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Good morning! It’s Friday, April 18. 🐣 Happy Passover and (early) Easter to all who celebrate. Our cold stretch is ending, and the weekend will bring June-like temps.

🛶 This weekend, the whole family can make merry for Shakespeare’s birthday at the Folger Library, get a roller derby crash course or kick off kayaking season. Check out more in The Weekend Scene.

Now, on to our top story covering major updates in the case of a mistakenly deported Maryland man. ⌚ It's is a 2-minute, 45-second read.

First, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen met last night with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who is being held in an El Salvador prison after being wrongly deported.

Van Hollen, a Democrat representing Maryland, confirmed the meeting in a post on X with a picture of the two talking.

"I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar," the senator's post read. "Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return."

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele also shared photos of Abrego Garcia on social media, writing on X, "Now that Abrego Garcia has been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody."

▶ WATCH

Sen. Van Hollen meets wrongly deported man in El Salvador

A White House spokesperson responded on X, writing: "Chris Van Hollen has firmly established Democrats as the party whose top priority is the welfare of an illegal alien MS-13 terrorist. President Trump will continue to stand on the side of law abiding Americans."

Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, released a statement reading in part: "My children and my prayers have been answered. The efforts of my family and community in fighting for justice are being heard, because I now know that my husband is alive. God is listening, and the community is standing strong.”

Van Hollen said earlier yesterday he was denied entry into the prison while trying to check on the well-being of Abrego Garcia, who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation. Read more about the visit here.

President Donald Trump and Bukele said this week that they have no basis to send Abrego Garcia back, 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. Trump officials have said that Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen, has ties to the MS-13 gang, but his attorneys say the government has provided no evidence of that and Abrego Garcia has never been charged with any crime related to such activity.

Meanwhile, the legal battle over Abrego Garcia’s fate continues in the U.S.

In a scathing order last night, a federal appeals court said the Trump administration’s claim that it can't do anything to free Abrego Garcia and return him to the U.S. “should be shocking.”

A three-judge panel from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously refused to suspend a judge's decision to order sworn testimony by Trump administration officials to determine if they complied with her instruction to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return.

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who was nominated by Republican President Ronald Reagan, wrote that he and his two colleagues “cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos.”

The panel said Trump's government is “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.”

“Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear,” they wrote.

Read more on the court’s decision here.

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4Most: Four more big stories

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that the U.S. may be ready to “move on” from efforts for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there is not progress in the coming days, after months of efforts have failed to bring an end to the fighting.

He spoke in Paris after landmark talks among U.S., Ukrainian and European officials produced outlines for steps toward peace and appeared to make some long-awaited progress. A new meeting is expected next week in London, and Rubio suggested that could be decisive in determining whether the Trump administration continues its involvement.

“We are now reaching a point where we need to decide whether this is even possible or not,” Rubio told reporters upon departure. “Because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on.”

The 20-year-old son of a sheriff’s deputy opened fire Thursday at Florida State University with his mother’s former service weapon, killing two men and wounding at least six others, investigators said.

Officers quickly arrived and shot and wounded the shooter after he refused to comply with commands, said Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell.

Authorities have not yet revealed a motive for the shooting, which began around lunchtime just outside the student union, sending frightened students and parents hiding for cover in a bowling alley and a freight elevator inside the building.

The News4 I-Team found six different nonprofit groups have spent more than $7 million airing ads on D.C. television stations promoting President Donald Trump and issues important to him since Inauguration Day,  according to public filings available online. 

Under federal regulations, the groups have no obligation to disclose their donors.

Almost as soon as the campaign-style ads started airing on D.C. television stations in January, viewers reached out to News4 with questions and concerns.

Some families of veterans are upset with a Maryland cemetery after it started removing memorials to loved ones without warning.

Families have purchased memorial benches that have been at Cheltenham Veterans Cemetery for years. They say the cemetery’s removal of some of those benches surprised them, and they want to know why.

Harry Weaver gets choked up when he talks about how his dad, Franklin Weaver, fought for his country.