FIRST OFF . . .

Art thefts are in the news today. At the Heckscher Art Museum in Huntington, N.Y., a thief strolled away Sunday afternoon with an original oil by French Impressionist Edouard Manet while dozens were watching a video show about 15 feet away. Museum officials said the theft was noticed when a visitor returned to look at the painting, “Bouquet de Pivoines,” after watching the video and found the 16 1/2-by-21 3/4-inch canvas missing. Manet’s still life of an arrangement of peonies in a glass vase, painted in France in 1880, is of “immense value” and thought to be worth millions of dollars, but authorities did not specify an amount, Suffolk County police said.