New Year's Eve | featured news

The death toll from a New Year's Eve stampede at a religious gathering in the Angolan capital Luanda has risen to 16, the state-owned daily newspaper Jornal de Angola reported Wednesday.

A small group of New Year's Eve revelers here ditched the traditional champagne toast, lighting up joints instead at a newly opened marijuana club... The club opened on New Year's Eve at 4:20 p.m. -- another significant number among pro-pot advocates -- to a small, but enthusiastic crowd of about a dozen people, all over the age of 21. Each member paid a $29 fee, allowing them to bring their own weed and smoke anywhere on the premises.

About 60 people were crushed to death in Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan overnight after a New Year's Eve fireworks display, an emergency official and state radio said on Tuesday.

... But as Monday nears, Seacrest is focused on this annual rite: "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest," which, with related programming, will blanket ABC from 8 p.m. until past 2 a.m. EST. Booking musical acts has been in the works for months, Seacrest says. Performers include Carly Rae Jepsen, Neon Trees, Flo Rida and Pitbull, as well as Taylor Swift, in the headliner position just before midnight.

Jennifer Perry isn't much of a drinker. Never has been, yet she's ready every New Year's Eve for the inevitable attention when she's out trying to have a good time....

A 12-year-old west Florida boy apparently struck by a bullet fired skyward during a New Year's eve celebration is improving, but remains in serious condition, authorities said Tuesday... Police believe that celebratory gunfire, possibly shot from miles away, wounded the boy.

Greece faces another tough year in 2012 but must stick to its program of austerity and reform to stay in the euro, Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said in a pre-recorded New Year's Eve address.

After a year marked by a wave of popular uprisings, deadly natural disasters and continued economic uncertainty, millions around the world are set to ring in 2012 with a party... As the clock strikes midnight around the world Saturday, people are ushering in a new year with fireworks and festivities, purpose and promises -- and a string of resolutions they'll no doubt break.

The U.S. population is expected to top out at close to 312.8 million people just around the time crowds gather to watch the ball drop on New Year's Eve, according to new census data released Thursday.

Nothing short of a new year's miracle: An Italian man shot in the temple while out celebrating New Years Eve in Naples not only survived the wound, but sneezed out the bullet.