Channel 4 reports Homeland Security wants to test how well biological-warfare detectors in the T work by releasing actual bacteria in Red Line stops in Somerville and Cambridge.

The government assures us the Bacillus subtilis is perfectly harmless. Well, perfectly harmless for healthy people, at any rate. There's a public hearing for government officials to pretend to listen to your concerns on May 16 at 5:30 p.m. at the Central Square Y.

A Suffolk Superior Court jury today convicted Carmen Andino of Mission Hill for stabbing a neighbor in a 2010 dispute over a parking space the neighbor had shoveled out but Andino then claimed, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Andino, 40, will be sentenced on May 9, the DA's office reports. Andino's daughter was acquitted of charges she helped her mother in the attack.

Prosecutors convinced the jury that Andino went into a rage when the neighbor returned from a trip after a snowstorm, found two children's play tables Andino had put in the McGreevey Way space and moved them for her car:

Testimony indicated that Andino became very angry over this, threatening to slash the car's tires if the woman didn't move the car. The street had public parking and no reserved spaces. Nonetheless, the victim defused the conflict by moving the car.

On Jan. 11, 2010, testimony established, the victim heard her apartment buzzer ring, accompanied by loud banging on her door and yelling from the street. It was Andino again, the evidence showed, summoning her outside.

The victim went downstairs, where it became clear that Andino wanted to fight. The two women became engaged in a physical altercation that went on until Andino was on the ground. At that point, the victim was struck in the shoulder with a metal implement, causing an injury about two inches deep. Prosecutors alleged it was a screwdriver wielded by Andino's daughter; jurors acquitted that 17-year-old defendant of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

Evidence and testimony demonstrated that Andino got up from the ground and produced a knife, which she used to slash at the victim's face. As blood poured into her eye, the victim began to back away from Andino. ...

Andino continued toward the victim, slashing at her with a kitchen knife and cutting open a long slice beneath her left arm.The laceration was so deep that the victim testified she saw white tissue coming out of the wound. A friend rushed the woman back into the house, from where she was later transported to Brigham and Women's Hospita

A Suffolk Superior Court judge today set bail at $100,000 for a Billerica truck driver and real-estate broker who allegedly hung around outside the Parker Hill Avenue apartment where, police say, his dealer murdered a Northeastern student.

Michael Balba, 55, was a frequent customer of crack dealer Cornell Smith, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office says. Smith was indicted Friday for the murder of Rebecca Payne, a woman prosecutors say had no connection at all with Smith, except for living in the same building as the woman Smith really wanted to kill. Balba was indicted for perjury for allegedly lying at least four times to that grand jury.

The DA's office provided this account:

[Assistant District Attorney Ian] Polumbaum told the court that Balba knew Smith as "Jeff" around the time of Payne's murder and would call him several times per week to buy crack cocaine from him. On the night of May 19 and early morning hours of May 20, 2008, Polumbaum said, Balba met Smith and, at Smith’s direction, picked up a third person and travelled to the area of Parker Hill Avenue. In return, Balba was given a quantity of crack cocaine and told to wait across the street and smoke it.

It was at this time, Polumbaum said, that Smith - out on bail on a drug charge - entered Payne’s building apartment and committed the fatal shooting.

The gunfire was heard by numerous people in and around the building. None called 911. Polumbaum said Balba heard the gunshots as well and even remarked on them. Shortly afterward, he drove Smith and the third man from the scene. Video surveillance imagery from the area depicts a vehicle similar to Balba's Ford Explorer driving away from the scene. Cell phone records link him to Smith demonstrate his frequent travel from Billerica to Boston, Polumbaum said.

The third man has not been identified.

"Jeff" was the name Smith used during a drug deal three months after Payne's murder. He was arrested for that, pleaded guilty and is now in a federal prison in Wisconsin on a 12 1/2 year sentence.

Innocent, etc.