LANSING, Mich. (WILX) -Some state parks offer fireworks-free camping options for those needing a quieter Independence Day.

Sleepy Hollow State Park is just one of many state parks that has been named a safe haven for veterans over the Fourth of July celebration weekend, as they will not allow fireworks in the park.

“Having a fireworks-free Fourth of July celebration, especially at our DNR parks, is really important to give veterans and those with loud noise and sudden sound-triggering PTSD space to celebrate with their family in a safe, quiet environment,” said Christyn Herman with the Michigan Veteran Affairs Agency.

There are a little over 4,000 veterans in Clinton County and another 11,000 in Ingham County. Sleepy Hollow State Park is just one of eleven different state parks that will be fireworks-free zones.

“They can sound like explosions, fireworks can sound like gunfire, they can sound like many things, but it’s helpful to have these quiet spaces so they’re in a controlled area that can help them not be triggered,” Herman said.

Even when removed from a stressful situation like war, similar sounds like fireworks can trigger intense feelings such as fear, stress, anger, or sadness.

“Fourth of July used to be my favorite holiday, but it’s basically been taken over by a trauma response that I haven’t gotten control over yet,” Afghanistan veteran Hunter Garcia said.

If you or someone you know is a military veteran and is suffering from PTSD, visit the Fireworks Free Fourth webpage.

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Minnesota United might say that they’re not using player absences as an excuse during their five-game losing streak — but they sure sound like they can’t wait for it to be over.

Asked what the club needed to change, manager Eric Ramsay said, “To be honest, I think it’s as simple as welcoming players back from injury, welcoming players back from internationals, and getting back to how we felt prior to all this having taken place. And that’s, I think, a very realistic take on the situation. Obviously, we look at this period with real regret and real disappointment that we haven’t picked up points that perhaps we could or should have done. But ultimately, there’s a big set of circumstances around that, which has made that really difficult, and those set of circumstances are about to come to an end.”

The Loons are beginning to turn the corner, in terms of player availability. Midfielder Alejandro Bran, who played the final twelve minutes for Costa Rica last night in Austin, Texas, caught a flight and was in the starting lineup on Wednesday night. Minnesota is targeting Sunday’s game against the LA Galaxy for the return of Teemu Pukki from injury.

Canada, which plays Venezuela on Friday, could be the final domino to fall; if the Canucks lose Friday, Minnesota could get Dayne St. Clair and Tani Oluwaseyi back for Sunday’s game as well.

Even beyond that, the MLS transfer window opens July 18. One new player, forward Samuel Shashoua, has already been training with the team for a few weeks, and the Loons will clearly be looking to bring in others as well — hopefully for them, as quickly as possible.

“I’m sure Eric [Ramsay] would like some decision headaches on who he’s putting in the lineup,” defender Michael Boxall said.

‘Back to basics’ defensively

Ramsay came in preaching defense, and for a few months, it worked. In his first 14 games in charge, the Loons gave up more than two goals only once.

Over the past four games, though, the Loons have given up twelve goals — including five against Dallas, three against Portland, and three more against Vancouver. It left the manager frustrated, and ready to go back to the beginning with the team’s defensive focus.

“It’s back to basics, to an extent,” he said Tuesday. “When we were at our best this year we were very well organized, very disciplined, very hard to play through, in particular. And whilst we’ve seen that in spells, we’ve just started to look uncharacteristically easy to pull apart.”

The Whitecaps might have scored three goals Wednesday, but oddly, it did look like one of Minnesota’s better defensive performances this month. One of Vancouver’s goals was a defensive mistake from Boxall, one came from disastrous set-piece defending, and the third was a world-class strike by Sebastian Berhalter. Apart from those, Vancouver had only one shot on target.

“I don’t think we gave away nearly the number of chances that we have done in recent weeks,” Ramsay said. “That is partly to do with how we attacked, how we sustained attacks, how we played the game. We were largely in the opposition’s half, which has obviously been a problem of ours over the course of the last four or five games.

“I think you’ve got to take the game as a whole, in that sense. We haven’t given up really good quality chances in any sense today. Obviously, each of the three goals you look at as being very, very avoidable. So that again is a step forward.”

A growing goalkeepers’ union

With St. Clair at Copa América and Clint Irwin out injured, it meant a first-ever MLS appearance for goalkeeper Alex Smir. The University of North Carolina product has played 18 times for the team’s MLS NEXT Pro affiliate, MNUFC2, but Irwin’s injury put him in line to be the third Loons goalkeeper of the year.

Smir said he’d found out he was starting a few days prior to the game. “It’s been a wild couple of days,” Smir told the team’s radio broadcast.

Prior to Wednesday’s game, Smir was probably best known for winning the “Goalie Wars” competition that was part of the All-Star Game festivities at Allianz Field in 2022. And despite that he’s now an MLS goalkeeper, he was still willing to have that claim to fame. “It was a great experience,” he said. “I love that that’s kind of my catchphrase, so it’s awesome.”

Minnesota had to work quickly on Wednesday to fill in the rest of the club’s goalkeeping roster, too. The club signed Oscar Herrera, a former Augsburg University player, to be the equivalent of an NHL emergency backup goalkeeper. At the same time, they signed Francesco Montali as a keeper for MNUFC2.

Montali, who was taken in the third round of the draft by Philadelphia in the offseason, has the higher profile — but since the Union drafted him but did not sign him, they still hold his MLS rights. And so unless the Loons acquire those rights, he can’t be signed to a short-term agreement as a first-team backup — opening the door for Herrera, also technically a MNUFC2 signing, but one who was eligible to also sign a temporary contract with the first team.

Montali made his debut for MNUFC2 on Wednesday as well, giving up four goals in a 4-0 loss to North Texas SC.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KFVS) – As Missouri voters are likely on track to vote on a constitutional amendment to enshrine the right to abortion, the state’s leading anti-abortion organization, Missouri Right to Life, has made claims about the resolution’s impact which legal experts refute as “untrue.”

The referendum would re-establish an individual’s right to receive abortion care up to a certain point. It also, ”require[s] the government not to discriminate, in government programs, funding, and other activities, against persons providing or obtaining reproductive health care.”

This part of the amendment, Missouri Right to Life President Susan Klein said, would effectively block any lawsuit against an abortion provider for malpractice or negligence.

“It basically takes away the right to sue an abortionist, the right to sue a human trafficker, the right to sue the perpetrator of incest,” Klein said.

Former Missouri Supreme Court chief judge Mike Wolff said these claims are all based on extremely loose, and wildly exaggerated legal opinions with no basis in actual law.

“It would have no effect whatsoever,” Wolff said. “We would essentially be back to where we were with Roe versus Wade. If there was a malpractice committed in the course of giving medical care of any kind, Roe versus Wade did not protect the doctor or the hospital or anybody else from liability in a malpractice action.”

As for Klein’s claims about human trafficking and incest, Wolff said there’s absolutely nothing in the amendment that would affect how those crimes are prosecuted in the state of Missouri.

“There’s nothing in here that makes what is criminal behavior, rape, incest, that kind of thing, to be protected in any way,” Wolff said. “There’s nothing in here about that.”

A key section of the referendum says that any restrictions on abortion will be “presumed invalid” unless a court can prove they are medically necessary for safety.

“This is like turning the presumption of innocence in criminal cases into a presumption of guilt until proven innocent,” Missouri Right to Life attorney James Coles said in a legal analysis. “It represents another new barrier to defending the validity of abortion statutes in the courts.”

On this one, Wolff agrees, given that’s precisely the point of the initiative: to establish that abortion is not a crime and that it should be the state’s burden to prove the necessity of a restriction.

“So, if the legislature tries to impose additional restraints on this, [it would] have to show that they’re necessary to protect a person’s safety and some of the examples that you can come up with would just be absurdly unrelated to patient safety.”

The Missouri Secretary of State’s office has until August 13 to determine whether enough valid signatures were collected to put this, and other questions, on the November 5 ballot.

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