By ROB GILLIES and JIM MORRIS, Associated Press

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Diana and Rick Bellamy initially planned to take a Caribbean cruise out of Houston before heading to Laurel, Mississippi, to visit the home of one of their favorite HGTV shows, “Home Town.”

The Calgary couple scrapped those plans and vacationed last month along Mexico’s Pacific coast instead, put off by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war with Canada, the insults he’s hurled at their homeland, and stories about American border agents searching people’s phones and detaining foreigners for minor reasons.

She found it ironic that she felt more comfortable traveling to Mexico than the U.S.

“I never thought I would hear myself say that,” Diane Bellamy said.

Trump’s attacks on Canada’s economy and threats to make it the 51st state have infuriated Canadians, who are canceling trips to the U.S. in big numbers. They also seem to have also flipped the narrative heading into Canada’s parliamentary elections on Monday, with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party surging after trailing far behind in the polls just a few months ago.

A steep decline

The U.S. gets more visitors from Canada each year than from any other country, according to the U.S. Travel Association, an industry trade group, which said the 20.4 million visits from Canada last year generated $20.5 billion in spending.

But there has been a big drop in foreigners traveling to the U.S. since Trump took office, and Canadians are no exception. There were more than 910,000 fewer land border crossings from Canada into the U.S. last month than in March of 2024 — a more than 22% drop — according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. An Air Canada spokesman, meanwhile, said Canada-U.S. flight bookings for April through September are down about 10%.

Trump brushed aside the decline in tourism to the United States on Wednesday, saying, “There’s a little nationalism there I guess, perhaps. It’s not a big deal.”

Traveler worries

Since Trump started his second term, there have been well-publicized reports of tourists being stopped at U.S. border crossings and held for weeks at immigration detention facilities before being allowed to fly home at their own expense.

On March 3, Canadian Jasmine Mooney, an actor and entrepreneur on a U.S. work visa, was detained by U.S. border agents in San Diego. She was released after 12 days detention.

Before Mooney’s release, British Columbia Premier David Eby expressed concern, saying: “It certainly reinforces anxiety that … many Canadians have about our relationship with the U.S. right now, and the unpredictability of this administration and its actions.”

The Canadian Association of University Teachers, which represents faculty and staff at Canadian universities, warned its members against nonessential travel to the U.S. due to the “political landscape” under Trump and reports of Canadians encountering difficulties crossing the border.

Academics who have expressed negative views about the Trump administration should be particularly cautious about traveling to the U.S., said the group.

“People are scared to cross the border. I don’t know what Americans are thinking, quite frankly. Are they that oblivious?” said former Quebec Premier Jean Charest, who has family in Florida.

Mike Sauer, who runs a community policing center in Vancouver, said he and his partner have no interest in traveling to the U.S. now because of Trump’s politics and border fears. One of Sauer’s concerns is that if a border guard were to check his cellphone, the guard might see his past purchases of marijuana, which is legal to buy in Canada and about half the 50 states but is still illegal under U.S. federal law.

“The States have a different view on drugs. They could certainly look at my phone and see I’m 420-friendly,” he said, meaning he’s marijuana-friendly. “I think it kind of depends on which border guard would have a problem with that and which ones wouldn’t.”

Dietra Wilson, 32, said when she was younger, she often visited Detroit, which is just across the border from Windsor, Ontario, where she and her husband, Ben, own a secondhand shop. She hasn’t visited much in recent years, though, and she said she’s heard of people’s worries about crossing the border since Trump moved back into the White House.

“It’s worrisome,” she said.

Ben Wilson, 37, also has qualms about trying to cross.

“Why would I want to?” he said. “Regardless of the tariffs, if I’m going to be stopped at the border for my phone or something somebody texted me, why go?”

Industry worries

The drop in Canadian tourism to the U.S. led California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a frequent target of Trump, to announce an ad campaign this month meant to lure Canadians back to his state, citing a 12% year-on-year drop in February.

McKenzie McMillan, a consultant with a Vancouver-based travel agency, The Travel Group, said the company’s bookings to the U.S. have dried up. “We have seen a near-total collapse of U.S. business,” he said. “Probably about a 90% drop since February.”

Lesley Keyter, the CEO and founder of the Travel Lady agency in Calgary, said she’s seen people actually forfeit money to cancel their U.S. trips.

“Even if they’re going on a Caribbean cruise, they don’t want to go down to Fort Lauderdale to get on the cruise ship,” she said.

Gillies reported from Toronto. Associated Press reporter Corey Williams in Windsor, Ontario, contributed to this report.

By JIANG JUNZHE, Associated Press

HONG KONG (AP) — Global markets were higher Friday after Wall Street rallied for the third day, driven by hopes for the Federal Reserve to cut rates.

The future for the S&P 500 climbed 0.5% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.1%.

In European trading, the CAC 40 in Paris added 0.7% to 7,554.56 and Germany’s DAX was 0.4% higher to 22,154.72.

British FTSE 100 increased 0.2% to 8,422.52 after the country reported better-than-expectation retail sales in March.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 surged 1.9% to 35,705.74 and the Kospi in South Korea gained 0.9% to 2,546.15.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng picked up 0.3% to 21,980.74, while the Shanghai Composite Index inched down 0.1% to 3,295.06.

The rally was boosted by hopes that Trump was softening his approach on tariffs and his criticism of the Federal Reserve, but China denied Thursday it’s involved in active trade negotiations with the U.S.

Tech stocks rose in China after some semiconductor import companies told Caijing Magazine that some chips made in the U.S. had been quietly exempted from the country’s 125% retaliatory tariffs.

The Lenovo Group rose 3.4% while the Chinese search engine company Baidu added 3.9%.

However, the shares of China’s largest semiconductor foundry, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, lost 2.8%.

Taiwan’s Taiex added 2%. India’s Sensex sank 0.4% after tensions with Pakistan over the Pahalgam terror attack.

The market in Australia was closed because of Anzac Day.

Wall Street’s rally kept rolling Thursday as better-than-expected profits for U.S. companies piled up in reports mainly from tech companies like ServiceNow and Texas Instruments, offsetting the uncertainties in the retail sector.

Federal Reserve officials boosted expectations for interest rate cuts as they said that they would slash the rate as early as June if Trump’s tariffs hurt the U.S. economy and job market.

The S&P 500 charged 2% higher to 5,484.77 and pulled within 11% of its record set earlier this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.2% to 40,093.40, while the Nasdaq composite jumped 2.7% to 17,166.04.

In other moves early Friday, U.S. benchmark crude oil shed 15 cents to $62.64 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Brent crude, the international standard, slid 13 cents to $66.42 per barrel.

The U.S dollar rose to 143.42 Japanese yen from 142.69 yen. The euro edged lower, to $1.1344 from $1.1391.

By COLLEEN BARRY, Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Heads of state and royalty will start converging on Rome on Friday for the funeral of Pope Francis in the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square, but the group of poor people who will meet his casket in a small crosstown basilica are more in keeping with Francis’ humble persona and disdain for pomp.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Argentine President Javier Milei are among the leaders arriving Friday, the last day Argentine pope will lie in state in St. Peter’s Basilica before his coffin is sealed in the evening in preparation for his funeral Saturday.

The Vatican said 130 delegations are confirmed, including 50 heads of state and 10 reigning sovereigns.

Paying respects

Tens of thousands of mourners have waited hours in line to bid farewell to Francis, who died Monday after suffering a stroke at the age of 88. A higher-than-expected turnout prompted the Vatican to extend the basilica’s opening hours overnight.

People attend a rosary prayer outside the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica, where the late Pope Francis will be buried, in Rome, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

By Friday morning, more than 128,000 people had filed past Francis’ open coffin placed in front of the basilica’s main altar to pay their respects. Mourners filed past at times praying, at times holding smart phones aloft — despite instructions not to — for a photo of the late pontiff laid out in red robes, a bishop’s pointed miter and a rosary entwined in his hands.

St. Peter’s Basilica remained open most of the second night, closing for just a few hours. Mourners began arriving before dawn, and sprinted into the piazza when security reopened the flows.

Giovanni Guarino drove from Naples with his girlfriend to make their final farewells to the Francis, moved by his work to help the young and disadvantaged.

“I hope that his successor follows the footsteps of Francis,” Guarino said.

The three days of public viewing are scheduled to end at 7 p.m. on Friday, after which Francis simple wooden coffin will be sealed.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell will preside over the closing and sealing of the coffin in his role of camerlengo, or interim Vatican administrator. A white cloth will be placed over the pope’s face, and a bag containing coins minted during his papacy will be put in the coffin along with a one-page written account of his papacy.

‘We will see each other again’

Roman neighbors and retired flight attendants Aurelia Ballarini and Francesca Codato came to pay respects to Pope Francis on Friday with very different motivations. Ballarini, 72, was coming to terms with her grief, and Codato, 78, was seeking forgiveness.

For Ballarini, the pope’s death leaves a hole in her life. While only 16 years younger than Francis, she considered him a grandfather figure. Every morning, she would log on to Facebook for his daily greeting, and respond “with a couple of words.”

“He gave everything, gave all of himself, up to the end,’’ said Ballarini. “I spent the last two days crying. I was not well after his passing — I can’t even say the word. For me he flew away. One day, we will see each other again.

Codato said she feels tremendous guilt toward Francis, having forsaken him out of devotion to one of his predecessors, St. John Paul II. When Francis became pope “he was an outsider to me.”

“I feel guilty, because through videos I have seen in these days, I have understood he was a man of enormous humanity, close to the simple people,” she said. “So I came to ask forgiveness, because I feel guilty towards him, like a worm.”

Cardinals ‘are in discussions’

The work of the conclave to choose a new pope won’t start until at least May 5, after nine days of public mourning.

Cardinal Baldassare Reina, center, leads a prayer for Pope Francis, at the St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Cardinals have been also been arriving in Rome, with 113 meeting Thursday morning to discuss church business. They will meet again Friday before taking a break for the weekend.

Cardinal François-Xavier Bustillo, who hosted Pope Francis during his last papal trip, to Corsica, last year, remembered Francis as “a free man” who “humanized the church without desacralizing it.”

He describe the atmosphere inside the meetings as “good,” but said they were not yet “at the point of decisions; we are in discussions.”

Papal burial

In keeping with Francis’ embrace of the marginalized, the Vatican said a group of poor and needy people will meet the pope’s coffin to pay homage to him when it arrives at St. Mary Major basilica for burial on Saturday. It has already become a point of pilgrimage.

The tomb is being prepared behind a wooden barrier within the basilica that he chose to be near an icon of the Madonna that he revered and often prayed before.

Photos released by the Vatican on Friday show the marble tombstone flat against the pavement, with the simple engraving in Latin that he requested in his last testament: “Franciscus”

Royals and leaders

Trump, who is traveling with first lady Melania Trump, is scheduled to arrive Friday, after Francis’ coffin has been sealed.

Among the other foreign dignitaries confirmed for the papal funeral are:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and first lady Olena Zelenska
French President Emmanuel Macron
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer
Prince William
Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Today is Friday, April 25, the 115th day of 2025. There are 250 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On April 25, 1945, during World War II, delegates from 50 countries opened a conference in San Francisco to create the Charter of the United Nations.

Also on this date:

In 1507, a world map produced by German cartographer Martin Waldseemueller contained the first recorded use of the term “America,” in honor of Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci (veh-SPOO’-chee).

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In 1859, ground was broken in Egypt for construction of the Suez Canal.

In 1898, the United States Congress declared war against Spain. The 16-week Spanish-American War resulted in an American victory, after which the United States took possession of the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam.

In 1915, during World War I, Allied soldiers invaded the Gallipoli (guh-LIH’-puh-lee) Peninsula in an unsuccessful attempt to take the Ottoman Empire out of the war.

In 1959, the St. Lawrence Seaway opened to commercial traffic, connecting all five Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was deployed in orbit from the space shuttle Discovery. (It was later discovered that the telescope’s primary mirror was flawed, requiring the installation of corrective components to achieve optimal focus.)

In 2014, city officials in Flint, Michigan, changed the source of its water supply to the Flint River in a cost-cutting move. The river water exposed Flint residents to dangerous levels of lead and bacteria, leading to a public health crisis that took five years to resolve.

Today’s Birthdays:

Actor Al Pacino is 85.
Musician-producer Björn Ulvaeus (ABBA) is 80.
Actor Talia Shire is 79.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is 63.
Actor Hank Azaria is 61.
Sportscaster Joe Buck is 56.
Actor Gina Torres is 56.
Actor Renée Zellweger is 56.
Actor Jason Lee is 55.
Basketball Hall of Famer Tim Duncan is 49.