World welcomes 2025 with light shows, ice plunges

New York, Jan. 2: From Sydney to Mumbai to Paris to 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 revellers stuck it out in heavy rain to celebrate the start of 2025 in New York City.

Countries in the South Pacific Ocean 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 downtown or climbing the city’s ring of volcanic peaks for a fireworks vantage point.

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

American Samoa will be among the last to welcome 2025, a full 24 hours after New Zealand.

A few hours after Auckland, fireworks blasted off Australia's Sydney Harbor Bridge and across the bay. More than a million people gathered at iconic Sydney Harbor for the celebration. British pop star Robbie Williams led a singalong with the crowd.

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 almost 6 tons (5.4 metric tons) and featuring 2,688 crystal triangles descended down a pole in Times Square. The celebration included musical performances by TLC and Jonas Brothers.

The revelry culminated with a dance party and a carpeting of soggy confetti as attendees left singing along to Frank Sinatra’s version of “New York, New York.”

Angie Cuadradu, from Virginia, said she hopes 2025 is going to be great. “We’re sending positive vibes everywhere," she said.

Las Vegas’ pyrotechnic show will be on the Strip, with 340,000 people anticipated as fireworks are launched from the rooftops of casinos. Nearby, the Sphere venue will display for the first time countdowns to midnight in different time zones.

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

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

The upcoming Year of the Snake in the Asian zodiac is heralded as one of rebirth — alluding to the reptile’s shedding skin. Other places in Asia will mark the Year of the Snake later, with the Lunar New Year.

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

Rome’s traditional New Year’s Eve festivities have 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.

On Tuesday, Francis celebrated a vespers at St. Peter’s Basilica. During Mass on Wednesday he is expected to again appeal for peace in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Jan. 1 is a day of obligation for Catholics, marking the Solemnity of Mary.