An East Boston woman living with her ex-boyfriend was arraigned yesterday on charges she set his Coleridge Street apartment on fire, causing $300,000 in damage, displacing three people and sending four firefighters to the hospital.

Judge Roberto Ronquillo, Jr., set Tina Farulla's bail at $5,000, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office, which had requested bail of $50,000, and which provided this account:

Two neighborhood residents gave statements to the officers and said they'd been speaking with Farulla's ex-boyfriend, a resident of the building, just before the fire broke out. As they stood on the front steps, the witnesses said, they saw Farulla throwing bottles and other items out his window. Seconds later, they saw smoke and flames from the same window.

"Oh my God," the resident said, "shess burning my house down!"

A short time later, the witnesses saw Farulla leaving the building with several bags.

Farulla was arrested while standing across the street from the fire, the DA's office says.

Innocent, etc.

The MBTA is starting a new courtesy campaign, via placards that urge people to be a kinder, gentler ridership. Will it work?

The campaign follows the T's no groping and no littering campaigns.

General Manager Jonathan Davis - a daily MBTA user - asked the T's Marketing Department to develop a new campaign to encourage courteous and polite behavior on trains and buses.

See all five placards.

South End Patch notes a proposed Dunkin' Donuts on Tremont Street (which would replace, gasp, a "modern furniture store") is "less than half a mile" from an existing Dunkin' Donuts.

Adam Castiglioni sees trouble brewing:

One wonders how the Dunkin Donuts proposal will fare after neighbor concerns have already caused the cancellation of redevelopment plans (that included new restaurants) for buildings at the corner of West Newton and Washington Streets and the corner of Washington Street and Worcester Square in the South End.

A state senator who owns a bar has added a provision to a proposed casino law that would let every bar in the state offer happy hours as a way to compete with casinos that would be allowed to offer free boozes to loosen up their customer's wallets.

Wicked Local reports the Senate passed Sen. Bob Hedlund's happy-hour amendment, which now goes to a House/Senate conference committee. The Senate rejected a proposed ban on free drinks at casinos. Happy hours have been banned in Massachusetts since the Dukakis era.