New York, Jan 1: Hundreds of thousands of revelers crowded into New York City's Times Square to watch the crystal-covered ball make its annual descent, ringing in the start of 2013.
The festivities followed a slew of others around the globe, from fireworks in Sydney and Hong Kong to the first public countdown in years in Myanmar.
New York City's countdown was the first in decades without television host Dick Clark, who died in April. One of the crystal panels on the ball was engraved with his name.
Some concerns from 2012 linger -- even in Times Square, some revelers checked their cellphones to keep up with news of lawmakers' efforts to skirt the fiscal cliff combination of expiring tax cuts and across-the-board spending cuts that threatened to reverberate globally.
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