World prepares to ring in 2024

Jubilant crowds will bid farewell to the hottest year on record Sunday, closing a turbulent 12 months marked by clever chatbots, climate crises and wrenching wars in Gaza and Ukraine.

The world’s population — now over 8 billion — will see out the old and usher in the new, with many hoping to shake the weight of high living costs and global tumult.

In Sydney, the self-proclaimed “New Year’s capital of the world,” more than 1 million partygoers are expected to pack the city’s foreshore, despite uncharacteristically poor weather.