Cities around the world welcome 2026 with thunderous fireworks and heightened security

From Syd­ney to Paris to New York City, crowds rang in the new year with ex­u­ber­ant cel­e­bra­tions filled with thun­der­ous fire­works or light shows, while oth­ers took a more sub­dued ap­proach.

As the clock struck mid­night in Japan, tem­ple bells rang and some climbed moun­tains to see the year’s first sun­rise, while a light show with som­er­sault­ing jet skis twin­kled in Dubai. The count­down to 2026 was pro­ject­ed on­to the Arc de Tri­om­phe in Paris, while in Moscow peo­ple cel­e­brat­ed in the snow.

In New York City’s Times Square, rev­ellers braved frigid tem­per­a­tures to cel­e­brate with the famed New Year’s Eve ball drop.

In Rio de Janeiro, crowds packed more than 4 kilo­me­tres (2 1/2 miles) of the city’s Co­paca­bana Beach for con­certs and a 12-minute fire­works show, de­spite high tides and large waves that rocked barges car­ry­ing fire­works.

Oth­er events were more sub­dued. Hong Kong held lim­it­ed cel­e­bra­tions fol­low­ing a re­cent fire at an apart­ment com­plex that killed 161 peo­ple. Aus­tralia salut­ed the new year with de­fi­ance less than a month af­ter its worst mass shoot­ing in al­most 30 years.

There was dis­as­ter in the Swiss re­sort town of Crans-Mon­tana, where a fire at a bar in the ear­ly hours of the new year was pre­sumed to have killed dozens of peo­ple.

Ball drop in New York City

Crowds bun­dled up against the chilly tem­per­a­tures cheered and em­braced as the New Year’s Eve ball cov­ered in more than 5,000 crys­tals de­scend­ed a pole and con­fet­ti fell in Times Square.

Rev­ellers wear­ing tall cel­e­bra­to­ry hats and light-up neck­laces had wait­ed for hours to see the 12,350-pound (5,602-kilo­grams) ball drop. The fes­tiv­i­ties al­so in­clud­ed Tones and I per­form­ing John Lennon’s “Imag­ine” just be­fore mid­night.

The tele­vi­sion hosts in­ter­viewed vis­i­tors who were at­tend­ing from such places as Flori­da, Mex­i­co and South Ko­rea, and read peo­ple’s wish­es for the new year. A sixth grad­er from Dal­las, Texas, told one of the hosts that he wants to get good grades in 2026 and have a bet­ter year.

Po­lice in the city had planned ad­di­tion­al an­ti-ter­ror­ism mea­sures at the ball drop, with “mo­bile screen­ing teams.” It was not in re­sponse to a spe­cif­ic threat, ac­cord­ing to NYPD Com­mis­sion­er Jes­si­ca Tisch.

Mo­ments af­ter the ball dropped it rose again, sparkling in red, white and blue, to mark the coun­try’s up­com­ing 250th birth­day.

A few miles away in a de­com­mis­sioned sub­way sta­tion, Zohran Mam­dani was sworn in as may­or dur­ing a pri­vate event just af­ter mid­night Thurs­day.

More se­cu­ri­ty in Syd­ney

A heavy po­lice pres­ence mon­i­tored crowds watch­ing fire­works in Syd­ney. Many of­fi­cers open­ly car­ried rapid-fire ri­fles, a first for the event, af­ter two gun­men tar­get­ed a Han­nukah cel­e­bra­tion at Bon­di Beach on Dec. 14, killing 15.

An hour be­fore mid­night, vic­tims were com­mem­o­rat­ed with a minute of si­lence, and the crowd was in­vit­ed to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with Aus­tralia’s Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty.

New South Wales Pre­mier Chris Minns had urged res­i­dents not to stay away from fes­tiv­i­ties, say­ing ex­trem­ists would in­ter­pret small­er crowds as a vic­to­ry: “We have to show de­fi­ance in the face of this ter­ri­ble crime.”

Shad­ows of war and dis­as­ters

In­done­sia scaled back fes­tiv­i­ties in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties dev­as­tat­ed by floods and land­slides in parts of Suma­tra a month ago that killed over 1,100. Fire­works on the tourist is­land of Bali were re­placed with tra­di­tion­al dances.

Hong Kong rang in 2026 with­out fire­works over Vic­to­ria Har­bor af­ter the mas­sive fire in No­vem­ber. Fa­cades of land­marks were turned in­to count­down clocks and a light show at mid­night.

And in Gaza, Pales­tini­ans said they hope the new year brings an end to the con­flict be­tween Is­rael and Hamas.

“The war hu­mil­i­at­ed us,” said Mir­vat Abed Al-Aal, dis­placed from the south­ern city of Rafah.

Around Eu­rope

Pope Leo XIV closed out the year with a plea for the city of Rome to wel­come for­eign­ers and the frag­ile. Fire­works erupt­ed over Eu­ro­pean land­marks, from the Colos­se­um in Rome to the Lon­don Eye.

In Paris, rev­ellers con­verged around the glit­ter­ing Champs-Élysées Av­enue. Tais­siya Gir­da, a 27-year-old tourist from Kaza­khstan, ex­pressed hope for a calmer 2026.

“I would like to see hap­py peo­ple around me, no war any­where,” she said. “Rus­sia, Ukraine, Pales­tine, Is­rael, I want every­body to be hap­py and in peace.”

In Scot­land, where New Year’s is known as Hog­manay, First Min­is­ter John Swin­ney urged Scots to fol­low the mes­sage of “Auld Lang Syne” by na­tion­al po­et Robert Burns and show small acts of kind­ness.

Greece and Cyprus turned down the vol­ume, re­plac­ing tra­di­tion­al fire­works with low-noise py­rotech­nics in cap­i­tals. Of­fi­cials said the change was in­tend­ed to make cel­e­bra­tions more wel­com­ing for chil­dren and pets.

In Crans-Mon­tana, Switzer­land, dozens of peo­ple are feared dead and about 100 oth­ers in­jured, most se­ri­ous­ly, af­ter a fire swept through a bar in the Alpine ski re­sort dur­ing a New Year’s cel­e­bra­tion less than two hours af­ter mid­night, po­lice said. —NEW YORK (AP)

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Sto­ries by TED SHAF­FREY and HAL­LIE GOLD­EN | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Hal­lie Gold­en re­port­ed from Seat­tle. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers around the world con­tributed to this re­port.