​A 16-year-old boy who police say used the courtesy phone at a Jersey Walmart to announce "Attention, Walmart customers: All black people, leave the store now." has been arrested and charged with harassment and bias intimidation, according to local officials who spoke to the AP. Gloucester County Prosecutor Sean Dalton, who calls the incident "an extremely disturbing event on many levels," is not releasing the suspect's name or criminal record because of his age. He's also refusing to release the teen's race, saying it doesn't factor into the investigation.

Levy and Lazio

​Long Island Republican Rick Lazio, who faces primary challenges from the left and right for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, got a boost today when he won the endorsement of the Executive Committee of Mike Long's Conservative Party in Brooklyn. Since its founding, the Conservative Party's support has been crucial to Republicans seeking statewide office. Lazio has Long's personal support. The actual Conservative Convention takes place in June.

​via Consumerist, someone in Kmart's promotion department is having trouble grasping how the internets work. The mega-store sent out e-mails to customers in New York and two other urban markets offering $10 off a $20 purchase. Problem is, the coupon was living on their server in pdf format, and someone in marketing saved some valuable layout time by saying the offer was "Valid at all Kmart store locations."

Only it wasn't. Kmart only intended to honor the coupon in the three markets it was mailed to. Unfortunately, the folks who posted the link at online coupon sharing sites had no way of knowing that, and neither did the people who downloaded it. Neither, apparently, did Kmart employees outside the intended area of the offer, which is when things got ugly.

The healthcare debate has been a little light on things to enjoy, so be especially grateful for Congressman Anthony Weiner reducing Wall Street Journal pundit Peggy Noonan to more-than-usual incoherence on Morning Joe yesterday. Highlights: Noonan's airy set speech on Obama's "fatally off point" missed "moment in history" and Republican bipartisanship, her inability to grasp the connection between healthcare costs and the economy, and a flurry of indignant sputtering after Weiner calls her argument "cliched" and "hackneyed."

Video after the jump. Enjoy.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

​Spring officially starts today, so go see it at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden ($8 adults, $4 seniors and kids over 12), where it's been quietly happening for weeks (slideshow). The National Weather Service says it's going into the seventies today and the sixties tomorrow. Indoors, there are free Saturdays at the Children's Museum of Manhattan, El Museo del Barrio, and the Jewish Museum (where the Curious George exhibit just opened).

​A week since it first dropped, and Jamie Peck's story on The Gloss about a young writer (herself) hanging out with famous downtown photographer Terry Richardson - and the sexxxy advances he "hung out" towards her, which ended in an apparently disturbing (and quick) handjob - has (pun unintended) exploded. We picked it up and expressed our shock that anyone was shocked; Jezebel picked it up and tacked background onto it about Richardson from their own writer's experiences, and then another series of stories after that. One very important thing is missing from all these stories:

​The guy who wrote Bright Lights, Big City just became one of two wine critics at the Wall Street Journal. If he hadn't long before sealed his reputation as the guy who made it impossible for Bret Easton Ellis to ever look like a sellout, he certainly has now. [FK]

​Everyone blogs about this thing like it matters but it's not like you have any idea what the Large Hadron Collider actually does.

​If you think your union's solid, think again. Satan's apparently in the labor law business these days, and he's making your lawyer look like My Cousin Vinny.

​St. Patrick's Day in New York City always yields at least one stellar story of someone who shouldn't be drunk, being drunk, and partaking in some typically dumb, drunk noise that they really shouldn't, that somehow involves their authority. Which often yields the revelation that people taxpayers trust are stupid, bad drunks. Which is scary. And this year was no different.