JERSEY CITY, New Jersey (Reuters) - Keegan Bradley was on his way to turning a winless year into a great season after catching fire on Friday for a course-record 63 at Liberty National in the second round of The Barclays.

Bradley, the 2011 PGA Championship winner, made four birdies on each side of the layout perched on the edge of New York harbour in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty to move within two strokes of clubhouse leader Webb Simpson.

Despite failing to reach the winner's circle, Bradley has shown consistently good form in posting seven top-10 finishes.

"It's disappointing that I haven't won, but I've made over $3 million, I'm top 10 in the FedExCup. I've had seven top 10s, which is the most I've ever had. It's kind of a weird year.

"I've had two seconds and a third," he said. "I've been right there.

"So if I could get a win, this would probably be my most consistent year. So it's right there on the edge of being a super good year."

The New Englander made his charge spurred on after making a double-bogey at the par-four 18th hole on his 12th hole early Friday morning in finishing his weather-delayed opening round.

"I hit a ball outofbounds on the last hole this morning, and it was just brutal and decided that I was going to prove to myself that that wasn't how I'm going to end this tournament," said Bradley.

"So I decided to go out and just let it go, and I really seemed to play well on that second 18."

What made it all extra special for Bradley was his fondness for the course. He told co-designer Tom Kite by the practice range earlier in the week how much he liked the layout.

"This golf course is unbelievable," Bradley, 27, said. "It's really, really awesome. This is such an amazing course to have a course record on. I'm really honored. I hope it holds up."

Birdies were coming in bunches on the rain-softened course on Friday, but regardless of how well the late second-round starters play Bradley placed himself in good position to challenge.

"I'm right there going into the weekend," he said. "If someone goes super low, I'm still going to be within four or five shots, so I really like my chances around this golf course."

(Reporting by Larry Fine, Editing by Ian Ransom)

Murdoch, whose News Corp controls about 70 percent of Australia's newspaper market, questioned in a Twitter message how an ambitious $34 billion super broadband being built by Rudd's Labor was affordable in a slowing economy.

"Oz politics! We all like ideal of NBN, especially perfect for Foxtel. But first how can it be financed in present situation?" tweeted the Australian-born Murdoch, whose global media empire is now based in the United States.

NBN is the national broadband network, a plan to provide an internet connection to every home. But the opposition has promised to spend less on the network and scale back its capability, reflecting tighter financial conditions with economic growth forecast to slow to 2.5 percent this fiscal year.

Murdoch, who owns 50 percent of pay-TV operator Foxtel, as strongly criticized on the opening day of the election campaign on Monday when his best-selling Daily Telegraph newspaper ran a front-page headline "Kick This Mob Out" over a picture of Rudd.

Rudd, who has claimed underdog status ahead of a September 7 general election, told reporters on Tuesday there was no doubt the Australia-born Murdoch was determined to engineer election defeat for Labor after six years in power.

"I think he's made it fairly clear ... that he doesn't really like us, and would like to give us the old heave-ho," said Rudd, whose minority government trails the conservative opposition 48 percent to 52 percent in the latest opinion polls.

Rudd said Murdoch's views on the election campaign largely mirrored those of conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott, who has promised to downsize the planned broadband network.

"Does he sense it represents a commercial challenge to Foxtel, to the major cash-cow for his company, or not?" asked Rudd, referring to the planned broadband network.

"It's a free country, he's entitled to those views. I'm sure he sees it with crystal clear clarity all the way from the United States."

But Rudd denied his criticism hinted at plans to challenge Murdoch's domination of Australia's newspaper market should Labor be returned to power, by changing media laws.

"We have no such plans at all, because we assume that all independent players in the Australian media market will participate within the law, exercise their freedom of speech, as Mr. Murdoch is consistently doing," he said.

Labor in March dropped plans to reform media laws and strengthen scrutiny of newspapers and media mergers after phone-hacking scandals in Britain, criticized by the Australian arm News Corp as Stalinist and draconian.

The Labor government and conservative opposition have vastly differing plans for the A$37.4 billion ($34.2 billion) National Broadband Network (NBN), potentially hurting some business stakeholders and opening the door to others, including China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd.

(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Prosecutor Jason Hicks called the boys "thugs" as he described how Christopher Lane, 22, of Melbourne, was shot once in the back and died along a tree-lined road on Duncan's well-to-do north side. He said the three teens, from the grittier part of town, chose Lane at random and that one of the boys "thinks it's all a joke."

Hicks charged Chancey Allen Luna, 16, and James Francis Edwards Jr., 15, of Duncan, with first-degree murder. Under Oklahoma law they will be tried as adults. Michael Dewayne Jones, 17, of Duncan, was charged with using a vehicle in the discharge of a weapon and with accessory to first-degree murder after the fact. He is considered a youthful offender but will be tried in adult court.

Jones wept in the courtroom after he tried to speak about the incident but was cut off by the judge who said it wasn't the time to sort out the facts of the case. Jones faces anywhere from two years to life in prison if convicted on the counts he faces.

The two younger teens face life in prison without parole if convicted on the murder charge.

"I'm appalled," Hicks said after the hearing. "This is not supposed to happen in this community."

In court, Hicks said Luna was sitting in the back seat of a car when he pulled the trigger on a .22 caliber revolver and shot Lane once in the back. Hicks said Jones was driving the vehicle and Edwards was in the passenger seat.

A recording of an emergency 911 call obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press offers a chilling account of the next moments as a woman identifying herself as Joyce Smith tells the operator she saw Lane fall over into a ditch as she drove by.

"He's got blood on his back," the woman says.

Later relaying word from another witness on the scene to the 911 operator, the woman says: "He's turning blue. He's making a noise."

Edwards has had prior run-ins with the law and came to court Friday apparently after the shooting to sign documents related to his juvenile probation.

"I believe this man is a threat to the community and should not be let out," Hicks said as he requested he be held without bail. "He thinks it's all a joke."

The two younger boys were held without bail, while bail for Jones was set at $1 million.

Before the hearing, Edwards' father, James Edwards Sr., said he knew where his son was 95 percent of the time. He said his son was involved in wrestling and football, and was trying to forge the same sort of athletic career as Lane. He was heading into his sophomore year in high school.

Edwards Sr. said Luna was also like a son to him.

Luna's mother, Jennifer Luna, said her son likes to play basketball at a local court and play on his iPhone and Xbox.

"I know my son. He is a good kid," she said.

Lane played baseball at East Central University in Ada, 85 miles east of Duncan, and had been visiting his girlfriend and her parents in Duncan after he and his girlfriend returned to the U.S. from Australia about a week ago.

Duncan police Chief Dan Ford has said the boys wanted to overcome a boring end to their summer vacation classes in Duncan resumed Tuesday and that Jones told officers they were bored and killed Lane for "the fun of it."

Family and friends on two continents were mourning Lane, who gave up pursuit of an Australian football career to pursue his passion for baseball, an American pastime. His girlfriend, Sarah Harper, tearfully laid a cross at a streetside memorial in Duncan, while half a world away, an impromptu memorial grew at the home plate he protected as a catcher on his youth team.

"We just thought we'd leave it," Harper said as she visited the memorial in Duncan. "This is his final spot."

His old baseball team, Essendon, scheduled a memorial game for Sunday to raise funds for Lane's parents as they worked to have their boy's remains sent home.

Tony Cornish, president of the Essendon Baseball Club, said Lane played with the club for 12 years.

"He started out as a T-baller, right from the age of 7, " said Cornish.

Cornish said Lane was part of the club until he left to attend college in the U.S.

"Chris Lane was a good kid, just a great all-around guy," Cornish said. "We're still all in shock here."

Meanwhile, St. Bernard's College in Essendon, where Lane was a student, is planning a memorial Mass for Lane in November.

Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper reported that roses and a baseball were placed Monday on the home plate where Lane played as a youth with the message: "A wonderful young man taken too soon. Why?"

Tim Fischer, former Australia deputy prime minister, criticized the National Rifle Association and asked Australians to avoid the U.S. as a way to put pressure on its Congress to act on gun control.

"Tourists thinking of going to the USA should think twice," Fischer told the Herald Sun. "I am deeply angry about this because of the callous attitude of the three teenagers, (but) it's a sign of the proliferation of guns on the ground in the USA. There is a gun for almost every American."

___

AP sports writer Dennis Passa in Brisbane, Australia, and reporter Sue Ogrocki in Duncan, Okla., contributed to this report.

Follow Kristi Eaton on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kristieaton .

Entrepreneurial cooks hailing from theincubator kitchen will present such novelties as fat Mexican-style tortillas topped with stir-fried nopal cactus with salsa fromand theknown as turkey momos topped with tomato-cilantro sauce fresh from Bini's Kitchen.

Adventuresome souls won't want to pass ontrendy Japanese fungus fromor pickled cucumbers from , while thirsty veggie lovers might choose to wash it all down withfavorite Malaysian drink, a blend of rose, basil seed, and young coconut juice with fresh herbs.

The festival is all about the heart, commitment, and talent of San Francisco's vibrant culinary startup community populated by low-income and immigrant entrepreneurs breaking down barriers to market entry. This street festival's audience are the judges and jury.

It's an opportunity for the market to sample the wares of those with mouth-watering dreams who labor from food trucks, carts, trailers, home-based catering operations, and pop-up storefronts. It's a day to test the fruits of that cottage industry. It's a platform for eats that emerge from shared commercial kitchen spaces, from the weeks and months of coaching and mentoring from La Cocina regarding industry-specific technicalities and safety measures.

With each looking to out-cook the others, somewill serve ethnic and California treats to tens of thousands of food lovers ambling by stalls and trucks up and down the six-block, admission-free event. Hundreds of inventive offerings from food startups will be served side by side with eats from celebrity chefs like , , and , with each selection priced under $8. Bigger and better than ever, this year's event will see Folsom Street blocked off between 20th Street and 26th streets from 11 a.m. through 7 p.m. Savvy attendees will plan ahead with the street foodand show up with an appetite.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Cancer patients and survivors who felt tired or sluggish reported feeling noticeably better after taking ginseng supplements for two months, in a new study.

"Nearly all patients with cancer can suffer from fatigue at some point; either at diagnosis, during treatment and even after treatment, and (fatigue) can linger for several years," said lead author Debra Barton, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

"The issue with cancer-related fatigue is that it can be a profound fatigue that is not relieved by sleep or rest and that it can significantly impact the ability of people to accomplish the things they are used to doing every day," Barton told Reuters Health by email.

Ginseng had shown promise for fatigue in earlier studies as well, researchers said.

Tired cancer patients and survivors often turn to that and other dietary supplements such as Coenzyme Q-10, L-Carnitine and guarana, but not all are supported by evidence.

To look more closely at the effects of ginseng, Barton and her coauthors split 364 people with cancer-related fatigue into two groups. People in one group took 2,000 milligrams of Wisconsin ginseng daily for eight weeks; those in the other group took placebo capsules.

Participants reported their fatigue on a specialized questionnaire. Researchers then weighted those answers on a 100-point scale, where higher scores indicate more energy. Both groups started with an average score around 40.

After eight weeks, the ginseng group reported a 20-point score increase, on average, compared to a 10-point improvement for the placebo group, according to results published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

That's more than enough change to be noticeable in daily life, according to the scale.

Of the 364 people enrolled at the start of the study, 80 dropped out before the eight-week mark. Although that's a high number, dropout rates were similar in each group - so the results shouldn't be affected, Barton said.

Side effects such as nausea, vomiting and anxiety were not any more common among people taking ginseng.

"Ginseng is interesting because it acts on inflammation, and we think inflammation explains cancer-related fatigue," said Catherine Alfano, deputy director of the office of cancer survivorship at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

The results of this trial are promising, but they aren't enough to recommend that doctors suggest this supplement to patients, she told Reuters Health.

A bottle of 100 capsules containing 500 mg of Wisconsin ginseng each costs about $10 at a drugstore. Dietary supplements such as ginseng are not regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the same way drugs are regulated. According to the FDA's website, "Unlike drug products that must be proven safe and effective for their intended use before marketing, there are no provisions in the law for FDA to approve' dietary supplements for safety or effectiveness before they reach the consumer."

"There may be ginseng available in the local stores that is very different from what this study used, and some that is quite similar," Barton said. "There are different types of ginseng, different strengths (doses) and since it is a plant, (it) has to be grown, picked, processed and manufactured to get from field to store."

It's difficult for people to tell what exactly they're getting when they purchase supplements, she said.

Also, it is not yet known how ginseng may interact with drugs or with cancer treatment itself - another reason patients should not go out and use it to medicate themselves just yet, said Alfano, who wasn't involved in the new study.

More research needs to be done to determine why ginseng seemed to have stronger anti-fatigue properties for people undergoing cancer treatment than after treatment, she said.

"Cancer-related fatigue can be really profound in some cases," she said. "People really want answers."

There is a great deal of evidence that a simple exercise program, even just regular walking, can work against cancer-related fatigue, and that's what Alfano said she would most strongly recommend to patients.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/138aqfV Journal of the National Cancer Institute, online July 13, 2013.

(This refile clarifies the role of FDA in approval of dietary supplements, in paragraph 14 of story posted July 24, 2013.)

The dog was not the only fake at People's Park Zoo in the city of Luohe, which tried to pass off other common mammals and rodents as a leopard and snakes, Chinese media reported.

Photographs showed the mastiff with its muzzle poking through the bars of its dingy enclosure. A grimy sign on the cage read "African Lion" in Chinese characters.

The zoo apologized for the exhibits and was closed down for "rectification", the Beijing News said, citing local officials.

Animal rights activists have criticized Chinese zoos for their record of poor conditions and other abuses.

(Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by John O'Callaghan)

HONG KONG/KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Energy majors Exxon Mobil Corpand Royal Dutch Shellare among the suitors advancing to the next round of bidding for Newfield Exploration Co'sMalaysian and Chinese oil and gas fields valued at about $1.2 billion, people familiar with the matter said.

Newfield and Hess Corpare among a number of U.S. energy companies unloading ageing and less productive oil and gas fields to invest in more strategic and profitable projects, particularly in and close to their home markets. The moves are driven in part by activist shareholders.

Nearly a dozen suitors were attracted to Newfield's auction that kicked off about two months ago. Newfield's advisor, Goldman Sachs , has whittled down to the list to at least four, inviting Canada's Talisman Energy Incand KUFPEC, a unit of Kuwait Petroleum Corp, to submit second-round bids in mid-September along with Exxon and Shell, the people added.

"The management is of one mind and that is to sell the assets and refocus on North America," one person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Newfield, the fourth-largest oil producer in Malaysia, has an interest in about 3.3 million net acres offshore Malaysia and about 290,000 net acres offshore China. The Malaysian fields accounted for 39 percent of Newfield's revenues in 2012, while the Chinese fields accounted for 3.3 percent.

Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) , Malaysia's state oil firm, will be the key to the domestic sale, since it is the operator of some of the blocks in the Malay Basin in which Newfield holds an interest.

"Almost all the companies that got through for the Malaysian assets have a good working relationship with Petronas, which awards the production-sharing contracts. So it would be an easy fit then," one person familiar with the process said.

Newfield, which has a market value of $3.2 billion, warned of a 25-30 percent decline in its international production due to natural declines in its Malaysian fields among other factors.

Woodlands, Texas-based Newfield, Exxon and Shell declined to comment. Talisman did not reply to an email seeking comment, while KUFPEC could not be reached for comment. The sources declined to be identified as the sale process is confidential.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Callus in LONDON; Editing by Matt Driskill)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine" is off to a terrific start at the box office - more than $6 million in 20 days of limited release - and could eclipse "Midnight in Paris" as his highest-grossing movie ever.

"Paris" won an original screenplay Oscar, was nominated for three other Academy Awards including Best Picture, and finished with a whopping $56 million at the domestic box office.

But moviegoers expecting another frothy fantasy romp should be forewarned.

"This isn't Owen Wilson on a lark in Paris," said Michael Barker, co-president at Sony Pictures Classics, which has released the last five films Allen has directed. "I get the comparisons because of the box office, but the two movies aren't at all alike."

In "Blue Jasmine," Cate Blanchett plays a delusional Manhattan society wife who loses everything and moves in with her sister when her husband is sent to prison for defrauding investors.

"They're both entertaining, and it has some laughs," he said "but this is a very serious movie."

And "Blue Jasmine" has done some serious business at the multiplexes.

It's brought in more than $6 million in 20 days, after posting the year's best limited debut, averaging $102,000 at six theaters. It's moved to 119 locations last weekend and continued to build momentum, and Barker said the plan is to double that count this weekend and then go nationwide and into between 1,000-1,200 theaters on August 26.

Barker said that when SPC executives were talking with Allen and his producing partner (and sister) Letty Aronson prior to the film's opening, the director was insistent that "Jasmine" not be misrepresented in the marketing or the trailer.

"It was a bit of a gamble. We didn't go for the jokes or the fast cuts," Barker said of the trailer, which can be found at the bottom of this story. "It was an unusual approach.

"I remember going to a multiplex and seeing it play as one of about six or seven trailers, and it was really gratifying to see the audience respond the way they did. I think the fact that it was serious made it different, and people paid attention."

Being something out of the norm has helped it in the crowded summer marketplace as well, Barker said.

"Ever since Tom (Barnard, SPC's co-president) and I started, there's always been room in the marketplace for a strong indie film at the end of summer. People get tired of seeing all these blockbusters, but they're still in the moviegoing habit."

Dramas have been few and far between this summer, and the only one that's done much business was Baz Luhrmann's splashy "The Great Gatsby."

Barker credited the ensemble cast of "Blue Jasmine" - which includes Alec Baldwin, Andrew Dice Clay, Sally Hawkins, Louis C.K., Tammy Blanchard and Bobby Cannavale - for their work promoting the film.

"It's very rare to have a film where every actor, and I mean every actor, works as hard as they can to get the word out, but that's what's happened on this one, and it has really helped."

He said that in marketing "Blue Jasmine," his team made a point of reaching out via social media and other means to connect with the fan base of the actors, several of which are large enough to make a difference at the box office.

Whether the film can match the $56 million domestic and $151 million worldwide totals of Allen's "Midnight in Paris" will become clear after the film goes nationwide in two weeks.

Barker was hopeful that the 77-year-old Allen's latest film, in a career that spans more than five decades, can connect with mainstream audiences. He said he was optimistic, because it's been playing broadly so far.

"When a Woody Allen movie clicks, younger audiences tend to come in the third and fourth weeks," he said.

"But this is a drama, so we'll see."

The Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe asked its followers Sunday to wait for "dialogue to resolve outstanding issues with self-control and tolerance."

In pastoral messages given by priests, Roman Catholic churches, whose monitors criticized Wednesday's voting for widespread irregularities, called on Catholics not to be "consumed by bitterness that leads to violence."

"Peace in your heart brings calm. Trust and have faith," said Fr. Charles Kanongwa, a church leader.

Preparing for possible disturbances, however, Zimbabwean police mounted extra roadblocks in the capital Sunday, some manned unusually by officers with automatic rifles. Troops were camped downtown where water canon trucks were also stationed.

Mugabe took 62 percent of the presidential vote compared to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's 34 percent, according to official results.

Tsvangirai rejected the vote as "a monumental fraud" and says he will challenge the results that also gave Mugabe's party a two-thirds majority in the 210 seat parliament, enabling it to alter aspects of the country's new constitution it opposed when the charter was being rewritten.

In the last elections in 2008, the opposition captured 111 seats to Mugabe's 99. Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in the first round of that presidential vote but boycotted a run-off to protest an onslaught of violence against his supporters.

"It is inconceivable Tsvangirai could now have lost by such margin. I am in a state of shock and disbelief," said Elizabeth Joseph, an Anglican worshipper in a well-to-do Harare suburb. "Our morning service has been more like a funeral."

"A mountain has fallen on us and I don't know how it can be moved," said Caiphas Zimuto, a worshipper at a Harare Pentecostal church aligned to the Evangelical Fellowship, an umbrella organization for scores of revivalist churches outside the mainstream Roman Catholic and Anglican groups.

Regional southern African monitors and observers from the continentwide African Union have demanded investigations into allegations of inflated voting by Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and the absence of an estimated 700,000 names of eligible voters from voters' lists.

While voting was largely peaceful on polling day, a complete audit of the lists and votes cast could take weeks, even if the official state election commission dominated by Mugabe supporters makes them available, independent observers say.

Mugabe's party denies vote rigging and says Mugabe, 89, could be sworn in for his seventh term in office since independence in 1980 after nine days are allowed for legal challenges to the voting outcome.

South African President Jacob Zuma, the chief regional mediator in Zimbabwe's decade-long political and economic crisis, congratulated Mugabe on his election victory and sought acceptance of the result from the losers, according to a statement issued from his office.

Mugabe's state radio on Sunday quoted Sydney Sekeramayi, his state security minister, saying voters gave the mandate to ZANU-PF to roll out and complete its massive black empowerment program that envisions taking over control of at least 1,100 businesses and companies that remain in the hands of foreign owners and the nation's small white community.

Critics of black empowerment and the often violent seizures of thousands of white owned farms since 2000 say few outside an elite of Mugabe party leaders and loyalists have benefited and many prime farms lie idle and several key blue-chip industries have gone into liquidation in the embattled economy.

Alfred Ndlovu, an executive with a chain of Harare food stores open for Sunday shoppers, said only inflows of new foreign investment would likely be able to rebuild the economy.

"From where I am sitting, that's not going to happen," he said.

Zimbabwe faced a return to empty store shelves and long gasoline lines that were seen before regional leaders forced Mugabe into a shaky coalition with Tsvangirai after the violent polls of 2008, warned Ndlovu.

"We could reach a critical mass where Mugabe can't deliver," he said, "and people won't tolerate it again."

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The Indiana State Teachers Association and its parent organization have agreed to a proposed $14 million settlement with 27 Indiana school districts to resolve Indiana regulators' lawsuit targeting the state union's now-defunct health insurance program.

Secretary of State Connie Lawson announced the tentative deal Tuesday between state regulators, ISTA and the National Education Association in a case she said involved program "mismanagement" and "alleged defrauding" of Indiana teachers.

State officials had sued the ISTA Indiana's largest teachers union and the NEA in December 2009, alleging they violated state securities law by offering a health care plan for school districts.

The federal lawsuit said the health care program actually represented the sale of unregistered securities and that money generated from the program's insurance premiums was mixed with other funds, with much of the money going into risky investments.

The suit also alleges some of the money was used to pay claims for ISTA members in a long-term disability insurance plan a situation Lawson's statement describes as a "Ponzi-like scheme."

The health care plans in question were sold to 27 school districts. If any of them fail to agree to the proposed settlement, Indiana's nearly 4-year-old suit will proceed to trial in October.

Lawson said the losses to the districts totaled $27 million, but that each would recoup only about half of that money under the proposal.

"This is the right result for teachers and schools," she said in a statement. "The tentative amount puts roughly 50 cents for every dollar lost from this mismanagement back to the school corporations."

ISTA spokesman Mark Shoup said the settlement money will come from funds the union recovered through lawsuits filed against its former insurance trust fund managers for risky investments blamed for the health insurance program's collapse in 2009.

"This money is coming from the entities that were responsible for this meltdown in the first place," he said.

Shoup said the teachers union is happy that a settlement has been reached in the long-running case. He called the proposed deal a "fair and final resolution."

The problems with the ISTA's health insurance program prompted the NEA to assume control of the group's state chapter in May 2009 due to the program's insolvency. The following month the ISTA it sold its downtown Indianapolis office building to a wholly-owned subsidiary of the NEA.

Shoup said a trustee appointed by the NEA continues to oversee the union's Indiana chapter.

Lawson's statement includes a link to a case summary which states that ISTA's "entities" violated state securities laws by selling "an unregistered security" in the form of participation in the union's health insurance program.

Indiana's suit alleges the program allowed school districts to accumulate surpluses from excess insurance premiums paid by teachers, money that was to be held as reserves "and invested on their behalf by ISTA."

Those surpluses and investment earnings were supposed to be used to lower future district health costs and other district expenses, Lawson's timeline states.

But in fact, participating districts received "falsified reports" showing the districts had more than $27 million in accumulated surpluses and earnings, when in reality no such reserves actually existed, the time-line indicates.

State regulators attributed the collapse of the ISTA's health insurance program to "poor investment decisions and mismanagement" by ISTA's trustees.

The timeline states that a review by the Indiana Department of Insurance found the trustees had invested 88 percent of the money intended for teachers' health care and disability insurance in "alternative investments" far more than the originally planned 20 percent.