By TRAVIS LOLLER, Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from jail in Tennessee on Friday so he can rejoin his family in Maryland while awaiting trial on human smuggling charges.

The Salvadoran national’s case became a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda after he was mistakenly deported in March. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, only to detain him on criminal charges.

Although Abrego Garcia was deemed eligible for pretrial release, he had remained in jail at the request of his attorneys, who feared the Republican administration could try to immediately deport him again if he were freed. Those fears were somewhat allayed by a recent ruling in a separate case, which requires immigration officials to allow Abrego Garcia time to mount a challenge to any deportation order.

FILE – Katheryn Millwee holds a portrait of Kilmar Abrego Garcia outside the federal courthouse on June 25, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

Earlier this week, Abrego Garcia’s criminal attorneys filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss the criminal case, claiming he is being prosecuted to punish him for challenging his removal to El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges, which stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was allowed to continue driving with only a warning.

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A Department of Homeland Security agent testified he did not begin investigating the traffic stop until this April, when the government was facing mounting pressure to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

Abrego Garcia, who had been held at the jail facility in Putnam County, has an American wife and children and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the U.S. illegally. In 2019, an immigration judge denied his application for asylum but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador, where he faces a “well-founded fear” of violence, according to court filings. He was required to check in yearly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement while Homeland Security issued him a work permit.

Although Abrego Garcia can’t be deported to El Salvador without violating the judge’s order, Homeland Security officials have said they plan to deport him to an unnamed third country.

The Wild and center Marco Rossi have agreed to a three-year, $15 million contract extensions, the team announced Friday.

Rossi, 23, finished last season with career highs in goals (24) and points (60) while playing 82 regular season games, the second straight year Rossi has played every game.

His rookie contract expired at the end of last season. This one keeps him under team control through 2027-28.

Rossi and general manager Bill Guerin are scheduled to speak with reporters later this afternoon.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Friday released transcripts of interviews its No. 2 official did with Jeffrey Epstein’s imprisoned former girlfriend as the Trump administration scrambles to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose a trove of records from the sex-trafficking case.

The disclosure represents the latest Trump administration effort to repair self-inflicted political wounds after failing to deliver on expectations that its own officials had created through conspiracy theories and bold pronouncements that never came to pass. By making public two days worth of interviews, officials appear to be hoping to at least temporarily keep at bay sustained anger from President Donald Trump’s base even as they continue to sit on other evidence they had suggested was being prepared for public release.

Maxwell recalled knowing about Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990, when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the New York Daily News.

“I may have met Donald Trump at that time, because my father was friendly with him and liked him very much,” Maxwell said, according to the transcript.

Maxwell said her father was fond of Trump’s then-wife, Ivana, “because she was also from Czechoslovakia, where my dad was from.”

This is a developing story; check back for updates.

PEMBROKE, N.Y. (AP) — A tour bus returning to New York City from Niagara Falls with more than 50 passengers crashed and rolled Friday on an interstate highway, killing and injuring multiple people, police said.

The bus apparently lost control on I-90 near Pembroke, about 25 miles east of Buffalo. People inside were ejected as the windows shattered.

“At this time we have multiple fatalities, multiple entrapments and multiple injuries,” said Trooper James O’Callahan, a spokesperson for the New York State Police.

Rescue personnel work the scene of a tour bus that crashed and rolled over on the New York State Thruway near Pembroke, N.Y., Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (Libby March/Buffalo News via AP)

Several ambulances and medical helicopters transported patients from the crash. O’Callahan said most people on the bus were Indian, Chinese and Philippine, and translators were being brought to the scene. The driver survived.

“The bus was traveling eastbound right before the Pembroke exit and for unknown reasons the vehicle lost control, went into the median, overcorrected and ended up in the ditch, which would be on the right side of the roadway,” he said.

The Mercy Flight air medical transport service said its three helicopters were transporting people from the crash site to area hospitals. Erie County Medical Center, a Buffalo hospital known as ECMC, said it had at least eight patients by 2:10 p.m.

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Three other helicopters from other services were being called to the scene, as well as ambulances from multiple area agencies, Mercy Flight president Margaret Ferrentino said.

“It’s a very active scene,” Ferrentino said. “At this time we’re praying for the victims.”

The New York State Thruway Authority said a lengthy stretch of the roadway had been shut down in both directions and drivers were being urged to avoid the area.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on X that she was briefed on the “tragic tour bus accident” and that her office was working with police and local officials.

“There was glass all over the road and people’s stuff all over the road,” Powell Stephens of Medina told The Buffalo News after he drove by the crash. “Windows were all shattered.”