Tuxes and ball gowns are coming out of the closet. Custom-made boots are being buffed and shined. Babysitters’ calendars are blocked off.

Florida, like many areas of the country, has a housing affordability problem. Since the 1990s, the cost of a rent or a purchase is rising faster than the cost of construction, squeezing the household budgets of middle- and lower-income families. And the difference is quite a disparity.

Ron DeSantis will be Florida’s youngest governor in more than a century when he takes office on Tuesday.

More than a year after sexual-harassment allegations brought down a powerful lawmaker, the Florida Senate has reached a $900,000 settlement with a legislative aide who said she was harassed and later faced retaliation.

Three members of the Florida delegation--Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan and Democrat U.S. Rep. Al Lawson--brought back a bill to protect specialty crop growers from competition from Mexico. 

On the first day of the new Congress, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., brought back the “Extreme Risk Protection Order and Violence Prevention Act.”

Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis announced Thursday the appointment of former director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons and retired United States Army Major General Mark Inch as secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections. 

Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis announced Thursday two central communications staff members who will be joining the Executive Office of the Governor (EOG) -- Meredith Beatrice as deputy communications director and Dave Vasquez as press secretary. Beatrice and Vasquez will join the communications office in the EOG led by Director of Communications Helen Aguirre Ferré.

Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis announced Thursday the appointment of former secretary of the Department of Management Services Chad Poppell as secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families. An experienced public servant, Poppell will lead the agency beginning as the DeSantis-Nuñez Administration takes office.

From a pizza party to a “cocktail chic” reception at the Florida State University football stadium, inaugural events next week in the capital city will honor women, veterans and, mostly, Florida’s statewide elected officials.