The world is set to mark the end of the year, and the decade, as 2019 comes to a close – and while spectacular firework displays are expected to herald in the 2020s across the globe, some threaten to be overshadowed by ongoing events.
In Australia, New Year’s Eve celebrations have been marred by wildfires which have threatened to cause mass evacuations in population hubs including Victoria in the east of the country.
Meanwhile Hong Kong has braced for fresh protests over Chinese influence in the region to interrupt festivities.
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The throng of revelers in the heart of Manhattan will get to see rap-pop star Post Malone, K-pop group BTS, country singer Sam Hunt and singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette during the big street party.
While giddiness will likely prevail at the televised event, some important global issues will be driven home, as well.
High school science teachers and students, spotlighting efforts to combat climate change, will press the button that begins the famous 60-second ball drop and countdown to next year.
Then comes the 3,000 pounds (1,360 kilograms) of confetti, accompanied by more pyrotechnics.
Revelers were converging toward the famous avenue to watch a light show at the Arc de Triomphe, followed by a fireworks display at midnight.
Paris police set up a security perimeter around the Champs-Elysees area with a ban on alcohol and traffic restrictions.
All metro lines in the French capital were closed except for two automatic lines, and only a few night buses were running, as Tuesday marked the 27th consecutive day of transport strikes against President Emmanuel Macron's plans to overhaul the French pension system.
Fresh from winning a large parliamentary majority in an election just over two weeks ago, Johnson said in a New Year's message that his first job was to ensure Brexit was delivered, more than three years after Britain voted to leave the EU, and then to heal the wounds the vote had opened.
"As we say goodbye to 2019, we can also turn the page on the division, rancour and uncertainty which has dominated public life and held us back for far too long," he said.
"Now we have a new parliament, elected by the people to deliver the peopleâs priorities, which will finally respect the referendum and deliver Brexit. So weâll get Brexit done before the end of this month," he added.
Johnson has already won initial approval for his EU divorce deal and the final stages of ratification will begin when lawmakers return after Christmas in time for a Jan. 31 exit.
He will then begin talks on forging a new trading relationship with the bloc, having said those negotiations would not be extended beyond the end of 2020.
With an eye on voters in northern and central England who broke their long tradition of backing the opposition Labour Party to support him in the election, Johnson also said the state-run NHS health service would be his top priority while vowing that extra funding for education and infrastructure would be spread "more fairly".
"We will do all of this while keeping your taxes low," he said.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex on Instagram: ““Wishing you all a very Happy New Year and thanking you for your continued support! We’ve loved meeting so many of you from around the…”
27.3k Likes, 713 Comments - The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (@sussexroyal) on Instagram: ““Wishing you all a very Happy New Year and thanking you for your continued support! We’ve loved…”Mr Khan said the capital will "project confidence" on the world stage through an impressive display at the New Year's Eve celebrations.
Speaking in the city centre ahead of the celebrations on Tuesday night, Mr Khan told the PA news agency: "Hand on heart, these are going to be the best fireworks London has ever seen."
He added the "world" will be watching the display and he hoped it would show London was a "global city".
He said: "Fairly or unfairly, people around the world saw the Brexit referendum vote as the UK somehow turning its back on the rest of the world, including Europe.
"The fear was, we would become insular, inward-looking, and what I'm keen to show is the opposite.
"Yes we may be leaving the EU, but very much as a city we are still a European global city. We will continue to be open to people's trade and ideas.
"What tonight's fireworks are about is demonstrating our confidence.
"And it's really important that we show the world who will be watching our fireworks that we are a confident, global, outward-looking European city."
The theme of this year's display will look ahead to the capital hosting several key games in the Euro 2020 football tournament.
The pyrotechnics show will feature more than 12,000 fireworks, with the display being set to a soundtrack "inspired by London and Europe", according to a spokeswoman for the mayor.
Big Ben's chimes will sound the start of the display despite them being silent this year while renovation work is completed.
Thousands of Indians ushered in the New Year by demonstrating against a citizenship law despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi's attempts to dampen protests that have run for nearly three weeks.
The protests have rocked India since 12 December, when the government passed legislation easing the way for non-Muslim minorities from neighbouring Muslim-majority nations of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan to gain Indian citizenship.
Combined with opposition to a proposed national register of citizens, many Indians fear the law will discriminate against minority Muslims and chip away at India's secular constitution.
The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Citizens' Register (NRC), which were part of the election manifesto of Modi's ruling Hindu nationalist party.
Protesters had planned at least three demonstrations in New Delhi, the capital, including the area of Shaheen Bagh, where hundreds of residents have blocked a major highway for 18 days.
Irshad Alam, a 25-year-old resident of Shaheen Bagh, stood with his one-year-old in his arm and his wife by his side. He said heâd been participating in the protest every day.
"It's freezing here," he said, "But we are still here because we care about this movement."
The streets of Edinburgh are filling up as Hogmanay revellers prepare to welcome in the start of a new decade and enjoy the UK's biggest street party.
Performances from Idlewild, Rudimental and Marc Almond will take place on stages throughout the city centre, while DJ Mark Ronson will usher in the new year, creating a new soundtrack ahead of the clock striking 12.
Approximately 100,000 visitors are expected to attend the event, according to organisers who billed the Hogmanay celebrations as the UK's biggest New Year's Eve street party.
TV stars Ant and Dec took to the stage in Princes Street Gardens early on Tuesday evening as crowds gathered, playing music and introducing the first firework display of the night.
Street theatre, circus acts and musical performances also took place up across more than a dozen streets, including the city's main throughfare Princes Street and its adjacent gardens, while ceilidhs danced their way into the night in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle.
There had been criticism of the event's organisation, amid uncertainty around how many passes residents were allowed, with Underbelly - which also runs the Edinburgh Festival Fringe - accused of creating "unnecessary confusion" by the council leader.
Speaking in his traditional televised New Year's eve address to the nation, Macron said: "The United Kingdom's departure from the European Union is a test for our country. I will strive to maintain a solid relationship between our two countries."
He also said he would push through an overhaul of the pension system, after weeks of nationwide strikes by trade unions.
In the same speech, he said he expected his government to quickly find a compromise with unions on the reform, but without departing from the principles laid out by ministers.
Unions are trying to force the former investment banker to abandon his overhaul of France's pension system with nationwide strikes since 5 December that have crippled public transport.
A measles epidemic in late 2019 claimed 81 lives, mostly children under 5.
More than 5,600 measles cases were recorded in the nation of just under 200,000. With the epidemic now contained, the Samoa Observer newspaper named as its Person of the Year health workers who fought the outbreak.
"Things like this don't happen to people like me," server Danielle Franzoni told The Alpena News.
Franzoni, 31, got the tip while working Sunday at Thunder Bay River Restaurant in Alpena. The credit card receipt said "Happy New Year. 2020 Tip Challenge."
Franzoni, a single mother, couldn't believe the number, but her manager assured her the tip was legitimate.
She said she was living in a homeless shelter a year ago. Franzoni plans to use the money to reinstate her driver's license and build savings.
"They don't know nothing about my story. They don't know where I've come from. They don't know how hard it's been," Franzoni said of the couple who left the tip. "They're really just doing this out of the kindness of their heart."
Franzoni later went to a restaurant and left a $20.20 tip.
"That was my pay-it-forward," she said, smiling. "I couldn't do the other one."
"Things like this don't happen to people like me," server Danielle Franzoni told The Alpena News.
Franzoni, 31, got the tip while working Sunday at Thunder Bay River Restaurant in Alpena. The credit card receipt said "Happy New Year. 2020 Tip Challenge."
Franzoni, a single mother, couldn't believe the number, but her manager assured her the tip was legitimate.
She said she was living in a homeless shelter a year ago. Franzoni plans to use the money to reinstate her driver's license and build savings.
"They don't know nothing about my story. They don't know where I've come from. They don't know how hard it's been," Franzoni said of the couple who left the tip. "They're really just doing this out of the kindness of their heart."
Franzoni later went to a restaurant and left a $20.20 tip.
"That was my pay-it-forward," she said, smiling. "I couldn't do the other one."
"Things like this don't happen to people like me," server Danielle Franzoni told The Alpena News.
Franzoni, 31, got the tip while working Sunday at Thunder Bay River Restaurant in Alpena. The credit card receipt said "Happy New Year. 2020 Tip Challenge."
Franzoni, a single mother, couldn't believe the number, but her manager assured her the tip was legitimate.
She said she was living in a homeless shelter a year ago. Franzoni plans to use the money to reinstate her driver's license and build savings.
"They don't know nothing about my story. They don't know where I've come from. They don't know how hard it's been," Franzoni said of the couple who left the tip. "They're really just doing this out of the kindness of their heart."
Franzoni later went to a restaurant and left a $20.20 tip.
"That was my pay-it-forward," she said, smiling. "I couldn't do the other one."
Thousands of Hong Kong revellers welcomed in 2020 on neon-lit promenades along the picturesque Victoria Harbour, breaking into pro-democracy chants as the clocks struck midnight after more than half a year of often violent unrest.
Protesters briefly blocked Nathan Road, a key artery leading through Kowloon to the harbour, after forming human chains across the Chinese-ruled city and marching through shopping malls, urging people not to give up the fight for democracy in 2020.
The protesters fled when police came to clear the road of umbrellas, street furniture and debris and a three-metre-tall skeleton of a metal Christmas tree. Several arrests were made.
Authorities had cancelled the popular new year fireworks for the first time in a decade, citing security concerns. A "Symphony of Lights" took place instead, involving projections on the city's tallest skyscrapers after the countdown to midnight.
There were small-scale pyrotechnics on waterfront rooftops, but the grandiose fireworks launched from vessels in the centre of the harbour, broadcast around the world every year, were absent.
The carnival atmosphere on the harbour was interrupted as parts of the crowd of thousands watching the show began chanting protest slogans, such as "Liberate Hong Kong! Revolution of our times" and "Five demands, not one less."
The latter refers to the goals of the anti-government movement, which include universal suffrage and an independent inquiry into alleged police brutality.
The protesters are angry at what they see as creeping Beijing influence in the city which was guaranteed wide-ranging autonomy when it returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997. Beijing denies interference and blames the West for fomenting the unrest.
Warren warns 'democracy hangs in the balance' in New Year's Eve speech
Democratic presidential contender Elizabeth Warren sought to reenergize her White House campaign in a New Year's Eve speech on Tuesday, warning that "democracy hangs in the balance" five weeks before nominating contests begin in early February.
In her home state of Massachusetts on the first anniversary of her campaign launch, Warren said President Donald Trump would "try to cheat his way through yet another election" if he is not removed from office after his impeachment by the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives.
"In the past 12 months, the president has become bolder with his lies and more brazen in his law-breaking," said Warren, who as a U.S. senator will vote on whether to convict Trump of improperly pressuring Ukraine for political favors. "Meanwhile, the Republicans in Congress have turned into fawning, spineless defenders of his crimes."
The race for the Democratic nomination remains fluid as the calendar turns to 2020, with 15 Democrats still in the running and a majority of voters telling pollsters that they have yet to settle on a final choice. The nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire in early February will be critical tests of candidates' viability.
Warren's address took place at a church in downtown Boston known as a gathering place for revolutionary colonists in the 1770s.
"We are a nation that fights back," she said. "Fighting back is an act of patriotism."
Warren remains a top Democratic candidate in national opinion polls but saw her standing slip since early autumn after a months-long surge that briefly vaulted her to front-runner status.
Festive events along coastal areas near the Sunda Strait were dampened by a possible larger eruption of Anak Krakatau, an island volcano that erupted last year just ahead of Christmas Day, triggering a tsunami that killed more than 430 people.
The country's volcanology agency has warned locals and tourists to stay 2 kilometers (1.3 miles) from the volcano's crater following an eruption Tuesday that blasted ash and debris up to 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) into the air.
A heterosexual couple who were among the first to enter into a civil partnership have hailed the law change for young people who "don't have to go up the aisle if they don't want to".
Ann "Pee-Wee" Chamings and her partner John Eccles tied the knot in a civil ceremony on New Year's Eve, marking the first day such unions became a legal alternative for mixed-sex couples.
The East Sussex pair were among those who took the fight for opposite-sex civil partnerships to the Royal Courts of Justice in London, pushing for a change in the law.
Ms Chamings said the ceremony at Hastings Town Hall, witnessed by their two children, was "just ideal" for the couple, who first met in 1975 and have been together for 43 years.
"Absolutely happy that we managed to get to this point, it's not that I don't believe in marriage, I think marriage is fine for some people, but it has connotations of patriarchal and religious associations that really didn't suit us," she said.
