Category: Mohegan

WILKES-BARRE PA – Win the Messenger Pace final, a Triple Crown event, with Pleaseletmeknow on Friday night, then come back and win with American Courage (American Ideal) in 1:47.4 at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono on Saturday afternoon (Jul. 2). Just a routine 19 hours for harness racing driver Matt Kakaley, trainer Travis Alexander, and owners Fiddler’s Creek Stables LLC.

Matt Kakaley pilots American Courage to a blistering win (Curtis Salonick Photo)

American Courage came to town with lofty credentials ($576,372, a recent win in 1:49.4 at Yonkers), and the crowd bet the four-year-old down to 3-5 in the $27,500 featured pace. They might have been worried early as he got away fifth, but ducking proved a good move as Vettel N shot out to the lead in :25.4, then refused to yield to Im Sir Blake A, feature winner here last week, forcing him into the pocket by a :53.2 half.

That left a softened front end for American Courage and driver Matt Kakaley, who zoomed uncovered from fifth while going in :26.1 himself down the back to clear just past the 1:20.3 three-quarters, then finished out in :27.1 to win by 6¼ lengths.

The 1:47.4 time was three-fifths off the Pocono standard for four-year-old pacing horses set by Freaky Feet Pete, and just four-fifths off the all-time 1:47 record over a 5/8-mile track, set by Sweet Lou (at Pocono) and Always B Miki (twice at Pocono, once at Scioto).

Kakaley also won the co-featured $17,500 trot with the Swan For All mare Queen Of All, giving her three wins in a row. Queen Of All made two speed moves during early splits of :28 and :57.1, continued to get a breather to the 1:26.2 three-quarters, then had a :28.2 back quarter…

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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A gunman opened fire inside a busy shopping mall in the Danish capital Sunday, killing several people and wounding several others, police said.

A 22-year-old Danish man was arrested, Copenhagen police inspector Søren Thomassen told reporters, adding there was no indication that anyone else was involved in the attack, though police were still investigating.

Gun violence is relatively rare in Denmark.

Thomassen said it was too early to speculate on the motive for the shooting, which happened in the late afternoon at Field’s, one of the biggest shopping malls in Scandinavia and located on the outskirts of the Danish capital. When the shots rang out, some people hid in shops while others fled in a panicked stampede, witnesses said.

“It is pure terror. This is awful,” said Hans Christian Stoltz, a 53-year-old IT consultant, who was bringing his daughters to see Harry Styles perform at a concert scheduled for Sunday night near the mall. “You might wonder how a person can do this to another human being, but it’s beyond … beyond anything that’s possible.”

People flee the Field’s shopping center after a shooting, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Sunday, July 3, 2022. Danish police said Sunday that several people were shot at a Copenhagen shopping mall, one of the largest in Scandinavia. (Olafur Steinar Gestsson/AP)

Thomassen gave no specific casualty count beyond saying several people were dead and several wounded. He said the suspect was an “ethnic Dane,” a phrase typically used to mean someone is white.

Danish broadcaster TV2 published a grainy photo of the alleged gunman, a man wearing knee-length shorts and a tank top and holding what appeared to be a rifle in his right hand.

“He seemed very violent and angry,” eyewitness Mahdi Al-Wazni told TV2. “He spoke to me and said it (the rifle) isn’t real as…

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WILKES-BARRE PA – Crazy Cute (Art Major) won easily in the $17,500 distaff pacing harness racing feature on Sunday at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono – and may have finished with some more left in the tank.

Crazy Cute and driver George Napolitano Jr (Curtis Salonick Photo)

The 6-5 favorite, a daughter of Art Major who now has earnings of $304,805, left three-wide but backed off when seeing that A Better Game and Nuttinbuthebest to the left were similarly-minded; the latter took the lead near a :26.2 quarter, then posted midsplits of :55.2 and 1:23, with Crazy Cute making a big move towards the leader nearing the last-named split.

Around the far turn, the pacesetter and first-over were even, but soon after coming off the bend, Crazy Cute made powerful surge to quickly draw away, finishing under a George Napolitano Jr. hold and still stopping the timer in 1:51.1. Trainer Gilbert Garcia-Herrera owns the winner of two straight with Barbara Arnstine.

CRAZY CUTE REPLAY

The American Harness Drivers Club of amateur horsemen made its way to Pocono on Sunday to contest two $11,000 trots. Both races were won by AHDC veteran Tony Ciuffetelli, who brought a pair of sharp horses with him from Saratoga en route to victory.

In the feature handicap division, Ciuffetelli was looking to tuck second with Magic MVP (My MVP) near the quarter when the hole was shut on him, and it may have been the best thing to happen to horse and driver, as they pressed on to command. Despite late pressure coming from every direction, they held on for a 1:58 victory over the 15-year-old favored TSM Photo Bugger, three-wide for close to three-eighths of the mile, by a nose; Chief Justice threaded…

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In her solo play, “Where We Belong,” Madeline Sayet shares her story with such warmth, passion, honesty and humor that one feels honored to have spent an evening in her presence. And what a tale she has to tell. A Mohegan theater-maker, Sayet moved to England in 2015 to pursue a doctorate degree in Shakespeare, a journey that led her to question not only her identity and place in the world, but also her relationship to the 400-year-old playwright in light of his country’s colonial legacy.

Sayet’s autobiographical account is both deeply moving and thought-provoking — an essential story to be told as the United States grapples with the horrors of its own past. The Goodman Theatre presents the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company production of the play, in association with the Folger Shakespeare Library, as part of a national tour.

With breathtakingly beautiful language — though in English, rather than the language that was taken from the Mohegans — Sayet recalls the rich history of her ancestors, conveying the strong connections to the community and the land that continue to be cherished in their culture. Of course, there is also plenty of painful history that is seldom taught to students in the U.S. — the brutal war tactics of the colonial settlers, theft of traditional lands and forced assimilation of Native children in residential schools. And yet, even though “last” is “the only word people recognize associated with Mohegan,” Sayet reminds the audience that “we are still here.”

In the United Kingdom, Sayet feels alone as the only Mohegan and is dismayed by the casual racism of her fellow academics. On one especially lonely day, she makes an impromptu visit to Southwark Cathedral on London’s South Bank to escape a sudden rain shower. Walking through the garden after the clouds have cleared, she…

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Mohegan Chief Marilynn “Lynn” Malerba, the nation’s first Native American U.S. treasurer, comes from a line of chiefs who instilled in her the need to keep her tribe healthy and to survive.

“It’s our job to leave footprints on the path for those who come behind us — so they may find their way easily,” she said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press.

Now Malerba, 68, will bring…

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mohegan Chief Marilynn “Lynn” Malerba, the nation’s first Native American U.S. treasurer, comes from a line of chiefs who instilled in her the need to keep her tribe healthy and to survive.

“It’s our job to leave footprints on the path for those who come behind us — so they may find their way easily,” she said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press.

Now Malerba, 68, will bring that mindset to two new jobs in Washington: Last week President Joe Biden appointed her U.S. treasurer and overseer of a new Office of Tribal and Native Affairs at the Treasury Department.

As part of the first role, her name will appear on all new U.S. currency. “I hope to sign the currency either Chief Lynn Malerba or Chief Many Hearts Lynn Malerba,” she said, referencing the meaning of her name within her tribe, “Mutáwi Mutáhash.”

In the latter role, she will be thinking of new ways to help tribes develop their economies to overcome challenges that are unique to tribal lands.

“Tribes cannot offer tax incentives on their reservations” in the same way that states and local municipalities would tax economic development, she said. She added that tribes haven’t been able to offer tax-exempt bonds for things like concert halls and golf courses like municipalities can.

Helping tribes…

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DETROIT- The New Kids on the Block were still new kids on the block, relatively speaking, when the teenage heartthrobs hit the Palace of Auburn Hills in Michigan on Dec. 2, 1989, for not one but two sold-out concerts.

New Kids On The Block members, from left, Danny Wood, Jordan Knight, Donnie Wahlberg, Joey McIntyre and Jonathan Knight pose with fans at an 80’s style roller rink party to celebrate their new single, at South Amboy Arena Rollermagic, on Thursday, March 3, 2022, in New Jersey. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

“Yeah we used to do matinees back then, too,” says New Kid Donnie Wahlberg, who fondly recalls that chilly December day and meeting members of the Bad Boys, including Detroit Pistons coach Chuck Daly, and being pleasantly surprised that they weren’t such bad guys after all (even though they’d disposed of Wahlberg’s Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals the year prior).

It’s now more than 30 years later and the Bad Boys are long gone and so is the Palace, but the New Kids are still hangin’ tough. The Boston boy band has embarked on the latest iteration of their Mixtape Tour, this time featuring fellow ’80s and ’90s hit-makers Salt-N-Pepa, En Vogue and Rickroll king Rick Astley.

The tour stops at the Mohegan Sun Arena for shows on Friday and Saturday nights.

Playing arenas, then as in now, is a surreal feeling, Wahlberg says.

“It’s a little bit overwhelming if we really stop and think about it,” says Wahlberg, on the phone earlier this year, along with fellow New Kid Jonathan Knight. “And I think as we get older, we definitely take the time to stop and think about it a lot more.”

There’s more…

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