At Times Square party, New York pauses

Regis Philbin reveled in his latest 'temp job.'
NEW YORK (AP) -- A century after the first New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square, hundreds of thousands of revelers crowded the streets and sidewalks Friday to welcome 2005, while taking a moment to mourn the devastation of the South Asian tsunami.
Departing Secretary of State Colin Powell, a native New Yorker, was invited to press the button at 11:59 p.m. that sent a 1,000-pound Waterford crystal-covered ball on its final 60-second descent into the new year.
"In my lifetime I've served in many places around the world, and wherever I happened to be the turn of the year just didn't feel right unless I had in some way seen or heard about the ball coming down on time and all of the hundreds of thousands of people in Times Square cheering, cheering, cheering," Powell said Friday.
At 8:15 p.m., the crowd quieted to mark a moment of silence in Times Square to honor those killed in the earthquake and tsunami in South Asia.
"I think we all have to look in the mirror tonight before we go to bed and recognize just how lucky we are and that not everyone else is so lucky," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
For the first time in 32 years, the celebration took place without Dick Clark, the TV personality-producer who is recovering from a stroke. The daytime talk-show host Regis Philbin will fill in for the 75-year-old Clark on ABC-TV's "New Year's Rockin' Eve."
Philbin calls it "the greatest 'temp job' in the world."
Friday rains
Along the route of the Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif., a huge crowd started gathering Friday after the morning's heavy rain subsided. There was only a 20 percent chance of light showers when the parade begins this morning.
The parade will include a 50-foot robot, the debut entry from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology.
Louise Mannion, 75, traveled from South Carolina to aid the effort by Caltech, where her son, Tom Mannion, is assistant vice president for student affairs. "I did the world yesterday," said Mannion, describing a globe float.
In New York, as in recent years, police boats, helicopters, bomb squads and thousands of officers will be on duty, and officers armed with radiation detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs will patrol Times Square.
More than 10 hours before the ball dropped, James Reavis, of Butte, Mont., stood at 43rd Street and Seventh Avenue to stake out what he called "probably the most valuable ground in New York City today," a spot with a clear view of the New Year's ball.
Many of the revelers said the South Asian tragedy would be on their minds.
"You still have to remember what's going on in the world because it affects everybody and it should affect the celebration," said Chris Lawrence, 21, of Newburgh, N.Y.
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