World welcomes 2025 with light shows, embraces and ice plunges

NEW YORK — From Sydney and Mumbai to Paris and Rio de Janeiro, communities around the world welcomed 2025 with spectacular light shows, embraces and ice plunges.

The New Year's Eve ball dropped in soggy Times Square, where thousands of revelers stuck it out in heavy rain to celebrate the start of 2025 in New York City.

Countries in the South Pacific were the first to ring in the new year, with midnight in New Zealand striking 18 hours before the ball dropped in Times Square. Auckland was the first major city to celebrate with thousands thronging the downtown area or climbing the ring of volcanic peaks for a fireworks vantage point.

Conflict muted acknowledgments of the start of 2025 in places like the Middle East, Sudan and Ukraine.

A few hours after Auckland, fireworks blasted off Australia's Sydney Harbor Bridge and across the bay. More than a million people gathered at the city's iconic harbor area for the celebration.

The celebration also featured indigenous ceremonies and performances that acknowledged the land's first people.

In New York City, crowds cheered and couples kissed when the ball weighing more than 5 metric tons and featuring 2,688 crystal triangles descended down a pole in Times Square.

In Pasadena, California, Rose Parade spectators were camping out and hoping for prime spots, while in Nashville, Tennessee, about 200,000 people flocked to a country music party.

Much of Japan shut down ahead of the nation's biggest holiday as temples and homes underwent a thorough cleaning.

In South Korea, celebrations were cut back or canceled during a period of national mourning following Sunday's crash of a Jeju Air flight in Muan that killed 179 people.

In India, thousands of revelers in Mumbai flocked to the financial hub's bustling promenade facing the Arabian Sea. In Sri Lanka, people gathered at Buddhist temples to light oil lamps and incense sticks and pray.

In Dubai, thousands attended a fireworks show at the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest skyscraper. And in Nairobi, Kenya, scattered fireworks were heard.

Rome's traditional New Year's Eve festivities had an additional draw: the start of Pope Francis' Holy Year, the once-every-quarter-century celebration projected to bring some 32 million pilgrims to the Eternal City in 2025.

Paris capped a momentous 2024 with its traditional countdown and fireworks extravaganza on the Champs-Elysees. The city's emblematic Arc de Triomphe monument was turned into a giant tableau for a light show that celebrated the city's landmarks and the passage of time, with whirring clocks.

London rang in the new year with a pyrotechnics display along the Thames River. With a storm bringing bitter weather to other parts of the United Kingdom, however, festivities in Edinburgh, Scotland, were canceled.

But in Switzerland and some other places, people embraced the cold, stripping and plunging into the water in freezing temperatures.

Rio de Janeiro threw Brazil's main New Year's Eve bash on Copacabana Beach, with barges shooting off 12 straight minutes of fireworks.

Agencies via Xinhua