At Home: Making Crime Pay
Every year, millions of dollars? worth of ill-gotten property is seized by the Alberta government. Ranging from small electronics to cars to even real-estate, the property’s then forfeited to the province through its Civil Forfeiture Office. This year, the funds gained from the sale of the forfeited property are being allocated to a particularly relevant cause: the aid of crime victims.
As the CBC reports, Alberta has established a fund ?created from the forfeiture and sale of criminal property.? Announced this week, the fund’s first payment will be distributed to rural women’s shelters, including providing ?transportation for victims.?
It’s an area where It’s sorely needed. As Carolyn Goard, of the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters, told reporters, ?Women in rural settings need to get to shelter and often don’t have access to a vehicle.? The vehicles, she added, would also help victims ?to get to all of the necessary medical, court and counselling appointments that aid in their healing and help build safer futures.?
In the coming months, the fund will continue to make payments to other ?victims? groups and crime prevention programs.?
Around the World: Medical History Strikes Again
Modern medicine has done much to relegate certain diseases to the pages of history?or at least, to a footnote in the present. Recently, however, an illness that was prevalent over 400 years ago has been reappearing in Europe, and physicians are concerned.
As The Daily Telegraph reports, ?children in the south of England are suffering from . . . rickets,? a disease that was common in the 17th century.
Rickets, which results in bone weakening and deformities, is caused by low levels of vitamin D. Vitamin D is ?generated in the body from sunshine and certain foods?; hundreds of years ago, the disease was generally found among the poorer families who didn’t have access to a healthy diet.
Now, however, cases of children with rickets have arisen in both northern and southern areas of England?and this time, It’s affecting middle-class children as well.
Ironically, It’s our modern lifestyle That’s to blame for the recurrence of the old-fashioned illness. Doctors point to ?extensive use of sunscreen, children playing more time on computer games and TV rather than playing outside and a poor diet? as the culprits.