasts and much pink. Gerald Finley sang the lead in The Silver Tassie, adapted from Sean O'Casey's anti-war play. Now Finley is Helge, the father celebrating his 60th birthday with friends and family. The large cast consists of many singers who, directly or not, have accompanied Turnage throughout his working life. Centre stage was John Tomlinson. As the baffled grandfather he sings only a line or two, but with his years of experience became the paternal linchpin of a collective enterprise. Star singers took their bows together, as part of the company: Allan Clayton as Christian, raped by his father in childhood and still blank with trauma; Stéphane Degout as the younger son, Michael, who moves through life with the grace of a demolition ball; Natalya Romaniw as Helena, the daughter attempting to make family peace through a haze of drug addiction. Among the long list of names to mention: Susan Bickley, Philippa Boyle, Clare Presland, Peter Brathwaite. Set in a 1980s-style hotel that switched between reception, bedroom, kitchen and dining room, helped by Lucy Carter's lighting effects, Buether's sets are stylish and efficient. Action is swift-moving. This makes the impact all the more devastating. Festen, in the hands of Turnage, Hall (credits include the screenplay for Billy Elliot) and Jones, is often funny. Comedy whets the tragedy. Hall's nimble, demotic text bristles with internal rhyme. An opening 'hello' chorus, a hideous, racist rendition of Baa Baa, Black Sheep and, as a centrepiece, a conga support a strong dramatic structure. Above all, Turnage's score, confidently played by the Royal Opera orchestra under Gardner, has assurance, noisy ebullience and lyrical intensity. An army of percussion instruments – whip, ratchet, castanets, maracas, edgy and scratchy in mood – is softened by marimba, harp, piano and celesta. Rumbles of bass clarinets and contrabassoons lurk beneath sparky top lines. Characters are given definition by instrumental colour: Helmut (Thomas Oliemans), the unlucky master of ceremonies, is accompanied by strident high brass; Helge by a torpid sludge of tuba and trombones. Silence, the white space between sounds, is employed to arrest and shock. Turnage has always owed much to jazz, but here the echoes of Britten (the choruses of Peter Grimes) and Tippett (the dances from The Midsummer Marriage), as well as the precision and transparency of his teacher, the composer Oliver Knussen, show Turnage embracing, rather than shying away from, a vital lineage. Opera can be more palpably avant garde, no doubt. In the myriad alliances the art form requires, of music, words, staging, every decision is an extreme experiment. Failure is a norm. This one works. Daring and brilliantly achieved, Festen is the composer's best work yet. The lure of Wagner's Ring, especially in the UK, remains irrevocable if not mysterious. Devotees flocked to Gloucestershire last summer for Longborough Opera's cycle. One couple, dressed as the god Wotan and his Valkyrie daughter Brünnhilde (unless horned helmets are their normal attire), had travelled from the US. Last Sunday, identifiable Wagnerians – you learn to recognise the markings – wandered up and down in freezing rain, waiting for the doors of York Hall in Bethnal Green, east London, to open. Famous as a boxing venue, this is the new home for Regents Opera's in-the-round Ring cycle, built up, with minimal budget, over the past five years. The conductor Ben Woodward has arranged the score for 22 instruments, including electric organ. Initially it sounded underpowered, with rough edges, but my ears grew accustomed. Caroline Staunton's production, with designs by Isabella Van Braeckel, takes place on a small stage. Costumes are eclectic, from folkloric tunic-tabard (Ralf Lukas as the conflicted Wotan) to rocker tight trousers (James Schouten, a wily, hip-swivelling Loge). The set is a group of different sized plinths, prone to thudding to the ground when the action speeds up. The graft needed to bring off two complete cycles in this way (the first ends tomorrow; the second starts next Sunday) is incalculable. Das Rheingold, first of the four operas, had some admirable performers: the Rhinemaidens (Jillian Finnamore, Justine Viani and, also singing Erda, Mae Heydorn), Ingeborg Novrup Børch as an incensed Fricka, Charlotte Richardson's gleaming Freia. As her brother Froh, god of spring and the only half-decent character in the whole of the Ring, Calvin Lee perilously cartwheeled on stage and sang his high phrases with exuberant charm. Then he summoned up the rainbow bridge and it was all over. I doubt the cheers when Tyson Fury beat Rich Power at York Hall were much louder than those that erupted once those rotten, gold-greedy gods had crossed to Valhalla. Star ratings (out of five) Festen ★★★★★ Das Rheingold ★★★★ Festen is at the Royal Opera House, London, until 27 February and will be broadcast on Radio 3/BBC Sounds on 22 March Regents Opera's Ring (cycle 1) at York Hall, London, ends with Götterdämmerung, Sunday 16 February, 3pm; cycle 2 dates: Das Rheingold (23 February); Die Walküre, (25 February); Siegfried (27 February); Götterdämmerung (2 March)
The Guardian
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Festen review – Turnage's taut new opera grips, appals and moves
First the film, then the stage play and now an immensely impressive opera. Mark-Anthony Turnage's Festen (Celebration) is the latest incarnation of Thomas Vinterberg's 1998 movie, which is regarded as the starting point of the Dogme 95 movement in Danish cinema. With a libretto by Lee Hall based upon the English stage adaptation, Festen is the fourth opera to be derived from a Dogme film, following Poul Ruders' Dancer in the Dark, Missy Mazzoli's Breaking the Waves and Mikael Karlsson's Melancholia (all based on screenplays by Lars von Trier). It's Turnage's fourth full-length opera for adults, and the benefit of that experience shines through every bar, and is reflected in its immaculate dramatic and musical pacing. Hall has supplied him with a taut, unfussy text in which not a word is wasted, so that the awful story that unravels at the 60th birthday dinner for hotel owner Helge, of a family deeply scarred by child abuse and haunted by a suicide, is presented in a single 95-minute span that grips, moves and appals from first moment to last. Conducted by Edward Gardner, the orchestral score drives this tragedy inexorably, with Turnage showing an infallible sense of when to allow the quiet power of the words to speak for themselves and when to allow his music to take charge, as the action flips from black comedy to bleak horror, or has its course punctuated by authentically operatic choruses, a Danish birthday song, a savagely ironic version of Baa Baa Black Sheep and a deeply sinister conga. There are some devastating silences, alongside the briefest snatches of serene lyrical beauty, and rather more of Turnage's trademark bluesy inflections, which are only one element in a wonderfully varied musical palette. The opera has 25 named roles, as well as a chorus and acting extras, but the way in which the main characters are sharply defined within these teeming stage pictures is remarkable. In settings by designer Miriam Buether that switch between the neutral, bland bedrooms and anonymous function room of a large hotel, Richard Jones's disciplined production handles the sometimes frenzied action adroitly, keeping things entirely naturalistic, and adding a final twist of horror in the closing scene, when after the previous evening's revelations the mood of affected normality among the departing guests mirrors the close of Britten's Peter Grimes. It helps enormously that the cast for this ensemble piece is so uniformly superb, projecting the words with such clarity and vehemence that surtitles are all but redundant. Helge, around whom all the tragedy revolves, has relatively little to say, though he is portrayed with brooding intensity by Gerald Finley, while the children, led by Christian, passionately, heart-breakingly portrayed by Allan Clayton and followed by his sister Helena, sung with contained yet devastating intensity by Natalya Romaniw, and finally their dead sister Linda (Marta Fontanals-Simmons) destroy any pretence of this being a 'normal' family occasion. Stéphane Degout is the unpredictable, unhinged brother Michael, and Rosie Aldridge their unbelieving mother Else, while John Tomlinson and Susan Bickley contribute cameos as the Grandpa and Grandma. If Turnage's score never puts a foot wrong, neither does any aspect of its performance. In repertory until 27 February. The opera will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 22 March and then available on BBC Sounds
New York Times
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
In ‘Festen,' a Nightmare Birthday Becomes an Opera
Mark-Anthony Turnage has a habit of provoking stuffy opera fans. The revered British composer's 1988 debut, 'Greek,' appalled some audiences by transposing Sophocles's 'Oedipus Rex' into to a cursing, brawling working-class London family. And some critics hated the pole dancers onstage in 'Anna Nicole,' his opera about the tragic life of the Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith. Now, Turnage is preparing to present 'Festen,' in which a patriarch's 60th birthday party descends into chaos after a speech exposes a family's deepest secrets. When 'Festen' premieres on Tuesday at the Royal Ballet and Opera in London, the show's dark subject matter looks set to upset traditionalists, too. Based on Thomas Vinterberg's cult Danish-language movie of the same name, 'Festen' includes descriptions of child abuse and suicide. The opera's 35-strong cast will fight, engage in simulated sex and hurl racist abuse at the show's only Black character. Yet Turnage insisted in a recent interview that he hadn't set out to challenge anyone — except himself. 'Part of me thinks, 'Why don't I just do a nice fluffy story that will be performed a lot?'' Turnage said. 'But I know if I did, it wouldn't be any good.' 'I need to be provoked,' Turnage added. 'I need an extreme or strong subject to write good music.' This 'Festen' premiere comes just over 25 years after Vinterberg's movie won the jury prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. Released as 'The Celebration' in the United States, 'Festen' was created under the banner of the Dogme95 movement, which required movie directors to follow 10 strict rules. Those included only using hand-held cameras and a ban on music, unless it occurs naturally in a scene. Vinterberg said by phone that he was curious to see how the operatic adaptation would work, given that his movie was mainly about characters concealing their emotions. In opera, by contrast, 'You've got to sing out everything — there's no hiding,' Vinterberg said. Turnage said he came to 'Festen' by accident. He first watched the movie in the mid-2000s, and loved its dark humor, he said, but its operatic potential didn't occur to him straight away. Then, during a binge-watch of Vinterberg films in 2019, Turnage said he realized: 'Wow! This has got all the elements for a grand opera.' The dinner party's guests could be the opera chorus, Turnage recalled thinking, while the movie's speeches — including one in which Christian, the movie's middle-aged lead, accuses his father, Helge, of abuse — would make great arias. 'I could see the people singing onstage,' Turnage said. 'I could see music in it.' The movie also spoke to him personally, Turnage added. While his own family gatherings had none of the horrors of 'Festen,' he said he identified with Christian confronting his father. Turnage said his own father, who died last year, had spanked him as a child, and was 'quite brutal' when he did. The composer said he was still angry about that. 'I wanted my dad to say, Sorry,' Turnage said. 'I knew he never regretted it.' For the 'Festen' libretto, Turnage turned to Lee Hall, a lyricist best known for 'Billy Elliot.' It was a relatively easy task, Hall said, because Vinterberg's screenplay was so dramatic and concise — all he had to do was 'lift the movie gently into a new medium.' Turnage said the music features some jazzy moments, like in his recent guitar concerto 'Sco,' as well as lush strings reminiscent of old movie soundtracks. The opera's set pieces, he added, include a grotesque arrangement of 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' and a 'drunken conga' in which the dinner party guests dance tipsily across the stage. Because the music and libretto came easily, Turnage said, the hardest parts of making 'Festen' work had fallen on Richard Jones, the director, who had to choreograph dozens of singers dancing, eating and arguing their way through the troubled evening. Jones, who also directed 'Anna Nicole,' said in an interview that 10 singers, portraying chefs and waiters, will serve the birthday party's guests a real three-course banquet during the opera, and the singers would eat it onstage. The cast, led by Allan Clayton as Christian and Gerald Finley as Helge, will appear to drink continually, Jones said, and act progressively drunker. The creative team and the Royal Ballet and Opera had tried to protect the performers as they dealt with the opera's dark subject matter, Jones added. During rehearsals, Turnage and Hall replaced a song featuring racist epithets that appears in the movie after some chorus members said they were uncomfortable with singing those words. (The chorus now sings 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' instead.). The company had also employed two drama therapists to counsel singers if they found the subject of child abuse troubling, Jones added. To appreciate the broader message of 'Festen,' the audience would have to look past the abuse, Hall said, and see that 'the leitmotif of the whole project was our collective collusion in denial.' 'Festen' is a broadside against pretending that problems don't exist, rather than tackling them, he added — and that goes for subjects like climate change, as well as child abuse. To highlight that, Turnage and Hall have tinkered with the ending. In the movie, the abusive father arrives at breakfast the next day, and gives a speech of his own, in which he tells his children he loves them, even if they now hate him. But one of his sons ushers the patriarch away. In the opera, Hall said, the father's comeuppance won't be so clear. If all the evening's provocations weren't quite enough, for movie buffs, that could be a sacrilege too far. Though not for Vinterberg. The director said he couldn't remember whether Turnage had asked permission for the change. 'But, whatever,' he added. 'It's hereby granted.'
