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.

For a team that was average at best when playing at home in the regular season, the Minnesota Wild gave their fans in St. Paul a quick and noisy refresher course on how much fun you can have in the playoffs.

In their first home playoff game in almost exactly two years, the Wild jumped their guests from Nevada early, then pulled away late, beating the Vegas Golden Knights 5-2 on the strength of two Kirill Kaprizov goals and taking a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

Matt Boldy, who has been one of the NHL’s most prolific playoff scorers so far this April, added a goal of his own, and the Wild got 30 saves from Filip Gustavsson.

After never leading in Game 1 of the series — a 4-2 loss in Las Vegas — the Wild have not trailed, winning Game 2 by a 5-2 count after taking a 4-0 lead on Sunday, and grabbing leads of 2-0 and 4-1 on Tuesday.

Minnesota Wild center Marco Rossi (23) celebrates after scoring during the first period of Game 3 of a first-round NHL hockey playoff series against the Vegas Golden Knights, Thursday, April 24, 2025, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Vegas got 17 saves from starting goalie Adin Hill, who was lifted after 40 minutes. Akira Schmid came on in relief and stopped nine Wild shots in the third period.

Leading 2-1 in the second period, Minnesota appeared to be just hanging on as Vegas had the puck and the momentum. But Boldy re-established some breathing room with a highlight reel play for his fourth goal in three games.

From the far blue line, Boldy chipped a puck into the Vegas zone, then chased it down where he caught up to Knights defenseman Noah Hanifin behind the net. Boldy won the battle for the puck, then curled to the top of the crease where he beat Hill to make it 3-1.

The Wild got a power play with under two minutes remaining and beat the clock to take a two-goal lead. With under five seconds remaining, Kaprizov zipped a pass to Ryan Hartman on the edge of the right circle. Hartman glanced up at the scoreboard briefly, then threw the puck to the goalmouth, where it glanced off Kaprizov and over the goal line with 1.3 seconds remaining.

The Knights got a shorthanded goal from Reilly Smith in the latter half of the third.

The Wild’s penalty-killers, much-maligned all season, negated three Vegas power plays in the final period and were 4 of 4 in the game.

With Vegas on a man advantage and Schmid on the bench, Marcus Foligno hit an empty net with 1:33 left in regulation, sending the sellout crowd into a towel-waving frenzy.

Vegas, which bowed out in the first round a year ago after winning the Stanley Cup in 2023, got a first period goal from defenseman Alex Pietrangelo but has been frustrated by Minnesota’s defense for the last 120 minutes. Most notably, the Knights’ top line of Ivan Barbashev, Jack Eichel and Mark Stone has been kept in check, with zero points through three games.

In a series where power plays have been few and far between, the Wild got their third and fourth man advantage situations of the playoffs in quick succession early in the first period, and they got the crowd into the game in short order.

After a pass from rookie defenseman Zeev Buium, Kaprizov circled the offensive zone with the puck, firing a rocket from the blue line that beat Hill on the glove side for a 1-0 lead. It was the first NHL point for Buium, who was playing in his third career game.

Vegas killed the second penalty, but it couldn’t keep the Wild from doubling their lead.

With Minnesota’s fourth line on the ice, Yakov Trenin fed a pass from behind the net to Rossi, who was waiting in the high slot. Rossi got off a quick shot that found the back of the net for the Austrian center’s first career playoff goal and a 2-0 lead.

But with the teams skating four-on-four near the midway point of the first, Vegas defenseman Alex Pietrangelo ripped a slap shot from just inside the blue line that fooled Gustavsson between the knees. The goal seemed to ignite the Knights, who were the aggressors until the first intermission, but Gustavsson, along with seven blocked shots by the Wild, kept Minnesota in the lead after 20 minutes.

The shot-blocking began to take its toll in the middle frame, as Kaprizov took a puck off the skate that left him slipping off the ice with only one blade, and defenseman Brock Faber limped off on the next shift after putting his body in harm’s way. Faber returned a short time later.

The ice was tilted for the first half of the second period, with Vegas looking like the tying goal was coming at any second. But Minnesota killed its first penalty of the game, then brought the crowd back to life with Boldy’s individual effort to boost the lead back to two goals.

Game 4 of the best-of-seven series is Saturday afternoon in St. Paul, with the opening faceoff slated for 3 p.m. CDT.

Members of the Vegas Golden Knights and Minnesota Wild get into a scrum in the first period of Game Three of the First Round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Xcel Energy Center on April 24, 2025 in St Paul, Minnesota. (Photo by David Berding/Getty Images)

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