University of Florida

A University of Florida senior accused of spitting on a campus police officer while his classmates were being arrested during pro-Palestinian protests accepted a plea deal Wednesday that lets him avoid any time behind bars.

University of Florida’s president, Ben Sasse, unexpectedly announced his resignation late Thursday after just 17 months at the helm of the state’s flagship university, citing his wife’s health issues and a need to spend more time with his family.In a short statement emailed across campus, Sasse — the former Republican U.S. senator for Nebraska — said he would leave his job on July 31, less than two weeks away. The surprise announcement comes during a period of a fraught relationship between Sasse and the longtime chairman of UF’s board of trustees, developer Mori Hosseini, chairman of Daytona Beach-based ICI Homes Inc.

In secretive hearings, the University of Florida set aside recommendations to lightly punish some of the college students arrested after pro-Palestinian protests on campus and kicked them all out of school for three to four years.The decisions by the new dean of students, Chris Summerlin, overruled what were effectively sentencing recommendations by the juries, known as hearing bodies, who heard testimony and watched police video of the protests and arrests during the disciplinary cases.

A judge released eight of nine pro-Palestinian protesters from jail early Tuesday after their arrest on the University of Florida campus on Monday. A ninth protester, identified as a UF student, remained jailed facing a felony battery charge related to his arrest.Allan Hektor Frasheri, 20, a philosophy major from Dunedin, Florida, was accused of spitting on a campus police officer during the arrests Monday night. He was being held in lieu of a $5,000 bond. Police and state troopers arrested the nine in a move coordinated with the university administration.

The University of Florida threatened pro-Palestinian student demonstrators with suspension and banishment from campus for three years if they violate a host of rules of behavior over protests that continued for a third day Friday.The university said employees or professors caught breaking its rules would be fired.

The first substantial videos to emerge from a panicked stampede at the University of Florida during a nighttime vigil for Israelis killed in the Hamas attacks show waves of terrified students sprinting out of their shoes, discarding phones and water bottles and colliding with startled and confused police officers who had drawn their pistols searching for a possible gunman through the melee.

Ben Sasse, the former Republican U.S. senator for Nebraska, was formally inaugurated Thursday as the 13th president of the University of Florida during a ceremony full of pomp and symbolism that dated to the Middle Ages.

The University of Florida fell one position to No. 6 among public universities in the new, annual national rankings published overnight Sunday by U.S. News & World Report, even as the state's flagship school climbed one spot to No. 28 in the magazine's rankings of top public and private universities overall.

After only one year, Florida has temporarily suspended a highly controversial, statewide survey required under a new state law compelling public colleges and universities annually to ask students and faculty to identify political bias in college classrooms.

The University of Florida is making sure its newly hired president can dive into the job. The school in Gainesville confirms it is building a new $300,000 swimming pool behind the stately mansion on campus where former U.S. Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska will live with his family. Construction on the expensive addition to the 7,400-square-foot, four-bedroom mansion started in November and is nearly complete. The university says Sasse – who had no pool at his family’s home in Fremont, Nebraska – did not ask for the pool to be built and provided no input over its design. The money is coming from private donors. It wasn't immediately clear why the new pool for Sasse is so expensive, or how much it will cost the university to maintain. The average cost for an in-ground residential pool in Florida is just under $60,000. Features such as tanning ledges, beach entries, hot tubs, lighting, gas-fired heating systems and more can increase design and installation costs. Sasse begins work on campus on February 6. He will be paid $1 million in base salary for five years plus a raise of up to 4% and a bonus after five years of up to another $1 million. He did not respond to phone messages or a letter sent to his home asking to discuss his swimming habits.