Category: Mohegan

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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WILKES-BARRE, PA – Im Sir Blake A (Alta Christiano N) took an immediate liking to the racing oval at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono, shipping in and promptly taking a new mile mark of 1:49.1 while winning the $27,500 handicap pacinig harness racing feature on Saturday.

Im Sir Blake A and driver Marcus Miller (Curtis Salonick Photo)

Marcus Miller was the innermost of the three main leavers, forcing one in behind, then letting the other go nearing the :26.1 quarter, only to retake the lead in front of the stands. Im Sir Blake A passed the half in :55, started to leave the field behind nearing the 1:22.3 three-quarters and could not be caught while turning in a :26.3 last quarter.

Driver Marcus Miller’s father Erv conditions Im Sir Blake A now a winner of $286,527, for owner Douglas Overhiser.

IM SIR BLAKE A REPLAY

In one of the two $17,500 featured trots, the Kadabra mare P L Notsonice equaled the fastest trotting mile of the year at Pocono by going wire-to-wire in 1:52.1. Marcus Miller made the lead with the strong mare before the quarter and hung-up fractions of :27.2, :56.2, and 1:24.1 en route to a routing of her opposition.

Trained by Steven Brabrook for owners Jaypaul Hoover and Elite Harness Racing LLC, P L Notsonice now has earnings of $251,905, and on Saturday she missed her lifetime mark, taken at Plainridge last year, by a tick.

P L NOTSONICE REPLAY

In the other trot headliner, another mare was just as dominant, as the Swan For All mare Queen Of All lowered her mark to 1:53.1 while raising her earnings to $322,125. Matt Kakaley moved the winner to the lead past…

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Here is a summary of Native American-related news around the U.S. this week:

Mohegan chief announced as new US treasurer

For the first time in U.S. history, a Native American’s signature will appear on all U.S. currency: U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced the new U.S. treasurer: Marilynn “Lynn” Malerba, the lifetime chief of the Mohegan Tribe in Connecticut.

As treasurer, Malerba will oversee the U.S. Mint, the Bureau of Printing and Engraving and the storage of about $270 billion worth of gold at Fort Knox.

“With this announcement, we are making an even deeper commitment to Indian Country,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said during a visit to the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, home of the Sicangu Lakota.

Bears Ears National Monument Inter-Governmental Cooperative Agreement signatories stand in front of a newly-unveiled sign, June 18, 2022.

Utah tribes to co-manage Bears Ears National Monument

Federal officials and leaders of five tribal nations — Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service and the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, and the Pueblo of Zuni — on June 21 signed a joint government agreement, formally reestablishing the Bears Ears Commission, which will oversee land management of the 5,500-square-kilometer (2,125-square-mile) Bears Ears National Monument.

“Today, instead of being removed from a landscape to make way for a public park, we are being invited back to our ancestral homelands to help repair them and plan for a resilient future,” said Carleton Bowekaty, Bears Ears Commission co-chair and lieutenant governor of Zuni Pueblo. “What can be a better avenue of restorative justice than giving Tribes the opportunity to participate in…

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Jun. 16—MOHEGAN — Sue Bird had said, “you know when you know” while discussing Thursday’s decision to announce her plans to retire at the conclusion of the Seattle Storm’s 2022 WNBA season.

The question was still posed to Bird during a surprise press conference at Mohegan Sun Arena: How did the “you know” manifest itself given she’s still playing at a high level?

“It’s funny,” Bird explained. “Sometimes someone will be like, ‘oh, man, I can’t even tell you’re 41.’ And I’m like, ‘What? Did you watch me play when I was 31? So I can tell the difference. … I’m still able to perform but I don’t feel like I’m fully myself anymore. And so there’s parts of that where it’s sad to let that go or sad to know that that’s gone, but there’s also the realization that I’m 41. That’s okay, too.

“I feel like I’ve played as long as I can at a very high level.”

Bird excused herself to take a moment to compose herself as tears began to well in her eyes.

“Stop crying,” Bird told herself.

Bird doesn’t want a retirement tour but will surely get her laurels along the way, starting Friday when she and the Storm play the Connecticut Sun at Mohegan Sun Arena (7 p.m., NESN+, CBSSN).

“That retirement ceremony, I think that’ll be next year,” Bird said.

She then turned to Jeff Hoffman, the Storm’s senior manager of public relations, and added, “Jeff, I don’t plan on doing a retirement ceremony.”

Bird had an inkling that this season would be the end of one of the most successful careers in sports. The 18-year WNBA veteran became one of the faces of women’s basketball at a time where the sport wasn’t in the national spotlight as much as it is now.

She won two national championships at UConn before being…

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UNCASVILLE — A few hours after her stunning though expected announcement that this would be her last season in the WNBA, Sue Bird tried unsuccessfully to hold back tears as she sat in a room full of TV cameras and reporters who had rushed to Mohegan Sun to see her Thursday afternoon.

“This is probably why for like, a lot of years, I’ve been saying I’m not going to announce my retirement while I play,” Bird said. “Because I know I would get like this. I’m sentimental. I don’t like change.”

“So here we are,” Bird added with a sniffle.

Sue Bird of the Seattle Storm announced Thursday, June16, 2022 of her retirement at the end of the season in the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn. Photo credit: Khoi Ton / Mohegan Sun

Sue Bird had already cried a few times during the press conference, with a dozen or so reporters packed into a small multipurpose room, with more than 50 people on Zoom who weren’t within driving distance of Uncasville, Connecticut, a few hours after Bird shocked the basketball world with a social media post.

How could she not? It was a surreal experience, as Bird — and everyone watching — was forced to reckon with her long, illustrious career actually coming to an end after years of speculation that she could hang up her shoes.

If anyone was prepared for that, it wasn’t Bird.

“I’ve played as long as I can at a very high level,” Bird told reporters, her voice starting to get choked up.

“Stop crying,” she whispered to herself before taking a breath to hold back more tears so she could finish her statement.

“I feel like I’ve played as long as…

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