10 things you need to know today: December 31, 2014

(Image credit: (REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva))

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1. Security Council rejects Palestinian statehood resolution
2. Russians protest anti-corruption leader's conviction
3. Indonesia resumes search as bad weather hampers recovery of AirAsia crash victims
4. Police gun deaths spike in 2014
5. Boehner expresses confidence in No. 3 House Republican despite racial controversy
6. Italy intercepts ship of immigrants after crew vanishes
7. New York arrests plummet following officers' murders
8. 1930s Hollywood star Luise Rainer dies
9. U.S. sends five Guantanamo prisoners to Kazakhstan
10. George H.W. Bush released from Houston hospital

last updated 13 January 2015

1. Security Council rejects Palestinian statehood resolution

The United Nations Security Council rejected a Palestinian resolution calling for establishing a Palestinian state by the end of 2017. Eight countries, including France, Russia, and China, voted for the proposal. The U.S. and Australia voted against the measure, and five nations abstained. The proposal needed nine votes to pass, and the U.S. was prepared to veto it. U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said the resolution included "unconstructive deadlines that take no account of Israel’s legitimate security concerns."

Several thousand Russians protested the conviction of leading Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and his brother on Tuesday. The unsanctioned rally amounted to one of the most visible opposition demonstrations in years. Police briefly detained Navalny and rounded up some of the other protesters, who could be charged for demonstrating without official authorization. Hours earlier, Navalny received a 3-and-a-half-year suspended sentence for fraud and his brother went to prison in a case widely considered political payback for Navalny's opposition to President Vladimir Putin.

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The first two bodies of AirAsia flight 8501 were returned to the Indonesian city of Surabaya as recovery teams launched a "massive search" for more victims in the Java Sea on Wednesday. Crews found debris and dozens of bodies on Tuesday, but bad weather hindered recovery efforts. The aircraft had 162 people on board when it disappeared on Sunday on the way from Surabaya to Singapore. Investigators have not yet found the plane's data recorders, which are crucial to determining why the plane crashed.

The number of police officers killed by firearms jumped by 56 percent in 2014, according to a report released by the nonprofit National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund on Tuesday. Fifty of the 126 police who died in the line of duty this year were killed with guns, compared to 32 officers in 2013. The report came 10 days after the execution-style killing of two New York City police officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos.

House Speaker John A. Boehner on Tuesday said he had "full confidence" in Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the No. 3 Republican leader in the House, after Scalise confirmed he addressed a white supremacist group in 2002. Critics from both parties have called for Boehner to push Scalise out of his job as majority whip, but Boehner praised Scalise for his integrity and character. "More than a decade ago, Rep. Scalise made and error in judgment," Boehner said, "and he was right to acknowledge it was wrong and inappropriate."

Italian authorities took over a cargo ship carrying hundreds of would-be immigrants on Tuesday after the crew aimed the vessel at the coast and left. Italy sent a naval frigate and a helicopter to investigate after a passenger on the Moldovan-flagged Blue Sky M sent a distress call as the ship passed Greece, although the captain had said the ship needed no assistance. The Italian sailors took control when they found no crew on board, and found that the ship had been programmed to crash into shore.

Several New York City police officers told the New York Post that they had stopped arresting people for minor crimes out of fear for their own safety after the Dec. 20 murders of two fellow officers. "I'm not writing any summonses," one officer said. "Do you think I'm going to stand there so someone can shoot me or hit me in the head with an ax?" The newspaper reported in a separate story that arrests in the city had dropped by 66 percent over the last week.

Luise Rainer, the first actress to win back-to-back Oscars, has died at age 104. Rainer won her Academy Awards in the 1930s for The Great Ziegfeld and The Good Earth, then left Hollywood at the peak of her career after a series of clashes with MGM boss Louis B. Mayer. The only other actress to win consecutive best-actress Oscars was Katherine Hepburn, for 1967's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and 1968's The Lion in Winter. Spencer Tracy and Tom Hanks achieved the feat in the best actor category, and Jason Robards won two straight supporting actor Oscars.

The U.S. has transferred five Guantanamo detainees to Kazakhstan, the Defense Department announced Tuesday. The transfers brought the number of prisoners moved out of Guantanamo this year to 28, the largest number since President Obama took office after making a campaign promise to close the controversial U.S.-run detention facility. With the departure of the latest detainees — three Yemenis and two Tunisians — there are 127 prisoners left at Guantanamo.

Former president George H.W. Bush has checked out of a Houston hospital and returned home, his spokesman Jim McGrath said via Twitter on Tuesday. Bush, 90, entered the hospital last week after experiencing shortness of breath. Bush, who served as president from 1989 to 1993, spent seven weeks in the same hospital in late 2012 with bronchitis and related ailments, and was gravely ill, but his health bounced back.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.