When it came to news, it was hard for Florida to get a word in edgewise this week.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump selected Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate. There was a brutal terror attack in the French city of Nice. And on Friday, an attempted coup in Turkey threw into grave doubt the future of one of America's NATO allies.
By comparison, things in Florida seemed rather tame. There were some polls about whether Trump or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent, had the upper edge in Florida with the national political conventions looming. The fight over kosher food at state prisons drew closer to a conclusion. And algae continued to muck things up in southern parts of the state.
None of which will diminish Florida's reputation as odd news capital of the world, of course. But it did keep the spotlight off the Sunshine State for a few days.
OPPOSITE CONCLUSIONS
Who's leading the presidential race in Florida, a state that is once again shaping up as one of the most important in the nation? It depends on whom you ask.
Quinnipiac University, one of the highest-profile independent polls, showed Trump taking a narrow lead over Clinton in Florida, with 42 percent of voters favoring the real estate mogul and 39 percent backing the first female major-party nominee. The margin grew to five points when pollsters added a pair of third-party candidates --- Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party's Jill Stein.
The results of the head-to-head match-up between Clinton and Trump marked an 11-point swing in about three weeks. Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the poll, said Clinton's numbers might have been dragged down by FBI Director James Comey, who publicly criticized the nominee for being "extremely careless" with email during her time as secretary of state, though Clinton was not charged with a crime.
"While there is no definite link between Clinton's drop in Florida and the U.S. Justice Department decision not to prosecute her for her handling of e-mails, she has lost ground to Trump on questions which measure moral standards and honesty," Brown said in comments accompanying the poll results.
But some Democrats were skeptical of the poll released Wednesday by the Connecticut-based university. In a blog post, Democratic strategist Steve Schale said he had no doubt Florida will be tight in November --- but that the trend in Quinnipiac's numbers lacked a ring of accuracy.
"For as much of a mess as Florida can be, it is a remarkably consistent state," he said. "There just isn't 10-12 points of movement here."
And by Friday, another survey gave Clinton the lead. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist Poll showed the former secretary of state up 44 percent to 37 percent, and by five points when the third-party candidates were factored in.
Lee M. Miringoff, director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, said in comments released with the poll numbers that Trump is "playing catchup" against Clinton in Florida, Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia. The institute, part of New York-based Marist College, also released results Friday showing Clinton ahead in those three other battleground states.
"The driving force behind voters' choices is the negative impressions they have of both Trump and Clinton," Miringoff said. "Clinton's single-digit lead in each of these states is due to her slight advantage in how voters perceive the two candidates."
Get ready for another nail-biter in the Sunshine State.
COURT MAKES NO BONES ABOUT PRISON FOOD
Complaints about meals in jail are probably about as old as jails themselves. But an appeals court on Thursday upheld a lower court's decision to require Florida corrections officials to provide kosher meals to inmates.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz last year ordered the Department of Corrections to offer kosher meals and barred it from removing inmates from the religious dietary plan if prisoners buy non-kosher food from canteens or don't pick up the meals more than 10 percent of the time.
Corrections Secretary Julie Jones has maintained she has no plans to stop offering kosher meals. But her agency has argued that a federal law --- the "Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act" of 2000 --- allows prison officials to stop offering the meal plan if it gets too expensive.
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that Jones and the agency failed to prove their case. The state has spent nearly $500,000 on legal fees and costs in the prolonged dispute.
Jones "fail(ed) to explain why the department cannot offer kosher meals when the Federal Bureau of Prisons and other states do so," or why she can't provide the kosher meals although the department offers other special diets "at similar marginal costs," wrote appeals court Judge William Pryor.
Corrections officials were reviewing the court's decision and "will determine next steps," agency spokeswoman Michelle Glady said in an email Thursday evening.
"We will continue to serve the more than 9,000 inmates enrolled in the religious dietary program meals that comply with the tenets of their faith," she said.
The fight over kosher meals in Florida prisons has dragged on for more than a decade.
The department started offering kosher meals in 2004 to Jewish prisoners at 13 facilities and transferred inmates who were eligible for the meals to those institutions. The agency expanded the program to inmates of all faiths in 2006 but halted it the following year before reinstating it as a pilot project at a single prison in 2010, serving fewer than 20 prisoners.
A year after the Justice Department filed the lawsuit in 2012, the state again began serving kosher meals and promised to have the meals available to all inmates by last July.
About 9,000 of the state's 100,000 prisoners are receiving kosher meals, according to Glady. As of Monday, the state was spending $3.32 per inmate per day on kosher meals, compared to about $1.97 for the regular diet.
POLITICAL MUCKRAKING
Amid a blossoming problem with toxic algae linked to water releases from Lake Okeechobee, the state this week opened its bridge-loan program to businesses in Southeast and Southwest Florida that have been hurt by the crisis.
By Thursday, 59 businesses --- mostly in Martin, St. Lucie and Lee counties --- had reported some form of financial impacts from the toxic blooms.
Florida Department of Economic Opportunity Executive Director Cissy Proctor said the impacts include such things as a decrease in tourists to the counties, fewer people going to restaurants and fewer people using recreational facilities on or near the water.
"We've seen the reports of these blooms not only on our local news, but on the national news," Proctor said. "And we're also seeing that even if (people) are going down to visit, they're not going out on their boats. They're not going out to see the manatees. They're not going out to do the things that you normally do, especially in these areas on the water that are recreationally or are part of these folks' livelihood."
The loans are available only to businesses in four counties in which Gov. Rick Scott has declared an emergency: Martin, St. Lucie, Lee and Palm Beach.
But assistance for businesspeople affected by the problems also caused a political storm this week after Scott's office posted on the state's Sunburst email system a chain of emails in which Democratic Congressman Patrick Murphy's office on Monday requested a delay in announcing the opening of a Small Business Administration recovery center. The potential delay could have led to an announcement during a press conference Murphy was holding Thursday about the algae issue.
Opponents on both sides pounced on Murphy's request. Congressman Alan Grayson, who is running against Murphy in the Aug. 30 Democratic primary for a U.S. Senate seat, called Murphy's action an abuse of power.
"Putting his own political fortunes in front of the needs of legitimate small business owners is stunningly shameless," Grayson campaign manager Michael Ceraso said in a release.
Meanwhile, Carlos Beruff, a developer from Bradenton seeking to become the Republican Senate nominee, went further, demanding Murphy "resign his office immediately" and be investigated by the House Committee on Ethics.
But Murphy's campaign fired back, saying it was Scott's office "looking to score partisan points" that took out of context a "standard request to coordinate a media strategy with a federal agency."
"Of course our office did not request for this program to be delayed," Murphy campaign spokesman Anthony Kusich said in a statement. "Anyone who reads the original email can see that we did not. The official emails that Republicans are distributing to press intentionally leave out the Small Business Administration's email to our office on Monday morning, which suggests no impending announcement."
STORY OF THE WEEK: Polls showed both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the lead in Florida's presidential race, pointing to the likelihood of another close campaign for the state's 29 electoral votes.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "The United States Supreme Court has recognized that there is a guerilla war currently occurring against the death penalty in the United States. Anti-death penalty groups have been on a crusade against those legally involved with executions, harassing and threatening them until they feel pressured to withdraw their participation. ... In Florida, the plight has not been any different."--- Florida Chief Assistant Attorney General James Lee Marsh, in a filing asking a federal judge in Tallahassee to quash a subpoena from a case involving seven Arizona Death Row inmates.
