Kate Payne - Associated Press/Report For America

Under DeSantis’ leadership, the country’s third most-populous state has cemented its reputation as a national testing ground for conservative policies like restricting abortion and defending gun rights.

Gov. Ron DeSantis says Floridians will likely know who their next U.S. senator will be by the beginning of January. Assuming the Senate confirms Marco Rubio as President-elect Donald Trump's secretary of state, it's up to DeSantis to appoint his replacement.

With Sen. Marco Rubio tapped to be the next secretary of state, Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general, and Rep. Mike Waltz as national security adviser, Trump’s Florida picks are opening up a slate of new political possibilities in the state.

A lawsuit filed this week by the prison reform advocacy group Florida Justice Institute says that extreme heat in unairconditioned cells at a prison near the Florida Everglades has contributed to the deaths of four people and that state officials have failed to take “meaningful action” to mitigate the risk posed to the elderly and disabled inmates in their care.

Derek Barrs will take an open seat on the Flagler County School Board in northeast Florida, succeeding a member who resigned in September. That allowed DeSantis to appoint a replacement rather than have the seat go on the ballot for voters to decide. Barrs won DeSantis’ endorsement in his bid for the board. But he lost his Aug. 20 race by 290 votes to Janie Ruddy, a former teacher in the district.

U.S. District Judge Mark Walker extended a temporary restraining order Tuesday, siding with Floridians Defending Freedom. The group created the ads promoting the ballot question that would add abortion rights to the state constitution if it passes Nov. 5. Walker is extending an order that bars Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo from taking any further action to coerce or intimidate broadcasters that run the commercials.

Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood on Florida’s Atlantic Coast is warning parents that if their kids are arrested for making these threats, he’ll make sure the public knows it.

State police are showing up at Florida voters’ homes to question them about signing a petition to get an abortion rights amendment on the ballot in November. And a Florida state health care agency has launched a new website targeting the ballot initiative.

A Florida county is in talks to acquire a storied but aging ocean liner in a proposed deal that could create the largest artificial reef in the world. But the plan hit a snag Tuesday, after local officials in coastal Okaloosa County in the Florida panhandle postponed a vote on the plan to buy and purposefully sink the SS United States.