By JIM SAUNDERS
News Service of Florida

TALLAHASSEE – Coming out of the Independence Day holiday, things are heating up, and it’s not just from the sun cooking the state.


Florida was thankfully a bystander as Hurricane Beryl, the first major storm of what is expected to be a hyperactive hurricane season, tore through the Caribbean before making landfall this week in Texas.
Meanwhile, with the Republican National Convention ready to start in Milwaukee, the wait continued for former President Donald Trump to name his running mate, with U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in the mix.
Trump toyed with an anxious media during a rally Tuesday in Doral, at one point noting the reporters on hand: “I think they probably think I’m going to be announcing that Marco is going to be vice president, because that’s a lot of press.”
The heat also has been on at two state agencies that have been grappling with cyberattacks.

TRYING TO REBOOT

Funerals and insurance claims, among other things, have been affected after the Florida Department of Health’s Vital Statistics System was hit with a cyberattack.
The health department “is coordinating with law enforcement and all relevant stakeholders” and is “working diligently to resolve the temporary outage” affecting the system, agency spokeswoman Jae Williams said in an email Tuesday.
The interruption created issues for people who need death certificates to process bank account changes, make insurance claims or seek updates to Social Security benefits. State health officials asked health-care facilities and physicians “to expedite hand-signed death certificates.”
Also, the outage affected birth certificates. County health departments have been able to issue copies of birth certificates for babies born before June 28, and such records were being manually processed for births on or after June 28.
The attack occurred about three months after a key Department of Juvenile Justice network was hit.
The agency confirmed this week that the network known as the Juvenile Justice Information System remained inaccessible for many contractors that handle most services for at-risk and troubled minors.
The system was up-and-running for agency employees.
“I think, in this situation, three months is too long,” Aaron Ward, chief information security officer for iVenture Solutions, a Florida-based information-technology and cybersecurity company, told The News Service of Florida. “Something is wrong. … This is not a good look for Florida. This is not a good look for cybersecurity or IT professionals in general.”

AN END ON THE LINES

Voting-rights groups said this week they won’t appeal a federal-court ruling that upheld the constitutionality of changes to North Florida’s Congressional District 5.
The decision came a month after a three-judge panel refused to reconsider a March 27 ruling that said the groups had not met a key test of showing that the Legislature acted with racial motivation in overhauling the district in 2022.
Groups such as Common Cause Florida and the Florida NAACP argued that the redistricting plan, which DeSantis pushed through the Legislature, was passed with a discriminatory motive.
But in denying the request for a rehearing, the panel reiterated its view that the plaintiffs had not shown racial motivation by the Legislature.
“The impermissible racial motives outlined in this case are unacceptable, but the court chose not to act,” Amy Keith, executive director of Common Cause Florida, said in a statement as the groups announced they would not appeal.
A separate challenge to the redistricting plan remains pending at the Florida Supreme Court.


STORY OF THE WEEK: Will Sen. Marco Rubio be No. 2? The selection of former President Donald Trump’s running mate could ripple through Florida politics. If Rubio is the choice, Gov. Ron DeSantis could ultimately get to pick a replacement.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “We just really need to make it through this year. Let these trees recover, and let’s get a good harvest and something we can start building some momentum on.” – Matt Joyner, CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual, on the end of the 2023-2024 growing season.