With lower courts split on the issue, the Florida Supreme Court said Tuesday it will take up a question about whether a 2017 change to the state’s “stand your ground” self-defense law should apply to older cases.

The Florida Supreme Court is poised next week to take up a case that poses a question for the age of social media: What does it mean to be a Facebook friend?

Justices will hear arguments about whether a Miami-Dade County circuit judge should be disqualified from a case because she is a Facebook friend with a lawyer for one of the parties. The outcome could have reverberations in courthouses across the state, as justices weigh whether a Facebook friendship poses the potential for bias.

Amid requests for the Florida Supreme Court to wade into the issue, a South Florida appeals court Wednesday ruled against a defendant in one in a series of cases about how to carry out a controversial 2017 change to the state’s “stand your ground” self-defense law.

The ruling by a panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeal was the third time this month that appellate courts have grappled with the issue of the 2017 change --- with courts coming to different conclusions.

The state is challenging a ruling by a Leon County circuit judge that part of a 2016 law imposing new requirements on life insurers is unconstitutional.

State Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis and the Florida Department of Financial Services filed a notice this week in the 1st District Court of Appeal that they will fight the ruling by Circuit Judge Terry Lewis in a case brought by four life-insurance companies.

The Seminole Tribe of Florida has gone to a federal appeals court as part of a long-running legal dispute about whether the tribe should be shielded from state utility taxes on electricity used on reservation land.

In a major move in the state’s utility industry, the parent company of Florida Power & Light said Monday it will buy Northwest Florida’s Gulf Power as part of a $6.475 billion deal.

Rejecting arguments by the Sierra Club, the state Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously backed a 2016 decision by utility regulators to approve a rate agreement for Florida Power & Light.

Arguing that “emergency relief is clearly warranted and urgently needed,” attorneys for a Tampa businessman are asking the Florida Supreme Court to step into a legal battle and allow the lung-cancer patient to grow medical marijuana for his own use.

Prosecutors are asking a federal appeals court to uphold former Congresswoman Corrine Brown’s conviction in a charity scam, blasting her arguments that a juror was improperly dismissed because he said the “Holy Spirit” told him Brown was not guilty.