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Six juveniles charged in school bus beating

JACKSONVILLE - Six students videotaped by a school bus surveillance camera as they beat another student were arrested Wednesday on charges of misdemeanor battery, State Attorney Harry Shorstein said.

The video, shown nationally on television newscasts, showed 14- and 15-year-old students punching a 12-year-old boy for about 30 seconds as he cowered in his seat. He was not seriously injured in the Feb. 4 incident.

The names of the victim and those arrested will not be released because they are juveniles and the cases will be prosecuted in juvenile court. One more juvenile is still being sought.

Penalties for the first-degree misdemeanor range from probation to 120 days in a juvenile detention facility, Shorstein said. The youths have been suspended from school and could face expulsion.

PANAMA CITY, Fla. - State officials approved an unprecedented agreement Wednesday to free the St. Joe Co. from the usual permitting process for developments involving wetlands.

The Ecosystem Management Agreement covers more than 31,350 acres of St. Joe-owned property in Bay and Walton counties. It gives the company blanket approval to fill wetlands in accord with limits set by the plan instead of having to get separate permits for individual development projects.

"This will avoid traditional piecemeal development that would be insensitive to our desire to protect the entire landscape," said Department of Environmental Protection Secretary David Struhs.

Critics have called the agreement a "giveaway" to Florida's largest private land owner and the Panhandle's biggest developer. Company officials, some environmentalists and the DEP, however, hailed it as a model for regional growth that will preserve wetlands vital as bird and wildlife habitats.

GAINESVILLE - David R. Colburn, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Florida, will step down at the end of the academic year to return to teaching, said president Bernard Machen.

Colburn, a history professor, was one of the presidential finalists when Machen was chosen to succeed Charles Young.

Colburn, who came to the university in 1972, was named provost and became senior vice president in 2000.