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Poisoned trees gave a wealthy couple in Maine a killer ocean view. Residents wonder, at what cost?

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CAMDEN, Maine (AP) — Suspicious deaths in an idyllic seaside community and detective work that points to poison sound like themes from a classic murder mystery. But the victims in this Maine whodunnit were trees that stood in the way of a wealthy family’s oceanfront view, allegedly felled by well-heeled killers who, while ostracized and publicly shamed, remain free.

Wealth and hubris fuel the tale of a politically connected Missouri couple who allegedly poisoned their neighbor’s trees to secure their million-dollar view of Camden Harbor. The incident that was unearthed by the victim herself — the philanthropic wife of L.L. Bean’s late president — has united local residents in outrage.

To make matters worse, the herbicide used to poison the trees leached into a neighboring park and the town’s only public seaside beach. The state attorney general is now investigating.

“Anybody dumb enough to poison trees right next to the ocean should be prosecuted, as far as I’m concerned,” said Paul Hodgson, echoing the view of many exasperated residents in Camden, a community of 5,000 nestled at the foot of mountains that sweep upward from the Atlantic Ocean and overlook a harbor filled with lobster boats, yachts and schooners.

If this were a made-for-TV drama, the story set against the backdrop of this quaint village would have it all: Wealthy out-of-state villains, a sleuthing member of the venerable L.L. Bean family, and the same powerful chemical used to avenge Alabama’s loss on the football field to archrival Auburn.

Amelia Bond, former CEO of the St. Louis Foundation, which oversees charitable funds with more than $500 million in assets, brought the herbicide from Missouri in 2021 and applied it near oak trees on the waterfront property of Lisa Gorman, wife of the late Leon Gorman, L.L. Bean’s president and grandson of L.L. himself, according to a pair of consent agreements with the town and the state pesticide board.

Bond’s husband, Arthur Bond III, is an architect and the nephew of former U.S. Sen. Kit Bond. Their summer home, owned by a trust, is situated directly behind Gorman’s home, farther up the hill.

When the trees and other vegetation began dying, Amelia Bond told Gorman in June 2022 that the tree didn’t look good and offered to share the cost of removing them, Gorman’s lawyer wrote in a document.

Instead, Gorman had the trees tested. Soon, lawyers were involved.

More than $1.7 million in fines and settlements later, the trees are now gone and the harbor view from the Bond’s home is improved. But the chemical has leached into a neighboring park and beach, leaving the Bonds potentially on the hook for further monitoring and remediation, and Maine’s attorney general has agreed to further investigate the incident.

The herbicide — Tebuthiuron — was the same one used in 2010 by an angry Alabama football fan to kill the Toomer’s Corner oak trees at Auburn University, following a Crimson Tide loss to their archrival. The incident earned jail time for Harvey Updyke, who acknowledged poisoning the trees.

Tebuthiuron contaminates soil and doesn’t break down, so it continues to kill plants. At Auburn University, it took the removal of about 1,780 tons (1,615 metric tons) of contaminated material to achieve negligible levels of the chemical in the soil.

Short of removing the soil, the only other solution is dilution — waiting for nature to thin out the concentration of the herbicide to safe levels for plants. It could take six months to two years for it to be diluted enough to no longer endanger to plants, said Scott McElroy, an Auburn professor specializing in weed science and herbicide chemistry.

Back in Maine, Tom Hedstrom, chair of the Select Board, said his job typically requires finding consensus on how to proceed with delicate political matters. But this time there is no need because residents are united in their anger.

Hedstrom said he, too, is appalled by the behavior.

“Wealth and power don’t always go hand in hand with intelligence, education and morals,” he said. “This was atrocious and gross and any other word you want to use to describe abhorrent behavior.”

The Bonds have paid a price for their actions, which they acknowledged in the consent agreements.

They paid $4,500 to resolve Maine Board of Pesticides Control Board violations for unauthorized use of an herbicide that was applied inappropriately and not allowed for residential use, $180,000 to resolve violations with the town and another $30,000 for additional environmental testing, according to documents. They also paid more than $1.5 million to Gorman in a legal settlement, according to a memo from Jeremy Martin, the town’s planning and development director.

A lawyer for the Bonds said they have no comment, but they “continue to take the allegations against them seriously. They continue to cooperate with the town of Camden, state of Maine and the Gormans, as they have done over the last two years.”

A lawyer for Gorman declined comment.

Rep. Vicki Doudera, D-Camden, said she intends to address the $4,500 maximum fine that the Maine Board of Pesticide Control Board was allowed to assess. One of her ideas is a sliding scale that accounts for scope of damage and intent.

“It makes me so livid,” Doudera said. “This situation, the minute I heard about it, I thought, ’Wow! These people are going to get a slap on the wrist. That’s just not right.”

On a recent afternoon, no one was home at the Bond’s residence while people walked their dogs less than 500 feet (150 meters) away on Laite Memorial Beach, where the herbicide that’s lethal to aquatic plants has been detected.

Camden resident Dwight Johnson described as “underhanded” the way Amelia Bond feigned being a good neighbor by offering to share the costs of removing trees that she’d poisoned. Lynn Harrington, another town resident, questioned whether the Bonds could show their faces around town, where they are members of the Camden Yacht Club.

Some residents say the episode fits with the well-worn stereotype of wealthy summer residents “from away” — the Maine term for outsiders — running roughshod over full-time residents.

But some residents pushed back against casting summer residents as trouble makers.

Hodgson said Camden is not without its own rule-bending characters in a community where there are plenty of year-round residents who are both wealthy and entitled. He said some residents in the community where the median income is just under $93,000 — high for Maine, the poorest state in New England — have been known to cut down trees, knowing it’s illegal.

“They just pay the fine because they have plenty of money,” Hodgson said. “That’s the town we live in.”

___

Follow David Sharp on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @David_Sharp_AP





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For sale: A piece of California’s country music history

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The famed Buck Owens Crystal Palace, where music legends including Willie Nelson, Dwight Yoakam, Garth Brooks and a young Taylor Swift have played, is up for sale, with the foundation that runs the Bakersfield venue planning to list it for $7 million on Monday.

The nightclub, museum and steakhouse was owned by its namesake Buck Owens, the country music trailblazer who bucked the slick commercial melodies of Nashville for a distinctly West Coast twang. Owens opened the Crystal Palace in 1996, watching it become a premier venue for the biggest names in country music, including himself. Buck and the Buckaroos played there every Friday and Saturday night until his death in 2006.

Jim Shaw, a member of the Buckaroos and a director of the Buck Owens Private Foundation, said that after 28 years of running the famed venue, the Owens family plans to step back and find new owners amid a challenging business climate. The foundation said in a statement that “since Buck’s passing in 2006, we’ve tried to maintain the excellence that he expected, even as it became more and more difficult during these challenging times of increasing food and labor costs.”

The venue is not closing and scheduled events will continue as planned, Shaw said.

“It’s business as usual for now,” Shaw said. “Ideally, someone who wants to keep it exactly as it is will come forward.”

Owens’ youngest son, Johnny Owens, wrote on Facebook that the family’s hope “is that a buyer steps forward with a vision for the future and a reverence” for his father and the Bakersfield Sound.

The Crystal Palace, located on Buck Owens Boulevard, is a major tourism staple for Bakersfield. The 18,000-square-foot venue is next to the city’s downtown entrance.

“It’s the No. 1 tourist attraction in Bakersfield,” Shaw said. “There are people stepping forward and we are waiting to see what happens. I am getting a lot of phone calls. I’m anxious to see what happens.”



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2nd local radio host says they were given questions ahead of Biden interview

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A second local radio host on Saturday told ABC News that he was provided a list of questions in advance of his interview with President Joe Biden this week.

“Yes, I was given some questions for Biden,” Earl Ingram of CivicMedia told ABC News. Ingram, a prominent host of a Wisconsin radio station, interviewed Biden this week in the wake of his debate performance.

Ingram said he was given five questions and ended up asking four of them.

“I didn’t get a chance to ask him all the things I wanted to ask,” he said.

Ingram is the second interviewer who now says they were provided questions by Biden aides to ask the president this week. Earlier today, another local radio host who interviewed Biden this week told CNN she was given questions to ask Biden before the interview.

PHOTO: President Joe Biden speaks to supporters during a campaign rally at Sherman Middle School, on July 5, 2024, in Madison, Wisconsin.  (Scott Olson/Getty Images)PHOTO: President Joe Biden speaks to supporters during a campaign rally at Sherman Middle School, on July 5, 2024, in Madison, Wisconsin.  (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

PHOTO: President Joe Biden speaks to supporters during a campaign rally at Sherman Middle School, on July 5, 2024, in Madison, Wisconsin. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

“We do not condition interviews on acceptance of these questions, and hosts are always free to ask the questions they think will best inform their listeners,” the Biden campaign told ABC News on Saturday.

Ingram told ABC he didn’t see anything necessarily wrong with the practice. “To think that I was gonna get an opportunity to ask any question to the President of the United States, I think, is a bit more than anybody should expect,” he said.

He continued that he was grateful for the opportunity to interview Biden at all.

“Certainly the fact that they gave me this opportunity … meant a lot to me,” Ingram said.

MORE: Wealthy Democratic donors sound alarm over Biden staying in race

On CNN earlier today, Andrea Lawful-Sanders, the host of WURD’s “The Source,” said Biden officials provided her with a list of eight questions ahead of their interview with Biden.

“The questions were sent to me for approval; I approved of them,” she said.

“I got several questions — eight of them,” she continued. “And the four that were chosen were the ones that I approved.”

Responding to Lawful-Sanders, Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said in a statement that it’s not “uncommon” for interviewees to share topics they would prefer. She noted that Lawful-Sanders was “free” to ask any questions she saw fit. She also noted that it was the campaign who sent over the questions and not the White House as other reports claim.

Lawful-Sanders did note in her interview with CNN that she ultimately “approved” the questions provided.

“It’s not at all an uncommon practice for interviewees to share topics they would prefer. These questions were relevant to news of the day – the president was asked about this debate performance as well as what he’d delivered for black Americans,” the statement said.

“We do not condition interviews on acceptance of these questions, and hosts are always free to ask the questions they think will best inform their listeners. In addition to these interviews, the President also participated in a press gaggle yesterday as well as an interview with ABC. Americans have had several opportunities to see him unscripted since the debate.”

A source familiar with the Biden booking operation told ABC News that moving forward they will “refrain” from offering suggested questions to interviewers.

“While interview hosts have always been free to ask whatever questions they please, moving forward we will refrain from offering suggested questions.”

2nd local radio host says they were given questions ahead of Biden interview originally appeared on abcnews.go.com



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President George W. Bush turns 78 years old

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George W. Bush, born on July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Connecticut, was the 43rd President of the United States.

Bush was born to parents Barbara Bush and former President George H. W. Bush. He has five siblings; Jeb Bush, Marvin Bush, Neil Bush, Dorothy Bush Koch and Pauline Robinson Bush. Pauline was diagnosed with leukemia and passed away at age three.

He was formerly the Republican Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000.

WHY FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH IS WINNING … THE POST-PRESIDENCY

Bush was first elected to the White House in November 2000, and officially began his first term as president in January 2001, after he defeated Democrat Al Gore during the presidential election. Bush was reelected to his second term as the incumbent in November 2004, when he prevailed over Democrat John Kerry, and led the United States until January 2009 before handing over his torch to former President Barack Obama.

Bush married Laura Bush on November 5, 1977, the day after her 31st birthday, in her hometown of Midland, Texas. The couple were engaged in September 1977, and married less than two months later in a Methodist church. Bush and Laura met at a barbecue, and he took her to play mini-golf on their first date. 

The Bush’s share twin daughters, Barbara Pierce Bush and Jenna Bush Hager, born on November 25, 1981. Today, the couple also share four grandchildren; Mila, Poppy, Hal and Cora.

GEORGE BUSH, FORMER FIRST LADY ISSUE STATEMENT ON AFGHANISTAN WITH MESSAGE TO US TROOPS, VETERANS

During his presidency, Bush cared for his English springer spaniel, Spot Fetcher, who accompanied him to meetings in the Oval Office and on adventures throughout the White House. The dog was born to his parent’s dog, Millie.

On September 11, 2001, less than one year into Bush’s presidency, the Twin Towers in New York City were attacked by terrorists when airplanes hit both buildings, causing a collapse and thousands of lives lost. At the time, Bush was reading to elementary-aged children at a school in Sarasota, Florida. He was calmly and quietly advised of the attacks and quickly returned to Washington, where he was briefed alongside Vice President Dick Cheney.

Bush was regarded highly for his poise while learning of the attacks and for his demonstration of patriotism and leadership in the uncertain days and weeks following the hijackings of multiple planes on the day that shook America to her core.

SADDAM CAPTURED ‘LIKE A RAT’ IN RAID

On December 30, 2003, during Bush’s first term as POTUS, Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader and executor of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., was captured by the American military

In the early morning of December 30, 2006, during Bush’s presidency, Hussein was hanged and executed for his crimes against humanity. Americans across the nation celebrated the death of Hussein and applauded Bush for promising the country he would take him out and following through.

While Bush was regarded for his dealings with the terrorist attacks, the signing of No Child Left Behind Act and the Patriot Act and the creation of the United States Department of Homeland Security, many Americans were unhappy with the sanctions of interrogation techniques, the war in Iraq and taxes while he was president.

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