Weekly News Briefs: Feb. 6

Local

Voting may be able to predict road safety

According to AJC, voting can predict how deadly the roads will be that year. The numbers were collected and analyzed by the former National Highway Traffic Safety Administration scientist Louis V. Lombardo and non-profit journalistic investigation site FairWarning.org. Their numbers were compiled from the 2015 U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting and 2015 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. They found that in year 2012, Republican states averaged more deadly car crashes per 100,000 people than states that voted Democratic. The top 14 states were all red, Wyoming taking the top spot at 24.74 deaths per 100,000, while the bottom 12 were all blue. Georgia is a red state.

 

National

Senate could change rules to approve SCOTUS nominee

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that it is possible that the Senate could lower the number of required votes to approve a Supreme Court nominee from 60 to 51, if necessary, according to CNN. There are currently 52 Senate Republicans, meaning that if the rule is not changed Republicans would have to secure votes from at least 8 other Democrats. Although McConnell did not rule out changing the rule, he did tell CNN that he was confident that Republicans would be able to approve Gorsuch without making the change.

 

Global

Anti-islamic state operation leads to more than 440 members detained

According to Global News, Turkish police have detained over 440 people for the possible to affiliation with an Islamic State (IS) group. 60 IS suspects were taken into custody Sunday morning in the capital, Ankara. According to Global News the majority of the  suspects were foreign. The operation happened simultaneously  in several cities along the border of Syria. Sanliurfa housed the largest operation, where 100 people were taken into custody and found material that was related with IS militants. 10 of the detained suspect were found to be minors. As a result of the multiple attacks, Turkey has increased their anti-terrorism efforts.