Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday abandoned his false claim that Barack Obama was not born in the United States after spending five years peddling conspiracy theories that the country's first African-American president started life as a foreigner.
But, never one to let a controversy go without fanning its flames, Trump accused Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival in the Nov. 8 election, of starting the so-called birther movement in her failed 2008 presidential campaign against Obama, a claim that does not stand up to scrutiny.
Trump, who has won back some ground in opinion polls and made the White House race more competitive after he went through a summer slump, made his announcement in an attempt to clear the air as he prepares for the first of three televised presidential debates with Clinton on Sept. 26.