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Autism experts and advocates expressed alarm after the Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday it intends to create a database of enrolled Medicare and Medicaid patients to support a study aimed at identifying the “root causes” of autism.

Under the leadership of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will partner up to build the database, using insurance claims data, electronic medical records and wearable technology, like smartwatches.

In a release, Kennedy said the agency is “pulling back the curtain — with full transparency and accountability — to deliver the honest answers families have waited far too long to hear.”

An HHS spokesperson declined a request to make an agency official available to discuss the project, including how it will be implemented, how it will define autism and how the data will be able to identify its causes.

In a news release, the agency said researchers would focus on autism diagnosis trends, outcomes from medical and behavior therapies, access to care and disparities by demographics and geography, and health care costs.

Scientists have identified a variety of risk factors linked to the development of autistic traits — most of which exist before birth — including more than 100 genes believed to play a role in 60% to 80% of cases.

Experts who’ve already spent decades researching the disorder said they worry about patient privacy under the new plan.

There’s a “lack of clarity around how the data will be collected, how it will be shared, maintained, and how we know it’s going to be accurate,” said Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, a nonprofit group that helps to fund evidence-based autism research.

Singer said her team has been inundated with calls and emails from people in the autism community concerned over the lack of transparency from federal health officials about how their private medical data would be obtained and managed.

The database project doesn’t include input from the autism community and overlooks well-established genetic links to the disorder, experts say.

“We’ve had expert scientists who have been studying this issue for 20 years,” Singer said. “If there were one environmental toxin, I think we would have found it.”

The project, according to HHS, will focus on autism diagnosis trends over time, health outcomes from “specific medical and behavioral interventions,” access to care and economic burden.

In a statement, the HHS spokesperson said, “Wearable devices can provide continuous, real-world data on sleep patterns, physical activity, stress markers, environmental exposures, and more — all of which may help researchers identify early-life factors associated with autism spectrum disorder.”

The spokesperson didn’t respond to a question about how wearable devices would detect environmental exposures or who would be using them.

Michael Snyder, a professor of genetics and director of the Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine at Stanford Medicine, called the idea of using wearables to learn more about autism in general a “phenomenal idea.”

The challenge, he said, is that using wearables to get at the causes of autism would ideally require participants to wear them at an early age, before a diagnosis, and would also require a large sample size.

Snyder is leading a small pilot study with a wearable device his team invented that measures environmental exposures as well as sleep and activity levels, to see if there are any links to autism.

Singer said that currently, wearables are only used to alert teachers and caregivers to when an autistic person may become overwhelmed and overstimulated, and in need of a break.

“In the profound autism community, we’re using wearables to give an early warning as to when a meltdown might occur or self-injury may occur,” she said. “That enables someone to intervene.”

Autism community backlash

Autism and its possible causes have been an obsession for Kennedy over decades, starting with his false claim linking the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to the disorder — a connection that has been widely debunked by research from several countries. Experts predicted that Kennedy would revisit his mission as health secretary — which came true last month when he announced a study to identify the root causes by September.

Following a report published in April by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found a rise in autism rates in children in the U.S., Kennedy said the study would look at “environmental exposures,” including mold, food additives, pesticides and medicines.

Federal health officials were recently forced to walk back a plan to create a national registry of people with autism after backlash from the autism community.

The registry would’ve included data from private medical records, which autism advocacy groups warned could violate people’s privacy and lead to people with autism to avoid or refuse medical care “for fear of their data being shared without their permission,” according to the Autism Science Foundation.

It’s unclear how the new project, which will also rely on medical records, is any different.

Zoe Gross, director of advocacy for the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, said, “None of us have been consulted on this. Under previous administrations, both Democratic and Republican, we have had more contact with HHS and more involvement in major projects involving autism.”

“Had we been able to give input into this, we would have suggested more clarity and different research aids,” Gross said.

One of the largest providers of education tech paid off hackers so that they wouldn’t publish tens of millions of children’s personal information. But school districts are facing extortion attempts anyway.

The company, PowerSchool, missed a basic cybersecurity step, according to a cybersecurity audit obtained by NBC News, and was hacked last year, leading to one of the largest breaches to date of American children’s personal data. PowerSchool reportedly paid an undisclosed sum to the hackers in exchange for a video of them purporting to delete the files they had stolen, which included some students’ Social Security numbers and other information, like health and disciplinary records. 

But “a threat actor” is using that stolen data to try to extort schools and school districts in both the U.S. and Canada, according to statements from PowerSchool and various school districts issued Wednesday.

“PowerSchool is aware that a threat actor has reached out to multiple school district customers in an attempt to extort them using data from the previously reported December 2024 incident,” PowerSchool wrote in a statement Wednesday. “We do not believe this is a new incident, as samples of data match the data previously stolen in December.”

Public schools across North Carolina received extortion emails Wednesday morning, North Carolina Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Mo Green said in a public bulletin. The threat actor appears to have students’ and staffers’ names, contact information, birthdays, medical information, parental information, and in some cases Social Security numbers, he said.

Several Canadian school authorities have announced they are also among the victims, including the Peel District School Board in Ontario and the Toronto District School Board. The Calgary Board of Education also issued a warning to parents this week based on communication it had received from PowerSchool.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the current extortion attempt. PowerSchool said it believes that the threat actor is using data stolen from the original incident last year, indicating that the original hackers either are behind the current attempts or kept the data and made it accessible to other people.

“We have reported this matter to law enforcement both in the United States and in Canada and are working closely with our customers to support them. We sincerely regret these developments– it pains us that our customers are being threatened and re-victimized by bad actors,” PowerSchool’s statement said.

“As is always the case with these situations, there was a risk that the bad actors would not delete the data they stole, despite assurances and evidence that were provided to us,” it said.

It is not clear if other American school districts had been victims of the renewed extortion attempt. PowerSchool declined to name victims, saying only that it was aware of “multiple school district customers.” A majority of U.S. states have at least one school district that was affected by the original breach.

PowerSchool is one of the largest companies in the educational technology industry, which became particularly widespread during the Covid pandemic and uses software to streamline school processes. One of its primary programs helps school districts track students, and the company servers stored information like their names, family members, addresses and birthdays.

Improbably, Golden State beat a younger, higher-seeded NBA playoff opponent without its best player. 

Their challenge? Do it again and again — for at least a week.

After Warriors superstar Stephen Curry suffered a Grade 1 hamstring strain in Tuesday’s Game 1 victory at Minnesota, he will be re-evaluated in one week, the team said.

Based on the schedule of the conference semifinals, that timeline likely will lead the Warriors to be without Curry for the next three games, if not longer. Should the series reach a Game 5 on May 14, the series will take three days off before Game 6, a potential break for Curry’s recovery.

The 37-year-old Curry, the most prolific three-point shooter in NBA history and the cornerstone around which the Warriors four-championship run was built, leaves no ordinary void. And for his team, it poses no ordinary challenge, as Golden State has rarely before been forced to play without him in the postseason.

Though the predominant image of Curry’s first seasons in the NBA was of him on the sideline, struggling to deal with recurring ankle injuries, since undergoing ankle surgeries in 2011 and 2012, Curry has become an extremely durable playoff fixture. Since 2013, he has played in 155 postseason games while missing only 12.

He had gone seven years without a playoff absence, a stretch of 65 consecutive appearances.

That consistency was perhaps why, despite their stunning Game 1 win, the tone of Golden State’s postgame interviews was at times mournful rather than celebratory. His team understood it was about to deal with a challenge it had rarely encountered.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr recounted Curry’s mood at halftime as “absolutely crushed.”

Seeing Curry injured was a “little deflating,” Draymond Green said. Losing Curry means more than losing his 40% three-point shooting during these playoffs, which exceeds his career average. Curry’s mere presence pulls defenders toward him and away from teammates, an effect that is described in the NBA as “gravity” and which creates openings for others.

Because the Warriors have rarely needed to compensate without Curry during the postseason, there is little precedent pointing to how Kerr might adjust his playoff rotation for a multi-game absence. But the Curry-less Game 1 victory showed something of a blueprint, one that shifts the burden onto the 35-year-old Green, the team’s longtime defensive disruptor, and scorers Jimmy Butler and Buddy Hield, who combined for 44 points.

In many ways, this is the reason the Warriors traded with Miami for Butler at midseason — a bet that the 35-year-old’s All-Star-caliber talent and past playoff heroics while leading Miami to two NBA Finals appearances, could provide a margin for error for a Warriors franchise that is nearing the end of its dynastic run anchored by Curry and Green. Butler added 11 rebounds and eight assists to his 20 points.

Whether Hield and Butler can continue to replace Curry’s scoring will be a focus for the next week, but his team’s path to victory Tuesday and in the future appears on the defensive end. Minnesota scored only 11 points in the second quarter as part of a 31-point first half while missing all 15 of its first-half three-pointers. That poor shooting, and Golden State’s defense, led the three-point-centric Timberwolves to play out of character. Two-thirds of its shots came inside the three-point arc. They are now 4-0 when three-pointers account for around 40% or more of their total shots, and 0-2 when less.

In the second half, backup guard Pat Spencer — a former top collegiate lacrosse player who had played sparingly previously in this postseason — added to that effort with two steals off the bench. Jonathan Kuminga, a former first-round draft pick who was effectively out of Golden State’s rotation just one round earlier, was among the cast of reserves and backups who held together late leads and will be called upon to do the same again.

The Timberwolves are expected to be sharper. Their coach criticized the lack of tone-setting performance by star Anthony Edwards, who missed his first 10 shots, and Minnesota’s “diabolical” fast-break decision-making, which turned 18 Golden State turnovers into just 10 points.

It had other self-inflicted errors, too.

Of its 28 three-pointers taken when the closest defender was at least four feet away — what the NBA classifies as “open” and “wide-open” shots — it made just five.

It was enough to allow Golden State to hang on for 24 second-half minutes without their star. Whether they can pull it off again for potentially at least three more games will decide the series.

Most internal promotions don’t get this much attention. Most job selection processes don’t have centuries of history behind them — and few, if any, have a special name. 

But then, most job selections don’t end with a new pope. 

Catholic cardinals from around the world have converged on Vatican City for the conclave that will elect the successor to Pope Francis. The first day of of voting didn’t result in a pope, but if the pattern of the recent past holds, it won’t be long before one is announced. Data shows that conclaves don’t take as long as they used to. 

Conclaves were first used to elect a pope about eight centuries ago, with early elections lasting months, even years. 

It’s been nearly 200 years since a conclave took longer than a week, with modern conclaves typically taking two to three days.

The longest conclave of the past 200 years happened in 1831, when it took 51 days to elect Pope Gregory XVI.

The longest took place in the 13th century, before conclaves were formalized, when the process that eventually elected Pope Gregory X started in 1268 and ended in 1271. In all, it took two years and nine months, a process that led to the rules and procedures of conclaves.

Most popes choose their papal name upon election, a practice that’s been common for the past thousand years. For instance, Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio chose the name Francis upon being elected in 2013 — the first pope to use the name Francis. By comparison, there have been more than 20 popes with the most common name: John.

At the time of his death, Francis was the second-oldest pope in the last 400-some years.

Since 1600, more than 30 popes have served. Nine of those, including Francis, were 70 years of age or older when elected. And more than half worked into their 80s — something that’s happening more and more as the average age of popes climbs.

The former Memphis officers had already been facing time behind bars after they were convicted on some federal charges stemming from Nichols’ death.

A FedEx employee and aspiring photographer, Nichols was pulled over for alleged reckless driving at about 8:24 p.m. CST on Jan. 7, 2023.

“Get the f— out the f—-ing car!” an officer screamed while pulling Nichols out of his car.

“I didn’t do anything,” Nichols responded.

While he was on the pavement, officers could be seen using pepper spray and a Taser on Nichols before he fled on foot.

He ran toward his mother’s home, but pursuing officers eventually caught up with him about 80 yards short of that house, officials said.

Body camera footage showed Nichols being beaten and kicked while absorbing more pepper spray.

Nichols screamed “Mom!” as he was beaten during the second confrontation with police.

A police training officer and use-of-force expert testified for prosecutors and called the actions taken by officers against Nichols “unnecessary” and “excessive.”

The beating reflected a common law enforcement practice known as the “street tax” or “run tax” for abusing a suspect who flees, prosecutors have said.

Nichols’ death, three days after the beating, sparked protests against police brutality around the nation.

The victim’s parents were guests of the White House for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address just weeks later.

Air traffic controllers have been under strain for years, but a 90-second equipment failure last week exposed how decades of staffing shortages, underinvestment and patchwork solutions for those who guide planes through some of the world’s most congested airspace are taking their toll.

The outage also sparked hundreds of flight delays, disrupting travel for thousands of travelers for days — again.

What happened?

On the afternoon of April 28, air traffic controllers at a facility in Philadelphia who are responsible for guiding planes to and from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey faced dark radar screens and were unable to talk to planes for more than a minute.

The outage lasted about 30 seconds. It took another 30 to 60 seconds for aircraft to reappear on radarscopes, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Pilots for major U.S. airlines say they are specially trained to handle such outages.

But an outage of even a few seconds “is an eternity for air traffic controllers,” said Jeff Guzzetti, a retired air safety investigator for the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA.

The incident, which was not the first time equipment outages hit the facility, was so jarring some have “taken time off to recover from the stress of multiple recent outages,” the FAA said.

More than 1,500 Newark flights were delayed last week, according to FlightAware. United Airlines, which runs a hub out of Newark, said it was cutting 35 flights a day from its schedule to ease strain on its operation and customers.

A Newark runway has also been closed for construction, adding to disruptions.

New steps

On Wednesday, the FAA said it would beef up staffing at the Philadelphia facility and work to fix communication lines that feed data to controllers there for Newark flights. It said it plans to install a temporary backup system there to “provide redundancy during the switch to a more reliable fiberoptic network.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is set to announce a major upgrade plan for the U.S. air traffic control system on Thursday, which could require Congress to approve billions in additional funding.

“We have computers, and I kid you not, today in 2025, that are based on Windows 95 and floppy disks,” Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said in an interview in March.

The FAA last year said that the average age of its towers is 40 and that most radar systems are approaching 40 years old. “Aging facilities add risk to the system, including risk of service disruptions,” it said.

Accident draws urgency

The April 28 incident and previous outages didn’t cause any accidents but the failures raised more worries about an outmoded system and chronic shortages of air traffic controllers, particularly in the busy airspace around New York City.

U.S. air traffic controllers handle about 45,000 flights a day overall, according to the FAA.

The urgency to fix lingering problems reached a new level after a Black Hawk Army helicopter collided with an American Airlines regional jet on Jan. 29, killing all 67 people on board the aircraft. It was the deadliest air crash in the United States since 2001.

“It took a fatal midair airline accident to occur to get everybody’s attention,” Guzzetti said.

Why is Newark such a problem?

Newark is already dealing with space constraints to begin with.

It handled around 414,000 flights last year, 11% fewer than John F. Kennedy International Airport, in Queens, New York, according to data from their operator, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. But Newark is about half JFK’s size.

Technology glitches and staffing shortfalls have been especially hard on Newark in recent days. Last year, the FAA moved controllers who handle Newark from a facility on Long Island, New York — where planes are also sequenced to and from LaGuardia Airport and JFK in Queens — to a remote station in Philadelphia. The move was meant to ease congestion and strain on the Long Island facility, but there are still issues.

Air traffic staffing shortages have vexed airline executives who are eager to capitalize on strong demand but are constrained and face high costs due to a lack of controllers.

“Keep in mind, this particular air traffic control facility has been chronically understaffed for years and without these controllers, it’s now clear — and the FAA tells us — that Newark airport cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there in the weeks and months ahead,” United CEO Scott Kirby told customers on Friday, announcing schedule cuts.

Before April 26, four flights a day were canceled at Newark in April, on average, but that rose to 39 a day through Monday, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. About 80% of flights were on schedule in April before that date, but dropped to 63%, “far below industry norms,” Cirium said.

Slowing it down

Duffy has said air travel is safe. After a visit to the Philadelphia facility last week, he said that the FAA will slow, if not halt, arrivals altogether if there is a shortage of air traffic controllers.

United’s CEO, Kirby, told employees in a memo Wednesday that flying to and from Newark is safe. He said the carrier’s pilots have thousands of hours of experience and training on procedures to “follow to re-establish communication if controllers lose radio contact to navigate the airplane safely to its destination.”

Airlines have sought capacity limits to help the congestion, and the last disruption was no exception.

“United has been urging the US government for *years* to use its authority to effectively limit the number of flights to what the airport can realistically handle,” Kirby said in a note to employees on Friday. “Past failure to make those changes had led to the circumstances that United and, most importantly, our customers now face.” 

In 2016, the FAA eased flight restrictions at the airport and Kirby said the FAA should return to prior rules.

“It’s long past time to treat EWR like the crown jewel that it is,” he told employees in the Wednesday, using the airport’s code. “We’ll continue to work closely with the FAA and [Transportation Department] to get EWR fixed once and for all and deliver the country the first-class air traffic system it deserves.”

Adding air traffic controllers

The U.S. has around 10,800 air traffic controllers, well short of its full staffing goal by 3,000, according to the controllers’ union, the NATCA.

“Over the last eight years, we’ve had 146,000 applicants and we’ve hired 7,905 of those,” Chris Wilbanks, vice president of mission support at the FAA who is in charge of controller hiring and training, said in interview in March. “Less than 10% of the people that apply for the job actually make it to the [Oklahoma training] academy and then graduate to go out into the field.”

In the previous fiscal year, the FAA’s goal was to hire 1,800 controllers.

“We’ll lose 35% of those at the academy. We’ll lose another 20% once they get in the field, on the job training. So we don’t net 1,800 controllers,” Wilbanks said.

The grueling job requires air traffic controllers to retire at age 56, and applicants to the academy can be no older than 30. Many are forced to work six-day workweeks because of the shortages.

Duffy has recently moved to increase financial incentives, like higher pay for air traffic controllers. Starting pay is around $45,000, the union’s Daniels said, though the median pay for a U.S. air traffic controller is $144,580 a year, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

Police in Austin, Texas, are searching for a 9-year-old girl who vanished in 2017 after her 7-year-old sister was found “locked in a closet and starving,” authorities said.

Police received a 911 call on April 3 regarding a 7-year-old who was found in the closet of a home in Del Valle. Six other children were found in the home and “appeared physically healthy,” Russell Constable, with the Austin Police Department, said at a news conference Tuesday.

The 7-year-old was taken to the hospital and is recovering.

During an investigation, detectives learned that another child, Ava Marie Gonzales, was missing from the home. Authorities said Ava was last seen by family and friends in December 2017 when she was 2 years old. She was in the custody of her mother, Virginia Gonzales, police said in a news release.

Constable said Gonzales gave “conflicting information” to family members about Ava, and investigators have not been able to locate the child’s father.

He pleaded with the public for help.

“We don’t know where she is right now, and that’s what we’re trying to figure out, her current status, where she is, who she’s with, and if she’s safe and healthy,” he said.

Constable said Ava was never reported missing and authorities are “seriously concerned about Ava’s welfare given the circumstances in which Ava’s 7-year-old sibling was found.”

Police released photos of Ava at 2 years old as well as an age-progressed image of her.

The mother was arrested on April 24 on a charge of serious injury to a child related to the 7-year-old, police said. An arrest affidavit said the girl was found by her grandmother and was “malnourished, soiled and barricaded in a bedroom closet,” NBC affiliate KXAN of Austin reported.

The grandmother told police that the other children were allegedly forced to lock the 7-year-old in the closet because she was always trying to eat things she was not supposed to, according to the news station. One of the children said the 7-year-old was allegedly fed a hot dog or a corndog in the morning and given half a cup of water to drink.

The closet was about 4 feet 9 inches by 1 foot 10 inches and had boxes weighing over 75 pounds in front of it, KXAN reported. Police don’t believe any of the children were enrolled in school.

Gonzales is being held at the Travis County Correctional Complex on a $75,000 bond, online jail records show.

A 25-year-old Guatemalan man who had no prior police or criminal record, according to his family, was detained by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents on Monday at a gas station in Framingham, Massachusetts.

The arrest took place around 6 a.m. at a Shell gas station. Daniel Orellana was on his way to work when he was intercepted by ICE patrols. Now, his desperate family is demanding justice, claiming he was wrongfully detained.

“It’s not fair that he’s going through this and being treated like a criminal,” said Arquimedes Orellana, the young man’s father.

Orellana said ICE intercepted Daniel with their vehicles and asked him: “Are you this person?”

“My son answered, ‘I’m not that person. I don’t know him’… ‘Do you know him?’ ‘No, I don’t know him, I don’t know who he is, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m going to work right now, and let me answer my phone because my boss is calling me’… And they took his phone and, when they asked him his status, they obviously took him,” Arquimedes Orellana said.

Enrique Martinez, a Shell gas station worker, confirmed to Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra that the arrest took place inside the gas station and the vehicle was left abandoned.

After several hours of searching, his family managed to get hold of Daniel’s vehicle, and that evening they learned his whereabouts.

“We received a call from him saying that ICE had him,” his father said.

Zulema Alfaro, Daniel’s girlfriend, said she has been in contact with Daniel. “He has communicated with me, letting me know about the situation and that it was a misunderstanding, and they told him, ‘OK, but we’re going to take you anyway.’”

The Orellana family arrived from Guatemala fleeing violence there three years ago. Daniel was about to graduate with a law degree but had to leave everything behind to emigrate to the United States for his own safety, but without documents.

“I’m not against what the government is doing,” Arquimedes Orellana said. “I mean, I know the government is working to improve the country. I mean, he wants to see the country prosperous, and that’s excellent, but it’s not fair that they take innocent people, people who are productive for the country.”

A lawyer is assisting the family with the case, and they expect news in the coming hours.

Daniel is being held in an immigration detention center in Plymouth, and his family hopes this unfortunate confusion will be resolved so he can return home in the coming days.

Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra has requested information from ICE regarding the arrest but has not yet received a response.

‘Boardwalk Empire’ star Michael Pitt was arrested on Friday and charged with a series of sex crimes and assaults that occurred throughout 2020 and 2021.

Pitt is facing several charges in Brooklyn for four different alleged incidents, including two counts of sexual abuse in the first degree; one count of a criminal sexual act in the first degree; one count of a criminal sexual act in the third degree; two counts of assault in the second degree; two counts of attempted assault in the second degree and one count of strangulation in the second degree, court records state.

He pleaded not guilty to all charges and was released after posting $15,000 bail.

A Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office indictment accuses Pitt of using a cinderblock to carry out one of the alleged assaults in June 2021. In August of that year, Pitt also allegedly strangled someone.

The indictment does not indicate how many people are accusing Pitt of the crimes or what their relationship to Pitt is.

TMZ was first to report Pitt’s arrest. The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the indictment.

“Unfortunately, we live in a world where somebody like Mr. Pitt — an accomplished professional who would never so much as contemplate these crimes — can be arrested on the uncorroborated word of an unhinged individual,” Pitt’s attorney, Cary London, said in a statement to NBC News. “We look forward to proving his innocence through the evidence and not thru the media.”

Pitt, who has been divorced twice, is best known for starring in the HBO drama “Boardwalk Empire,” which aired for five seasons starting in 2010. Pitt also portrayed Henry Parker in the hit teen drama “Dawson’s Creek” on The WB in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Pitt will next appear in court in Brooklyn on June 17.

Five people were charged after a boat carrying migrants overturned Monday near San Diego, killing a 14-year-old boy from India and at least two others, authorities said.

The group, all Mexican nationals, was charged in two federal complaints, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California said in a news release on Tuesday.

They have been identified as Jesus Ivan Rodriguez-Leyva, 36; Julio Cesar Zuniga-Luna, 30; Melissa Jennelle Cota, 33; Gustavo Lara, 32; and Sergio Rojas-Fregoso, 31.

Zuniga-Luna and Rodriguez-Leyva were arrested Monday on charges of bringing in aliens resulting in death and bringing in aliens for financial gain, the attorney’s office said. They were found at a beach in Del Mar where witnesses observed the overturned panga-style boat.

Cota, Lara and Rojas-Fregosa — who officials said had previously been deported in December 2023 — were charged with transportation of illegal aliens.

The Coast Guard, lifeguards and sheriff’s deputies assisted in the search. Three bodies, including the teen, were recovered by law enforcement.

Four others were rescued and hospitalized, including the teen’s mother and father, who is in a coma, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

It was initially believed that nine people were missing from the boat. Eight of them were found Monday night after Border Patrol agents found a vehicle in Chula Vista, California, that had been at the scene of the smuggling incident.

“The driver of the vehicle fled the scene. During the investigation, Border Patrol Agents identified two other vehicles that were involved in the smuggling event and were able to successfully stop and arrest the drivers of these load vehicles and locate eight of the nine migrants missing from the boat,” the news release states.

The remaining missing person is the teen’s 10-year-old sister who is believed to be still missing at sea and presumed dead, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

“The drowning deaths of these children are a heartbreaking reminder of how little human traffickers care about the costs of their deadly business,” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said in a statement. “We are committed to seeking justice for these vulnerable victims, and to holding accountable any traffickers responsible for their deaths.”