Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • A1

IN DE Arts 4L Astrology 4F Books 5-6L Business 1D Classified Crossword 5P Editorials 2P Letters 2P Lottery 2A ravel 2-3L TO DA WE AT HE 8a oo n4 p.m. 8p Sunny 67 76 81 chance of rain More, back page of Sports Al ways eaming wins essy Ke nt ucky Derb The horse sent off at 9- 2 odds splashes through the slop or a victory on a rainy day at Churchill Downs. Spor ts, 7C 1, 000-ac re wildfir fo rc es ev a cua tion A blaze raging a cross the Starkey Wilderness Preserve is one of several causing headaches i the ampa Bay area. Local, 1B Adve nt ur of fe rs efr eshing re wa rd The grueling hike up to Havasu Falls is worth it or the chance to enjoy its picturesque water falls. La titudes, 2-3L Time Publishing o.

ol. 133 o. 287 SUND AY MA $2 FL BEST NEWSP APER ta mpab ay om HO WH EE LS HO WH EE LS Cops, teen car thieves and a dangerous game. BY LISA GAR TNER AND ZACHAR T. AMPSO PHOTOS BY DIRK SHADD Times Facebook A AMP A BA TIMES SPECIAL REPOR Second in a series tole a ercedes-Benz convertible from a 7 9- ear-old an, then showed in the driver seat, mugging for a cellphone video.

Shook police in a eep Grand hero- ee, i res kicking up dir then jumped a urb and nearly hit a girl on her bicycle. Abandoned the eep in an alle but ept the pistol he found in the backseat. Ha ve you seen T- an? He in the ind. TH CHA SE Tim Brown is on the hunt. It an.

5, late morning he St. tersburg detective holds his adio in one hand, the other flat on the teering wheel of his purple Nissan axima, as he traces the treets of hilds ark, a St. ete neighborhood where tolen cars tend to turn up. Brown, 52, has spent more than a decade going after kid car thieves. knows the ll be out of juvenile ail as soon as he catches them.

till ot to catch them. he kids call him orny Da ve. not sure why they think his name is ve, but he hears means he always in their business, desperate to know what the re up to. The kids post orny Da ve sightings on acebook, warning each other arcs out. At least what Brown hears.

doesn bother with that social media tuf f. he ver first police report of 20 17 had of ficers looking for an AK- 47 with a bayone at achment, stolen out of the trunk of a car on New ear ve, along with two magazines of ammunition. The victim had called Brown, said people had seen someone named -M an shooting of the assault rifle at the playground down the block. ad Brown heard of him? Ty on Antez cKinnon. Brown has heard too much about him.

ver kid he hauls i is talking about T- an: the wheels he on, the speeds he reaching the guns he packing 13 May be 100 pounds, a baby face on a frame. But in the driver seat of the cars he teals, yron is the most dangerous kid on the treets. he scar thing is, the detective says, he in a car right now and he till has the gun, he wouldn a ve the smarts not to pull the trigger on somebody St. etersburg police Detectiv Tim Bro wn, 52, has spent more than a decade arres ting oung car thiev es. The kids he brings in talk about T-Man.

ee THE CHASE, 10A Roger Stone helped elect Donald Trump but the bold trategist has a history of skulduggery in Florida. BY ADAM C. SMITH Times olitical Editor NEW ORK Florida has long been a magnet for hucksters, schemers and eedy second-act seekers. sunny place for shady people, is how Roger Stone, borrowing from writer Somerset augham, describes his adopted state. And he may be the ultimate example of a Florida-style Chapter wo.

Tw decades ago, the flamboyant former Richard Nixon dirty trickster working to elect Bob Dole president, fled to South Florida after the Na ional Enquirer outed him and his wife as aficionados of the group sex swinger scene. Since then, he has been living most of the time in Florida, working on the fringes of propriety to torpedo the careers of enemies, to promote (and lighten the wallets of gadfly political candidates, to sow chaos, and, above all, advance his image as one of the most ef fective and ruthless strategists in modern American histor y. ow Stone has his most longstanding and unlikely candidate in the White ouse. Stone, 64, has been urging Donald rump to run for president since 1988. In orld, politics is a ar on by his rules ee STONE, 7 A Roger Stone, 64, a tends the Get Me Roger Stone premiere in New ork.

School leaders expected to get preeminent status and the millions that go with it, but legislators moved the goal. BY TEVE BOUSQUET AND ARA DINA ALE erald allahassee Bureau ALLAHASSEE niversity of South Florida leaders thought this was the year that they would inally claim their prize. Bills before the egislature since anuar had cleared the wa for SF ampa to achieve a years-long oal being named one of universities with all the prestige and millions in extra state dollars that come with it. he school was se to join the ranks of only the niversity of Florida and Florida State niversity with the state highest seal of approval. But a single-digit change to a sweeping higher education bill unveiled in the waning hours of the legislative session will not only block US ascension, it also will put it ars aw ay he original bills required that schools ha ve a four-year graduation rate of a least 50 percent to receive distinc tion.

After years of sharp foc us and improvement, US four-year graduation rate tands at 54 percent. But in those final hours, la wmakers changed the required graduation rate to 60 percent which USF doesn xpect to reach until at least 2020. probably the most frustrating as anything how these arbitrar numbers come out, said Brian Lamb, chairman of the SF Board of rustees. What changed in the last 48 USF issued an urgent to ac tion to students, fac ult alumni and community leaders on Saturday urging them to call ampa Bay area legislators. It acc used the Legislature of the oal posts.

USF loses out on prestige in bill change ee USF 6A $12M or Morsani The medical school is included in the budget, as are a range of are a projects. 1.