It started around noon, when male detainees inside a prison for men and women north of Haiti’s capital heard there was no charcoal or propane gas to cook their food, and began violently protesting prison conditions and attempting to escape.

By the time it was over and the jail break had been stopped by Haiti National Police, at least one inmate was dead, several others had been injured and 10 female detainees, including a 15-year-old teen girl and 62-year-old woman, had been gang raped, two Haiti-based human rights groups said.

Florida’s avenue for giving the power to the people is now a multimillion dollar business, one that is being exploited by special interests and flooded with mystery cash from secret donors.

As a result, everyday Floridians are being blocked from the system that was supposed to give them a way to bypass big money interests.

Joseph Kaplan was a published poet. He was an accomplished labor lawyer for nearly five decades. And he was a devoted father and public servant.

In his role as a lawyer, he did pro bono work. Among those he represented: labor leader Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers Union. Kaplan was on the front lines during the drive to unionize orange groves in Central Florida. Chavez was a labor activist focused on improving the lives and working conditions of farmworkers.

Kaplan, a longtime resident of Miami Beach and Coral Gables, died Thursday at age 90.