A BRIGHT START TO NEW YEAR
PEOPLE around the world welcomed in 2018 with traditional fireworks displays, partying and an array of local traditions.
In London, crowds swamped the banks of the Thames for the 12-minute display after Big Ben’s chimes rung out across the capital at midnight, having been turned back on for the festive period.
New Yorkers, celebrity entertainers and tourists packed into a frigid Times Square to mark the start of 2018 with a glittering crystal ball drop, a burst of more than a ton of confetti and fireworks.
Other huge displays took place near Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, in Dubai at the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, above the ancient Acropolis in Athens, and in Paris near the Arc de Triomphe.
About 100 people gathered outside the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey, to remember victims of a New Year’s mass shooting a year ago.