By MEG KINNARD, Associated Press

There was the pool furniture in the background. There were the tropical drinks, which looked to be margaritas garnished with cherries. And then there were the deported prisoner and the American senator, sitting and chatting.

That senator, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, accused El Salvador’s government on Friday of aiming to paint the picture of a leisurely respite for the wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia by staging their meeting with drinks appearing to be alcohol, and angling to set the meeting by a hotel pool.

Van Hollen referred to the stagecraft with a term that had ricocheted around social media for much of the day: “Margaritagate.”

“Nobody drank any margaritas or sugar water or whatever it is,” the Democratic senator said, calling the whole situation “a lesson” in “the lengths that President Bukele will do to deceive people about what’s going on.”

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A Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland, Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.

U.S. President Donald Trump and El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said this week that they have no basis to return him to the United States, even as the Trump administration has called his deportation a mistake and the U.S. Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return.

During a news conference Friday at Dulles International Airport, just after returning from El Salvador, the Maryland Democrat said Bukele is aiming to “deceive” people about what happened during his meeting with Abrego Garcia, in part by posting a photo with drinks appearing to be alcohol.

When he and Abrego Garcia first sat down for a meeting at the hotel where Van Hollen had been staying, the senator said, they “just had glasses of water on the table, maybe some coffee.”

Subsequently, Van Hollen said, “one of the government people” on the sidelines of their half-hour meeting deposited other beverages on the table, with salt or sugar around the top — “but they look like margaritas.”

On X Thursday night, Bukele posted photos of Van Hollen seated with Abrego Garcia, including with the drinks, garnished with maraschino cherries.

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!” Bukele wrote, adding an emoji of a tropical drink.

Van Hollen also noted that the Bukele government had initially proposed that he and Abrego Garcia conduct their meeting poolside at the hotel, rather than in the restaurant setting where they convened.

“They want to create this appearance that life was just lovely for Kilmar,” Van Hollen said.

In Friday’s news conference, Van Hollen also revealed that Abrego Garcia told him that he was no longer being held at the high-security Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where he and others were initially taken upon leaving the U.S. Van Hollen said he was initially denied entry to the facility but surmised Friday that had been because Abrego Garcia had already been moved from there to a detention center with better conditions.

“They decided that it was not a good look to continue to detain Abrego Garcia without anybody having access to him,” Van Hollen said. He added that Abrego Garcia told him he had not had contact with anyone outside prison at all since he was removed from the United States.

It was unclear where Abrego Garcia was taken after the meeting with Van Hollen.

Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wiped away tears as Van Hollen spoke of her husband’s comments about wanting to speak with his wife. She did not speak during the news conference.

Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

At the historic St. Paul church where fire struck Thursday, the owner said Friday he’s trying to get the steeple secured so the sidewalk and roads around it can be reopened.

William Hanson in front of the former Trinity Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church in St. Paul on Friday, April 18, 2025, after a Thursday fire in the church steeple. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

William Hanson said he’s been keeping the church in Frogtown open around the clock for the last 10 years, allowing people to come in to pray or be prayed for. The city won’t permit him to reopen the church at Farrington Street and Sherburne Avenue until the steeple is steadied and an inspector ensures the property is safe.

The church was built in 1902 by Trinity Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church, according to the website of Historic St. Paul, a nonprofit preservation organization. Before Hanson, the building was home to Rock Temple Church of God in Christ, property information from the city shows.

Hanson said the church is owned “first by God, then me.”

“People come in all hours of the day and night,” Hanson said. “We’ve tried scheduled events, but it seems like they excluded more than they included.”

The church is also zoned for residential use and Hanson was in the basement, where he lives, on Thursday when he heard a loud pop.

“It sounded like the light bulb above me blew up,” he recounted. He went to the circuit box and saw one circuit was out, so he turned it back on. He looked around outside and didn’t see anything.

“I’m bald, but we continued to smell what smelled like hair burning,” he said. He went back outside 20-30 minutes later and saw the steeple was on fire.

Firefighters responded about 5:30 p.m. and extinguished the blaze. It was storming and preliminary information points to a lightning strike causing the fire, the fire department said Thursday.

St. Paul firefighters put out a fire in the steeple of the former Trinity Norwegian Evangelical Church at Sherburne Avenue and Farrington Street. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

St. Paul’s Department of Safety and Inspections came to assess the steeple and, due to its unstable condition, sidewalks and the street are blocked — Sherburne Avenue between Virginia and Farrington streets, and Farrington Street between Sherburne and Charles avenues. The closures will remain in place until the steeple is secured.

The church’s steeple was previously damaged by wind and hail, and Hanson said he made an insurance claim three years ago. He said the insurance company dropped its coverage of the property. After making calls to the insurance company throughout the last three years, he received word on Thursday that the company would provide enough payment to fix the steeple to be safe.

“Two hours later, lightning hit,” Hanson said. “… I’m in belief that God did this, so that the story goes out and other people come to help besides insurance companies.”

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Hanson previously received some insurance money for the steeple, but he said he was awaiting the rest he was owed because it wasn’t enough to fix it.

He saved the money and said he’ll use it to pay a contractor to secure the steeple, hopefully on Monday. When he gets the OK from the city, Hanson said he’ll also be able to move back into his living space and reopen the church to “start ministering again.”

Some people call Hanson “Rev.,” but he said, “I’m just a servant. … I just try to be available.” He said he gets no income from his ministering.

If the rest of the insurance money arrives, Hanson said he’ll use it to keep fixing the steeple.

One of the faces of the Twins’ future arrived on Friday when the Twins called up Luke Keaschall, one of the team’s — and Major League Baseball’s — top prospects.

Keaschall, ranked as MLB Pipeline’s No. 57 prospect, got the call in place of utilityman Mickey Gasper, whom the Twins optioned to Triple-A St. Paul. The 22-year-old Keaschall was drafted by the Twins in the second round of the 2023 draft and has done nothing but hit since arriving in their minor league system.

“He’s got a swing that, as you watch him, whether it be in batting practice or against live pitching, it’s very direct to the ball,” manager Rocco Baldelli said in February. “He’s got a very short swing. There is some strength to his body, his hands and to the swing itself. And he can run on top of that. He’s a good athlete. He’s going to be an exciting player to watch.”

Last year, between Class-A Advanced Cedar Rapids and Double-A Wichita, he slashed .303/.420/.483, adding 15 home runs in 103 games.

He did that while playing through elbow pain, leading to his season being cut short so he could undergo Tommy John surgery and be ready for the start of the 2025 season. In a way, he said during spring training, the injury helped him at the plate.

“I swung at better pitches because when I swung at bad pitches, it hurt a bit,” he said in February.

As a minor leaguer, he has played first base, second base and outfield, though he has yet to return to the outfield since his surgery, playing second base and DHing for the Triple-A Saints this year.

Keaschall’s addition to the roster comes as the Twins are banged up in the infield — Carlos Correa (wrist) and Willi Castro (oblique) left games earlier in the week due to injury.

To make room on the 40-man roster, the Twins designated reliever Matt Canterino for assignment. Canterino, one of the more interesting arms in the organization, has dealt with years of injuries, the latest setback coming this spring. The pitcher had shoulder surgery in March and is out for the entire 2025 season.

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Minnesota Wild veteran defenseman Jake Middleton is not an excuse-maker.

Following his team’s dramatic, come-from-behind, 3-2 overtime win in the regular season finale — without which they would be playoff spectators rather than playoff participants — Middleton took a good humored approach to the fact that he was on the ice for both of Anaheim’s goals, and the two late goals by his teammates spared Middleton any kind of scapegoat label.

“Forever grateful for those six guys that were on the ice with 20 seconds left,” he said, with a broad grin.

When the subject turned to the looming playoff series with Vegas, which beat Minnesota all three times they met in the regular season, Middleton pointed out that all three matches were the second night of back-to-back games for the Wild. But those who follow all 82 games know that the schedule was less of a factor than the injury report for Minnesota most of 2024-25.

Tuesday’s game versus the Ducks was just the 11th time in those 82 games that Wild coach John Hynes has had a full healthy roster from which to fill out his line chart. Prior to the clean bill of health on April 15, the last time Hynes had been offered all hands on deck was a Nov. 10 game at Chicago, when for sure a few young Wild fans were still picking through the last of their Halloween candy.

While nothing is beyond the realm of possibility in this season where some players have gotten to know the training staff better than they know their linemates, barring a fluke injury in practice over the next two days, Hynes will have a full array of healthy bodies at his disposal for Game 1 on Sunday night at T-Mobile Arena.

Most notably, that includes forwards Joel Eriksson Ek, who played in 46 of 82 regular season games, and forward Kirill Kaprizov, who missed exactly half of the regular season after a start which had the talented Russian legitimately in the conversation for the Hart Trophy, given to the NHL’s most valuable player.

“I think that’s a benefit, probably, for Ekky and Kirill that they were off for a long period of time,” Hynes said on Friday afternoon, meeting with reporters at the airport before the team boarded its Nevada-bound charter plane. “Now, that time isn’t easy. They had their own issues that they had to deal with. But I think the rigors of the season and the miles you put on as you go through 82 games, hopefully that can help those guys in the series when it gets rocking.”

While its easy to forget just how daunting the injuries were to the team’s nightly lineup on the way to a 45-30-7 record — good for 97 points — a glance at the game-by-game reports of who was in and who was out show that just a small handful of players went all 82 games without an injury-related absence.

The exclusive quartet includes defenseman Jon Merrill and forwards Matt Boldy, Marco Rossi and Freddy Gaudreau. Another forward, Gustav Nyquist, played in every game for the Wild after March 2, when he was acquired at the trade deadline from Nashville.

Thus, mood swings from early December, when Minnesota had the league’s best record, to late March, when it appeared the playoffs could slip from their grasp, have been both exhilarating and exhausting.

“All 82 games this year, you guys went through it with us, right? It was up and down like crazy,” said Middleton, who also missed time, including four games in April with an upper-body injury. “There was times we thought the world was ending. There was times we thought that we’d already won the league. You guys lived through it with us. I’m sure you’re feeling the same things we are. We’ve got a lot of fight in this room, and that’s kind of…what it’s been all year.”

So, the Wild will face the Golden Knights on Sunday without having to face a different opponent in a different rink the night before. And they will have everyone at their disposal, which is sure to throw a new wrinkle or two at Vegas as they scout their guests from the State of Hockey.

No excuses. The Wild were 0-3 versus Vegas in the regular season, which is one reason the odds-makers generally think a Minnesota appearance in Round 2 of the playoffs is a longshot. But with a healthy lineup in April, there are at least some optimists who see a way Minnesota could beat Vegas four times between now and early May.

“We’re back, right? Like we’re good. We’re confident,” Middleton said. “Especially this time of year. Anything can happen.”

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