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BREAKDOWN: Launch the Denver Post investigative series.

Dee Fleming tried to protect her son from the voices in his head, the ones that told him he should die.

She chased after him the night he ran toward the neighborhood church with a baseball bat in his hand. She worried to the point of exhaustion when he didn't come home at night, then returned beat-up and missing his watch. She thought she was holding it together, if barely.

One day last April, when he was oddly quiet and confused, almost catatonic, Fleming took him to Swedish Medical Center's emergency room and told doctors he was suicidal.

They sent him home.

Two days later, Fleming's son downed dozens of prescription medications and household cleaning supplies, doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire in her front yard. He lived only because a neighbor called 911 to report something smoldering on the lawn. A police officer who knew him kept him conscious until an ambulance arrived.

What came next for the Fleming family was almost as shocking, a battle for treatment that epitomizes the massive breakdown in care for mental illness in Colorado and the nation.

Doctors treated his burns, but not his mind.

Despite the family's pleas and a months-long battle, their 37-year-old son was released from Porter Adventist Hospital to a transitional shelter.

The mental health care system is in crisis. More than 50 years after states began shuttering mental institutions, the system hasn't recovered leaving emergency rooms, jails and shelters as last-ditch stops to handle the most severe cases.

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Special report: A broken mental health system

By Paul McBeth

Oct. 29 (BusinessDesk) - Chorus, the regulated telecommunications network operator, wants to add another independent director to its board to enhance its capability in what's become a vastly different landscape in just three years.

Shareholders today voted on whether to approve a lift in the pool for directors' fee to $1.1 million from $980,000, which was set in 2012 when Chorus was carved out of the then-dominant telecommunications company, Telecom Corp, which has since rebranded as Spark New Zealand.

Chair Sue Sheldon told shareholders the increase won't spill over into higher fees for the current directors, rather, it would allow the company to add another director with "additional skills and perspectives" in a new environment for the company.

The board faced an increased workload in the 2014 financial year, with 33 meetings compared to 14 the year before, and a normal schedule of eight.

In response to a question from a shareholder, Sheldon said the increase was based on the average fee for an ordinary director plus a committee role.

Speaking to BusinessDesk after the meeting, Sheldon said when the board was established it was thought Chorus would operate as a typical regulated utility, though that has changed with bedding in of the new regulatory landscape.

"That obviously looks different from what the position looked like in 2011, and we're working through that process," Sheldon said. "It's not just one particular thing we're looking for."

Chorus has been locked in a battle with the Commerce Commission over the past 18 months after the regulator imposed steeper cuts to the regulated price of services over the network operator's copper lines. The company has been fighting initial determination based on international benchmarks in the courts, while at the same time lobbying the regulator to take a softer approach in its more fulsome review.

Chief executive Mark Ratcliffe told shareholders the regulatory framework Chorus operates in needs updating to provide the sector with more stability and improve the fibre uptake. That includes bringing forward a review of the telecommunications framework from its scheduled 2016 start date, and earlier certainty for the post-2020 pricing regime to ensure investors can base their decisions on.

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Chorus plan to add director after lifting fee cap

40,000ha in Sabah illegally cleared

KOTA KINABALU: The State is not without its share of rampant illegal land clearing activities, the likes of which caused the tragedy in Cameron Highlands in the peninsula, recently.

However, in its attempt to arrest the problem, certain quarters have been fond of painting a negative picture of the authorities, particularly the Forestry Department, instead of commending them for implementing the law.

The Government, through the Forestry Department, had over the past eight years recovered about 40,000 hectares within forest reserves that had been illegally cultivated with oil palm trees.

Forestry Director Datuk Sam Manan said the offenders, who are local "towkays", have been charged in court and fined together with their workers, most of them illegal immigrants.

"That was not the only case of illegal land clearing in the State. In fact, it was very rampant until stronger political will put a halt to it," he said, adding that the areas where the problem is most prevalent are Semporna, Lahad Datu, Kunak, Beluran and Paitan in Pitas.

He said, between 1999 and 2002, illegal land clearing activities were massive especially in the Ulu Kalumpang Forest Reserves and some parts of Lahad Datu and one big company operating illegally in Beluran.

"These are local individuals, local towkays using illegals as workers. Contrary to belief, there are very few companies involved in this activity. All driven by greed. They thought they could get away with it.

"Maybe they could have because there was no political will, no political support a long time ago. But ever since Datuk Seri Musa Aman became the Chief Minister, we have managed to enforce the law better because of his support," he said.

According to the department's annual report last year, encroachment of forest reserve lands such as illegal oil palm plantations are the main threat and most pervasive operation in the State since 2003 until late 2013.

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40,000ha in Sabah illegally cleared

Interior Design Living room Dining room Home
Interior Design ideas as San Diego Interior Designer Rebecca Robeson walks you through her Interior Design project.

By: LEON DEVI

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The Office of Regulatory Services has pledged to investigate QBE Insurance's refusal to compensate victims of the $4 million Sublime Constructions collapse if it is asked to do so.

Brett Phillips, the executive director of the Office of Regulatory Services, said if his office received complaints from owners affected by QBE's refusal to pay out on home warranty insurance they would be investigated.

QBE's refusal to honour policies taken out on up to 13 homes being built by Sublime Constructions when it collapsed in February was a hole in the ACT government's mandated protection for customers, the Master Builders Association's Jerry Howard has said.

Mr Phillips, whose staff have already investigated allegations Sublime Constructions falsified the contract amounts on HWI certificates provided to customers, said the question of jurisdiction over the dispute between QBE and the Sublime clients was complex.

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While building complaints in the ACT were usually handled by the Environment and Planning Directorate through the Constructions Occupations Licensing Registrar, the ORS was responsible for complaints lodged under the Australian Consumer Law, he said.

However, financial products were exempt from the consumer law provisions.

"The laws in relation to financial products and misleading and deceptive conduct are replicated in the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act," he said.

"My initial view, without having explored all of the issues, is that ASIC would be the regulator on insurance disputes."

The ORS had received only one consumer complaint so far, which had centred on allegations certificates had been falsified, he said.

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ORS, liquidator probe Sublime Constructions collapse aftermath

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