It's New Year's Eve! Places to celebrate:

Real InterContinental Hotel: Carnival costumes, dinner, champagne toast, 12 grapes, 6 p.m., Escazú, 2208-2122.

Fogo Brasil Restaurant: Music by Duvalier Quirós, Brazilian dancing, 7 p.m., Sabana Este, 2248-1111.

Hotel Canciones del Mar: Fireworks, tropical music by Grof y Grof, dinner, 7 p.m., Jacó, 2643-3273.

Villa del Sueño Restaurant: With Luis Castillo guitar and violin duet, gourmet buffet dinner, 7:30 p.m., Playa Hermosa, Guanacaste, 2672-0026.

El Gran Escape Restaurant: Eighth annual Mardi Gras-infused New Year's Eve bash, seafood extravaganza, dessert buffets, midnight champagne toast, comparsa music, fireworks, 8 p.m., Quepos, 2777-0765.

Los Sueños Marriott Ocean and Golf Resort: Fireworks, live music, 8 p.m., Playa Herradura, Puntarenas, 2630-9013.

Ramada Plaza Herradura Conference Center: With concert by Marfil, 8 p.m., Ciudad Cariari, 2209-9800.

Club Unión: Live music by Gaviota, 8:30 p.m., San José, 2257-1555.

Aurola Holiday Inn: Live music by Chiqui Chiqui, comedy show by Nel López, 9 p.m., downtown San José, 2523-1000.

Hotel Barceló San José Palacio: Buffet, music by Charlie Rivero and Son del Pueblo, dancing by Requete, cimarrona, 9 p.m., La Uruca, 2220-2034.

Copa Cabana: Live music by the Blind Pigs Blues Band, Jacó, 10 p.m., mfact2@racsa.co.cr.

Cell phones will be beeping across Costa Rica after midnight, as Ticos send more than 100 million "¡Feliz Año Nuevo!" text messages, according to Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE).

ICE services director Adolfo Arias told reporters SMS numbers late tonight will surpass those sent over Christmas Eve, which, in just six hours, hit 10 million.

During the Christmas holiday overall, ICE recorded 25 million messages.

Last New Year, from midnight to the wee hours of the morning of Jan. 1, 2008, Ticos sent 102 million cellular text messages.

The state telecoms agency said this year it has broadened its platform's capacity to 900 messages per second, twice last year's speed, to allow for more mobile season's greetings.

Motorists have begun to sweat in the high beams of Costa Rica's recently approved traffic law, which consists of harsher punishments for anything from failing to buckle up to driving under the influence.

Yesterday afternoon the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court received its first appeal by a man accused of drunken driving. The man, with the last name Fuentes, is appealing against a section of the new law that calls for a prison sentence for motorists caught driving while intoxicated, the court said in a statement.

Fuentes cited the World Health Organization's categorization of alcoholism as a disease and claimed the state should apply curative measures rather than criminalize drunken driving, according to the statement.

The case came after a week in which police arrested dozens of drivers for allegedly driving under the influence. Authorities said 26 arrests were made over the weekend in Filadelfia, in the northwestern province of Guanacaste, when people were purportedly driving after drinking at a party in the area.

The drivers' vehicles and licenses were taken away and could be held for up to two years, while the motorists could face one to three years in jail, TV channel 7's Web site, www.teletica.com, reported.

See http://www.ticotimes.net/topstoryarchive/2008_12/121208.htm for more on the new traffic law.

Palestinian groups in Central America yesterday protested after four days of Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip that have so far killed more than 370 people.

Carrying signs written in Spanish that said "Stop the holocaust in Palestine " and "Stop the terrorism by the State of Israel," protestors took to the streets of Panama City to call for an end of the offensive, according to newswire EFE.

The raids came in retaliation for Palestinian militants' repeated rocket attacks on Israel.

Nicaraguan daily El Nuevo Diario reported Palestinian émigrés in that Central American country also slammed Israel for the attacks, comparing the Middle Eastern state's actions to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

UN General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, of Nicaragua, said in a statement that "the behavior by Israel in bombarding Gaza is simply the commission of wanton aggression by a very powerful state," according to newswire AFP.

Yesterday Israel said it might try a 48-hour suspension of its attack in Gaza to test the prospects for a cease-fire with the Palestinians, U.S. daily the Los Angeles Times reported.