Welcome to SBS News in Easy English, I'm Biwa Kwan.
People around the world have farewelled 2024 and celebrated the arrival of 2025.
Poor weather did not deter crowds in some cities from watching the fireworks and light shows.
Australia was among the first countries to welcome 2025.
It takes 26 hours in total for the new year to be welcomed around the world.
In Sydney, a million people gathered at the harbour foreshore to watch the world-famous fireworks.
This man says it is his first time seeing the Sydney fireworks.
"It was incredible, great way to start the year, great way to end the year. Beautiful. Best fireworks in the world honestly."
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The first Australian baby of 2025 was delivered at Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick on New Year's Day, a few seconds after midnight.
The child's mother says she was preparing to head down to the Darling Harbour when she suddenly began feeling pains and asked her husband to call an ambulance.
The baby's name is Shawn Cedric and he was initially weighed at three kilograms.
His mother, Siska Apriyanti Sim, says those around her were expecting her to deliver sometime during the holiday period.
"Everyone already tell me maybe in the new year. Before, everyone thinking it's Christmas Day, but after Christmas Day everyone say, no no, maybe new year at the night time, when firework coming, you go to hospital. And yeah, it's really like that."
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The intentional underpayment of workers is now a crime in Australia.
New laws have come into effect criminalising what's called wage theft.
The maximum penalty for an individual is either 10 years in jail, a fine, or both.
The maximum fine for a company is in the millions.
Government frontbencher Jason Clare says employers who do the wrong thing will get penalised.
"From tomorrow, wage theft becomes illegal. From tomorrow, wage theft becomes a criminal act. You can go to jail for up to 10 years or cop a fine of up to 8 million dollars. This is serious. For companies who deliberately underpay their workers, who steal money off their workers, now what you're doing is a crime. And you will have to pay for it."
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The Royal Australian Mint has produced the very first coin of 2025.
More than 300 people lined up on New Year's Day to participate in the raffle for the chance to be the first person to mint a coin anywhere in the world for 2025.
Many travelled to Canberra from cities around Australia - and 99 of them got their hands on one of the first 100 collectable coins.
But there could only be one lucky winner that walked away with the coveted piece of history.
Daniella Vido says she views this latest coin as a special addition to her collection of hundreds of coins.
"Very excited. I did not think I was going to win. So very lucky. I keep every coin I find. I will cherish this one especially forever."
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Woolworths has reversed a controversial decision to not sell Australia Day merchandise this year.
Australia's largest supermarket chain has confirmed it will embrace the occasion with speciality food instore and merchandise available online.
It follows public outcry last year - including calls from Opposition Leader Peter Dutton for its then CEO to resign - despite the group saying there was a decline in the in-store demand for such products.
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To sports, in Tennis, the doubles adventure of Nick Kyrgios and Novak Djokovic has come to an end in the second round of the Brisbane International.
Dubbed the odd couple of tennis, the duo went down to the top seeded pairing for the tournament Nikola Mektić and Michael Venus.
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And Australia has been eliminated from the United Cup despite Alex de Minaur [[me-nor]] winning both his singles and doubles matches.
Although Australia defeated Great Britain 2-1 in Sydney, the home team were knocked out of the United Cup as Great Britain advanced to the quarterfinals.
Australia's captain Lleyton Hewitt says he is proud of the team.
"Yeah, I'm extremely proud of the guys being able to turn it around and get the win in the end. We knew coming in today that it was going to be awfully tough. And potentially it could come back on some kind of countback with the games and sets or whatever, as well. And trying not to win our grouup potentially, but potentially be the best second-placed team. And obviously made it pretty tough going into that double for these two. But they left it all out there. And got awfully close there at one stage. So it was nice that they could walk away and win the tie for us."
That was SBS News in Easy English, I'm Biwa Kwan.
