Federal agents intercepted a boat carrying 14 undocumented migrants off Newport Beach, marking the latest in a series of vessels suspected of transporting migrants near the affluent Southern California community.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations crew stopped the vessel south of Newport Beach at approximately 1:30 p.m. Friday, the agency told News Media.

Authorities said the passengers included 11 men, two women and an accompanied boy. All identified themselves as Mexican nationals.

Agents escorted the passengers and the vessel to a U.S. Coast Guard dock in Newport Beach. The 14 people were then transferred to Border Patrol for processing, while the boat was seized.

One passenger was checked for possible dehydration and seasickness. The person was in stable condition and was cleared by emergency medical personnel, CBP said.

“Maritime migration is dangerous and can too often result in death,” CBP said. “Illegal aliens should not embark on a dangerous journey. The United States border will remain closed to illegal migration by sea, air, and land.”

The interception adds to a growing number of suspected migrant-boat incidents reported in and around Newport Beach.

Surveillance footage obtained last month by FOX 11 Los Angeles showed another boat entering Newport Harbor. At least a dozen people reportedly disembarked before dispersing into the surrounding community.

In a separate incident last month, 37 migrants were rescued offshore after reportedly spending two days without food, water or fuel.

Cellphone footage from another incident roughly two years ago showed more than 20 suspected migrants leaving a panga boat in Newport Harbor and rushing toward waiting vans.

The recurring activity has led Newport Beach City Councilmember Erik Weigand to call for surveillance cameras near the harbor entrance.

“The last Saturday, then the Saturday before, and a few Saturdays before that. These guys have been trying to unload illegal migrants into our city and then off into the community,” Weigand told FOX 11.

Weigand is proposing the installation of two cameras using existing infrastructure near the jetties or seawall to monitor boat traffic entering and leaving the harbor around the clock.

He said expanded surveillance could alert authorities when suspicious vessels are approaching and give law enforcement an opportunity to respond before passengers make it to shore.

“Yeah, we have to have some sort of discussion, but it would be a feature for security,” Weigand said. “I think having technology is a good thing. If we can have eyes and ears on something that looks suspicious, we could send up a drone.”

Weigand said the broader concern is that authorities may have limited information about who is aboard vessels approaching the coast—or what those boats might be carrying.

“They could be smuggling drugs, they could be simply just be looking for a better opportunity in America, or they could be up to terrorist activities,” Weigand said. “We don’t know, that’s the problem.”

News Media has reached out to Weigand for additional comment on the recent incidents and his concerns about suspected maritime smuggling operations targeting the area.

For several weeks, Kirti had tried to carry on despite a nagging ache in her shoulder and upper arm.

But the sensation she described as an electric ‘zing’ was becoming impossible to dismiss. It travelled down her arm and, at times, reached her little finger. Concerned by what was happening, she arranged an appointment.

After hearing her symptoms, I explained that I wanted to begin the examination by looking at her neck. She seemed puzzled. The pain was in her shoulder and arm, she reminded me — not her neck.

I understood her point. Patients often ask why doctors examine an area that does not hurt. The answer is that nerves follow connected pathways, meaning pain can be felt far from the place where the problem actually starts.

In Kirti’s case, the source was her neck. Age-related changes in the joints and discs of her spine had irritated a nerve root, causing cervical radiculopathy — commonly known as a trapped or pinched nerve in the neck.

Many people are familiar with sciatica, in which an irritated nerve in the lower back — often because of a disc problem — causes pain down the leg. Cervical radiculopathy is a similar condition, but it affects the upper part of the spine.

Nerve branches leave the spinal cord through narrow openings between the neck bones. When one of these nerve roots becomes compressed, inflamed or irritated, symptoms can appear anywhere along the route it follows.

The result may be neck pain extending into the shoulder, arm or hand. In some cases, however, the discomfort is felt only in the shoulder or arm, with no obvious neck pain at all.

Other warning signs include pins and needles in the arm, hand or fingers, areas of reduced sensation and, occasionally, weakness.

Cervical radiculopathy becomes more frequent in middle age, and I regularly see it in women in this age group. Gradual wear in the neck’s discs and joints can reduce the space available for passing nerves.

Modern habits can add to the strain. Spending hours bent over a computer, looking down at a smartphone or holding a phone between the ear and shoulder all place extra pressure on the neck. Stress can contribute, too.

When people feel tense, they often raise their shoulders and draw their head forward in a protective ‘turtle’ posture. Combined with ageing joints, this repeated tension can leave the nerves increasingly irritated.

The condition is frequently missed because it is natural to assume that pain begins where it is felt. Like Kirti, many people conclude they have a shoulder injury and tolerate the symptoms for weeks or even months.

If the assessment focuses solely on the shoulder, the neck-related cause may go undetected. Standard painkillers may also provide little relief when the discomfort is coming from a nerve, leaving patients convinced that nothing will help.

Fortunately, most people improve with time. One of the most important parts of recovery is continuing to move.

Neck pain often makes the surrounding muscles tighten as they try to protect the area, much as you might keep an injured wrist still without thinking. Unfortunately, that muscle spasm can become painful in its own right.

As the muscles remain contracted, they can restrict blood flow through their small internal vessels. They may also tug on nearby joints and nerves, adding to the irritation.

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Pain then encourages even less movement. The shoulders become stiff, head-turning is avoided and the body remains guarded. Although this can feel sensible, it creates a cycle in which muscles and joints lose strength and flexibility, recovery slows and further spasms become more likely.

Gentle movement performed regularly can help interrupt that cycle by reducing stiffness, encouraging circulation and loosening tense muscles. Prolonged bed rest, once commonly advised, is more likely to prolong the problem than solve it.

That doesn’t mean pushing through severe pain – just carrying on with normal life and doing simple exercises. Mild discomfort doesn’t mean you’re causing damage.

There are even a specific set of exercises that cervical radiculopathy patients are recommended.

Do them several times a day, ideally after a warm shower when the muscles are looser. Slowly tilt your ear towards your shoulder, hold for a few seconds, then repeat on the other side. Lower your chin to your chest, then slowly look up.

Turn your head to look over one shoulder, then the other. Pull your chin back into a double chin and hold. Add shoulder shrugs and rolls. Move slowly, and stop if anything sharply worsens your symptoms.

Another important step is to take regular breaks from sitting, and raise your computer screen to eye level to avoid hunching the shoulders.

Heat relaxes tight muscles and cold eases pain – so a heat patch or ice pack, each for about 15 minutes, can help ease some of the uncomfortable symptoms.

Research suggests that managing stress matters to avoid the strain it puts on the joints. This is, of course, often easier said than done.

But relaxation, mindfulness, exercise and good sleep all ease the tension that makes us hunch and clench.

What I’d absolutely avoid is a neck brace or collar. They weaken muscles and prolong stiffness.

If symptoms haven’t improved after a few weeks, or you have weakness, see your GP, who may refer you to a physiotherapist.

In particularly severe cases, patients might be offered injections of local anaesthetic, often with steroid, into tight, tender knots in the muscle can help you get moving again, or steroid injections around the nerve root to reduce inflammation, which can make rehab easier.

Most neck pain is painful but not serious. But see a doctor if you have increasing weakness in your arm or hand, spreading numbness, pain that keeps worsening, or pain after an injury. In rare cases, this can be something serious like cancer.

Thankfully, for Kirti, the problem was indeed cervical radiculopathy and, with the right exercises sustained over several weeks, eventually solved.

But it worries me that so many patients are dealing with this exact injury without doing anything about it. So, if you have shoulder or arm pain, it’s always worth seeing your GP. Suffering like this is needless.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has so far rejected calls to commute Christa Pike’s death sentence, despite repeated appeals from her attorney. The failed execution has also raised constitutional questions that legal experts say have never previously been tested.

Pike, 50, is conscious and able to speak, according to her lawyers, in what they call a “medically unprecedented” recovery. She survived two doses of lethal injection a week ago, but state officials have not said whether another execution attempt will be scheduled.

“We’re in uncharted territory,” Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told USA Today on Tuesday.

Maher said the U.S. Supreme Court has not addressed since 1947 whether attempting to execute a person a second time could violate the Constitution. He pointed to the case of Willie Francis, a Black teenager who survived an initial electrocution after being convicted by an all-white jury.

“These are questions that have never needed to be asked before, and no one knows the answers,” Maher said.

Francis survived his first execution in May 1946 after the electric chair, nicknamed “Gruesome Gertie,” failed to deliver sufficient current. He was executed successfully the following year.

Maher said he believes a second attempt to execute Pike would “likely be unconstitutional.”

“Of all the unknowns we have at the moment, the only thing I’m certain of is that she should not be subject to a second one,” he said.

“She has already endured a torturous experience in that execution chamber.”

Lee, who is nearing the end of his time as governor, has continued to oppose commuting Pike’s sentence. Pike has spent more than 30 years on death row for the killing of her classmate, Colleen Slemmer.

Tennessee has suspended all executions scheduled for this year, but Lee has not ruled out putting Pike to death at a later date.

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The governor has said his “responsibility is to uphold the sentences that Tennessee juries have handed down.”

“The people of Tennessee have determined that the death penalty is the appropriate penalty for the most heinous crimes in the state.

“The people of Tennessee make that decision, and my job is to make sure that those sentences are carried out.”

Pike’s attorney, Stephen Ferrell, pushed back against the governor’s position, telling CNN on Sunday: “I don’t think that attempting another execution is going to bring justice.”

“The least that could happen now is that we at least take the death penalty off the table and start looking for what the future could be for her,” Ferrell told “CBS Mornings.”

Although Pike regained consciousness—something her lawyers described as happening “against all odds”—she sustained “severe damage” to her arms after two doses of pentobarbital were administered.

“Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery,” her lawyers said.

They also cautioned that it could be a “long time” before Pike is capable of participating in the legal proceedings surrounding her case.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., has called for Tennessee to restore electrocution as an execution method following the botched lethal injection.

“While there should be a thorough review of what happened and why the process failed, the answer is simple: bring back the electric chair and deliver justice for these victims swiftly,” said Blackburn, who is expected to win November’s election to succeed Lee. 

“As your governor I will do just that.”