FAIRFIELD, Vt. – Finding the "birthplace" of President Chester A. Arthur is easy: Turn left at Town Hall and its Chester A. Arthur Conference Room, go past Chester's Bakery and turn right on Chester A. Arthur Road.
Nearly five miles up the winding two-lane country road, past rolling hills and dairy farms, is the tiny Chester A. Arthur Historic Site, proclaiming the spot where the nation's 21st president was born in a cottage.
Or was he?
Nearly 123 years after his death, doubts about his U.S. citizenship linger, thanks to lack of documentation and a political foe's claim that Arthur was really born in Canada — and was therefore ineligible for the White House, where he served from 1881 to 1885.
Long before "birthers" began questioning the citizenship of President Barack Obama, similar questions were raised about the early years of Arthur, an accidental president who ascended to the job after President James Garfield was assassinated.
"It's an old rumor that won't die, political slander," said John Dumville, who runs Vermont's historic sites and knows well the legend. "It's a fun story, and it comes up every year. People latch on to it and they've read about it somewhere and they want to know more."
The U.S. Constitution says you must be a "natural-born citizen" to serve as president. The issue has received renewed interest due to legions of Obama doubters who say his Hawaiian birth certificate is fake and that he was born in Kenya.
But the Arthur birthplace question came up before the Internet was around to spread such theories.
Known as Vermont's "other president" — Calvin Coolidge was born in Vermont — Arthur was the son of a Baptist minister whose first assignment was this small town (pop. 1,916) in the heart of northern Vermont dairy country.
He was born Oct. 5, 1829, but later in life, he lied about the year. Even his gravestone lists 1830, though Arthur family bibles at the Library of Congress in Washington say 1829.
The family moved often, and by 1835 had left Vermont. Arthur went on to become a teacher, lawyer and political operative, serving as quartermaster general for the state of New York during the Civil War and later Collector of the Port of New York, appointed by President Ulysses Grant.
The focus on his place of birth became an issue in the 1880 presidential campaign, when Arthur was tapped to be the running mate for Garfield.
According to historical accounts, Republican bosses wanted him to provide proof of his birthplace, but he never did.
Democrats, meanwhile, hired a lawyer named Arthur Hinman who sought to discredit Arthur, claiming he was born in Dunham, Quebec, about 47 miles north of Fairfield. Hinman traveled to Vermont and Canada to research Arthur's past, eventually concluding that Arthur was born in Canada but appropriated the birth records of a baby brother who was born in Fairfield, but died as an infant.
He later incorporated the findings into a book titled "How A British Subject Became President of the United States."
Arthur, who served from 1881 to 1885, never publicly addressed the allegation.
Vermont officials hold fast to their claim on Arthur's birth, but have little to back it up.
The state of Vermont didn't begin receiving birth records until 1857, according to state archivist Gregory Sanford. The birth records at the Town of Fairfield go back no further, Town Clerk Amanda Forbes said.

Arthur biographer Thomas C. Reeves, a former University of Wisconsin history professor who wrote "Gentleman Boss" in 1975, debunked the born-in-Canada claim.

"This was a little campaign trick, in an era when politics were just as dirty as they are now," Reeves said in an interview. "It didn't threaten him in anyway. He was lying about his age, which complicated things. Like so many people, he just lopped a year off his life."

But the legend lingers, like a salacious rumor too juicy not to repeat.

In 1998, the Ottawa (Ont.) Citizen newspaper published a story asserting Arthur was born in his grandparents' home in Dunham but "probably" appropriated the birth records of the dead brother.

"The great impostor, the ultimate spoilsman, has never been defrocked. Not bad for a Canadian, eh?" said the newspaper, which called Arthur "our man in Washington."

At the Chester A. Arthur Historic Site, which draws about 400 visitors a year despite its remote setting, the topic is the first thing on people's lips, said caretaker Shirley Paradee.

"That's usually pretty much the most-asked question — if he was born here or in Canada," she said. "And I don't really have an answer for that because there isn't anything, any proof anywhere, where he was born."

If anything, the display boards inside a two-room replica of the parsonage where Arthur spent some of his early years fan the controversy. One contains a quote from a "J.H. Corey" who asserted in 1881: "I am positive C.A. Arthur was born in Canada."

Another reads, "Today, in an era when virtually every detail of a politician's life is open to public view, there is no concrete proof of the location of President Arthur's birthplace. Records and recollections lend strong support to the claim that Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vt."

For his part, Dumville says Vermont is proud to call Arthur a native son. Until someone proves otherwise.

"There's no way to prove he was not born in Vermont. It's a little boosterism for Vermont, having a U.S. president born here," Dumville said.

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AP news researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.

MOSCOW (AFP) –
Water pipes ruptured at Russia's largest hydroelectric plant early Monday causing flooding that killed at least eight people and left scores missing, officials said.

The accident caused major power disruption in Siberia.

Officials said eight plant workers were killed and 14 injured when a sudden change in water pressure caused the rupture at the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant in the Khakassia region.

In a statement, the Kremlin said the accident was due to an unspecified "hydraulic impact" at the plant which forced the shutdown of all 10 of the station's power units.

President Dmitry Medvedev ordered Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu and Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko to fly to the scene and take personal control of the crisis, the Kremlin said.

Andrei Klyuvev, an emergency situations ministry official at the site of the accident, 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) east of Moscow, said there were still dozens of people unaccounted for.

"The fate of 68 people is unknown," Klyuyev told the Echo of Moscow radio station.

Klyuyev said rescue divers had pulled out one person from a room underneath the plant's turbine hall where there was apparently a cave-in and flooding but said many more could still be trapped.

"At the moment we cannot determine whether these people were down there or managed to get out somewhere but we know that there were that many people on this shift," Klyuyev said.

The accident at the plant disrupted power supply to key smelters in the region including those of UC Rusal, Russia's largest aluminium producer, an other enterprises.

A Moscow-based spokeswoman for Rusal, which is controlled by billionaire businessman Oleg Deripaska, said however the work of the smelters had not been disrupted due to redistribution of power from alternative sources.

The company said in a statement released later however that Deripaska had discussed with Shmatko the possibility of reducing output from UC Rusal smelters to free up energy resources to ensure "stable functioning of the region."

Russia's financial regulators ordered the suspension of trading on both Moscow stock exchanges in shares of state-run RusHydro, the corporation that owns the affected hydroelectric station.

Konstantin Reily, a utilities analyst at Finam, estimated that it might take up to three billion dollars to replace the three damaged power units.

"This is an extraordinary event. This is the first accident of such scale at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric plant," he added.

Another emergency situations ministry spokesman, Dmitry Kudryavtsev, told AFP that the body of the dam at the heart of the power plant had not been damaged.

However, some people living close to the hydroelectric station panicked despite official claims that adjacent villages and towns faced no danger of flooding, he said.

The mayor of the nearby town of Abakan, speaking to Echo of Moscow radio, said lines had begun forming outside bakeries and gas stations.

Speaking to reporters in Moscow, Shoigu said there was no threat of the dam breaking but added it would take "years" to repair the damaged power units.

The natural resources ministry said it was concerned by the environmental impact of the accident, saying an oil slick of more than five kilometers (three miles) was spreading along the Yenisei River.

"According to preliminary data, transformer fluid has leaked from one of the hydroelectric station's damaged units," the ministry said in a statement.

Visit

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Compared to equally sized wolves, dogs tend to have 20% smaller skulls and 10% smaller brains, as well as proportionately smaller teeth than other canid species. Dogs require fewer calories to function than wolves. Their diet of human refuse in antiquity made the large brains and jaw muscles needed for hunting unnecessary. It is thought by certain experts that the dog's limp ears are a result of atrophy of the jaw muscles.

SEOUL (AFP) –
North Korea said Monday it would restart family reunions and a stalled tourism programme for South Koreans, in a rare conciliatory gesture after months of bitter hostility.

South Korea cautiously welcomed the announcement, but said the two governments must hold talks before the trips -- a major earner for its sanctions-hit neighbour -- can resume.

In a sign of continuing friction, the hardline communist state also warned of "a merciless and prompt annihilating strike" involving nuclear weapons if a US-South Korean military exercise starting Monday infringes its sovereignty.

The tourism agreement was disclosed a day after a meeting in the North between leader Kim Jong-Il and Hyun Jung-Eun, chairwoman of the South's giant Hyundai Group which operates joint tourism and business ventures.

The North also agreed to lift limitations on border crossings by South Koreans which hampered operations at a Seoul-funded industrial estate.

Hyun travelled to the North last week and won the release of an employee detained since March for allegedly criticising Pyongyang's regime.

Analysts said that cash considerations aside, the North realises it must ease tensions with Seoul if it wants to improve ties with Washington.

The North reportedly indicated it wants better US ties when former president Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang this month and held talks with Kim. He won a pardon for two American journalists.

Cross-border relations have soured since a conservative South Korean government took office in February 2008 and scrapped a "sunshine" aid and engagement policy.

International tensions have risen following nuclear and missile tests by the North and a US-led drive to enforce tougher United Nations sanctions.

The North, announcing an agreement with Hyundai, said tours to the scenic Mount Kumgang east coast resort and to Kaesong, a historic city near the west coast, would resume as soon as possible.

It said it would in early October resume reunions of families separated since the 1950-1953 war.

The Seoul government suspended Kumgang tours after North Korean soldiers in July 2008 shot dead a South Korean housewife who strayed into a military zone.

The North had received about 410 million dollars since tours to Kumgang began in late 1998, excluding initial investments and payments.

Pyongyang in December halted day trips to Kaesong and limited access to the industrial estate there, as ties worsened.

Seoul's unification ministry said it "positively evaluates" the statement by Pyongyang and Hyundai, but the two governments must hold talks to reach firm accords before tourist trips can resume.

It repeated calls for a joint probe into the Kumgang shooting.

North Korea is bitterly hostile to South Korea's leaders, terming them traitors and US sycophants. It has cut virtually all official contacts.

Hyundai chief Hyun said on her return Monday afternoon she did not consult the Seoul government before her trip.

Asked about the 2008 Kumgang shooting, she replied: "Chairman Kim said that there would never be such a thing in the future."

Hyun indicated that four crewmen on a South Korean fishing boat, detained on July 30 after an accidental border crossing, could also be freed.

Kim Yong-Hyun, of Seoul's Dongguk University, said the North realised that cross-border hostility was a stumbling block to its desire to improve relations with the United States.

"North Korea, under growing UN sanctions, also has economic reasons to jump-start the cash-generating business with South Korea," he said, predicting that the Seoul and Pyongyang governments would soon resume talks.

"Inter-Korean relations are starting to get back on track but there will be no quick fix," he said.

In a sign of the difficulties, the North's military supreme command described US-South Korean war games starting Monday as a "grave threat" to peace and a prelude to an invasion.

It vowed to respond to "even the slightest military provocation" infringing on its sovereignty with a "merciless and prompt annihilating strike at the aggressors with all offensive and defensive means including nuclear deterrent involved."

The South's defence ministry dismissed the statement as "a routine denunciation."