Tragedy struck in Las Vegas on Tuesday when a police officer, who had previously served as a Marine, was fatally shot in the line of duty while attending to an incident involving an armed individual. Authorities have confirmed that the suspect was also killed during the confrontation.

In response to a distress call about a person brandishing a firearm and seemingly under the influence, officers and police drones rapidly descended on a business located in the 4500 block of East Tropicana Avenue shortly before 4 p.m., as reported by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

Officers engaged with the armed suspect near Mountain Vista Street beneath the Interstate 11 underpass. It was there that the suspect opened fire on them, leading to at least one officer discharging their weapon in self-defense.

The exchange proved fatal for the suspect, who was declared dead at the location.

A 30-year-old officer was wounded during the exchange and taken to University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said during a news briefing.

“A 30-year-old Las Vegas police officer was then worked on heroically by the Clark County Fire Department, other officers and EMS,” McMahill said. “He was transported to UMC where nurses worked to save his life.”

“Unfortunately, our officer has passed,” the sheriff continued.

McMahill said the officer was a Marine veteran who had served with the police department since November 2023.

“A person who served this country and this community,” McMahill said. “As you can imagine, I have lots of grieving police officers and a grieving community.”

The police department offered its condolences to the officer’s family and pledged to support them “in every way we can in the days ahead.”

Other law enforcement agencies also mourned the officer’s death.

“The Nevada State Police extends our heartfelt condolences to the family, friends and loved ones of the fallen officer, and to our partners at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department,” the agency said in a Facebook statement. “Our thoughts are with you during this difficult time.”

An Atlanta woman’s ordeal began with a grave cancer diagnosis that led to a life-altering surgery, only to reveal later that the procedure had been performed due to a laboratory mistake, as detailed in recently filed court documents.

Cassandra Barksdale, aged 43, received alarming news last March, when doctors mistakenly informed her that she faced a terminal diagnosis, confusing her biopsy results with those of another patient. This lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, brings her experience to light and has been reported by The Post.

Her journey began at Kaiser Permanente Southwood Medical Center in Jonesboro, Georgia, in January, where she sought assistance for uterine fibroids, following episodes of concerning bleeding.

The biopsy performed was mismanaged, as another individual’s tissue sample was misidentified as hers, according to information within the court filings.

By March 2025, Barksdale received the shocking news of being afflicted with “high-grade, aggressive endometrial uterine cancer.” Despite this, a later CT scan indicated there were no signs of cancer or its spread.

A doctor “recommended a total hysterectomy,” which included removing her cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries. She also had four lymph nodes removed.

Pathology reports showed no signs of cancer, but doctors recommended she should undergo chemotherapy. 

But in September 2025, doctors told Barksdale that the cancerous tissue belonged to a different patient. They were seemingly unaware they were living with the disease.

This was around four months after Barksdale was given the news she had cancer.

Barksdale alleged negligence and claimed she suffered “sustained, permanent and irreversible injuries,” and the plight has left her with a “fear of future medical treatment… and distrust.”

“My sons went into a deep depression,” Barksdale revealed at a press conference Tuesday, describing the impact of her plight on her family.

“I had to contact my kids to let them know that I have five years to live and that I’m going to die because I have aggressive cancer.”

“I started contacting other attorneys to try to get trust funds so that way I could leave my house and have trust for my kids. It took a big hold over my family.”

She admitted that while relieved she didn’t have cancer, she experienced some mixed emotions.

“I was excited that I didn’t have cancer,” she said.

“But I was still upset because the person out there that got my tissue and was thinking that they only have fibroids, they’re walking around for seven months thinking they only have fibroids, and I was the one with the cancer.

“So it made me feel very, you know, I was very angry and sad, and I was very concerned about the other person.”

Barksdale’s lawyer, Roderick Edmond, was bewildered that the tissue mix-up occurred.

“We’ve got computers, we’ve got science, we’ve got AI, how the hell did this happen?” he told reporters.

Kaiser Permanente acknowledged the error. 

“Ms. Barksdale should not have experienced this,” a spokesperson said. 

“We have highly trained staff and very thorough processes in place to prevent errors like this from taking place. After this occurred last year, we took immediate steps to ensure it could not happen again.”

Barksdale is seeking $10,000 in damages and a jury trial.

The family of a New York fashion designer, who was tragically discovered dead aboard a high-end yacht, is gearing up to pursue a wrongful death lawsuit against the vessel’s owner, a prominent investor.

Martha Nolan-O’Slatarra, aged 33, had arranged to meet Christopher Durnan on the evening of August 4, 2025, aboard his yacht named Ripple. The meeting, taking place at the exclusive Montauk Yacht Club in the Hamptons, was meant to discuss her swimwear brand, East x East.

However, what was supposed to be a business discussion turned into a nightmare when Durnan, around midnight, was seen running down the dock unclothed, desperately calling for assistance as he reported that his guest, identifiable by her blonde hair and blue eyes, had lost consciousness.

Good Samaritans rushed to board Ripple in a bid to save her, but their efforts were in vain as Nolan-O’Slatarra was pronounced dead onsite.

Seeking justice, the designer’s bereaved family has announced their intention to initiate a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit against Durnan, with plans to file it in New York Supreme Court. This legal action marks one year since they received the heartbreaking news of Nolan-O’Slatarra’s sudden demise.

It accuses Durnan, who is believed to have invested more than $200,000 in Nolan-O’Slatarra’s beauty boutique, of causing her death through assault and negligence.

The filing claims Durnan, a father-of-two, ‘intentionally and wrongfully assaulted’ the fashion designer without detailing the specific accusations against him.

It further accuses Durnan of gross negligence, recklessness and wanton conduct that directly caused Nolan-O’Slatarra’s death – either individually or in combination with one another.

The family is now seeking ‘to recover damages for the personal injuries and conscious pain and suffering sustained by Martha Nolan-O’Slatarra prior to her death’ as well as punitive damages and pecuniary damages to her family, according to the filing obtained by the Daily Mail. 

But the summons comes as the Nolan-O’Slatarra family continues to press the Suffolk County police for answers about her mysterious death.

‘We are in the same place where we were this time 12 months ago,’ a source close to the family told the Irish Independent.

‘We knew, and were being told, very little then — and we know even less now.’

Detectives have only said that an initial post-mortem examination ‘did not show evidence of violence and her final cause of death is pending further investigation.’

Sources have previously speculated that Nolan-O’Slatarra succumbed to a drug overdose after photographs from the plush yacht showed a dusting of mysterious white powder across a seat on the 50-foot cabin-cruiser.

However, sources close to the family told the New York Post that an independent autopsy they had commissioned showed the designer had only ‘trace amounts of cocaine’ in her system.

Instead, they claimed, it found some sort of assault led directly to Nolan-O’Slatarra’s death.

Durnan had previously been accused of assault when Michael Balfe, a retired firefighter, claimed in a 2022 lawsuit he was ‘viciously attacked, bit and assaulted’ during a gig at New York’s Webster Hall.

Balfe, 61, said the unprovoked assault on September 11, 2021 – the 20th anniversary of 9/11 – left him ‘seriously injured both physically and mentally.’

He sued Durnan for battery and Webster Hall for negligence, claiming security guards at the storied East Village venue, which has hosted the likes of Madonna, Metallica and U2, didn’t step in fast enough to protect him.

Criminal court filings reveal Durnan was arrested on misdemeanor charges, including possession of a controlled substance and assault, but pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and was handed a one-year conditional discharge.

He claimed, however, that he was acting in ‘justifiable self-defense’ and that Balfe was the ‘initial aggressor’ in their civil suit, which was settled in December 2023. 

An attorney representing Durnan now maintains that he was not responsible for Nolan-O’Slatarra’s untimely death.

Robert Holdman instead claimed that Nolan-O’Slatarra went limp between 10.30pm to 11pm on the night of August 4, and Durnan feared she was having a heart attack.

At that point, Durnan tried to perform CPR but it was to no avail, the lawyer claimed.

‘She was gone almost immediately,’ Holdman told New York Magazine last year. ‘She was non-responsive.’

The lawyer then went on to claim that his client stripped his clothes off that night because they were ‘soaked’ with Nolan-O’Slatarra’s vomit. 

Nolan-O’Slatarra arrived in the US about a decade ago and soon took to her glam new life in the Big Apple, telling The Irish Independent in a 2024 interview that she ‘loved’ living on the Upper East Side.

She was seen sipping champagne, taking a private jet to Nashville for a concert and cozying up to her sales exec boyfriend Nicholas DiRubio during a helicopter ride in TikTok posts.

The fashionista went on to establish several companies, including fashion accessories brand Duper and luxury swimwear label East x East.

But the petite designer was also involved in a legal dispute when a former employer claimed in a 2022 lawsuit that she stole $34,000 from a company bank account.

She denied the allegation, and the case was settled.

Nolan-O’Slatarra also married and later split from a man named Sam Ryan, finalizing an uncontested divorce just months before her death.

The Daily Mail has reached out to an attorney for Nolan-O’Slatarra’s family for more information. An attorney representing Durnan could not be reached for comment. 

In a tragic twist of fate, a grieving father is grappling with the appalling loss of his four beloved children, allegedly murdered by none other than their grandmother and mother in their upstate New York home. His words paint a picture of fury and heartbreak, as he declares that these two women deserve a “special place in hell.”

Sarah Myers, aged 44, along with her 64-year-old mother, Amy Steadman, were reportedly involved in a chilling plot to murder the children on June 10 before ending their own lives. This revelation was made public by Mechanicville Police Chief William Rabbitt on Tuesday, strongly aligning with the grave suspicions held by the bereaved father, Brady Harmon.

“I was certain my kids were murdered,” Brady Harmon conveyed to News10, clearly affected as new details emerged. “And now I know those two were responsible,” he confirmed, his voice tinged with a deep sense of betrayal and grief.

Brady Harmon’s tragic narrative unfolds with Harper, 13, Hudson, 11, and Gracelynn, 10, having succumbed to poisoning. Meanwhile, 10-year-old Gavin Harmon faced a brutal end, stabbed while attempting to defend himself, according to Chief Rabbitt, painting a harrowing picture of the children’s final moments.

“My kids went through hell,” Brady Harmon revealed in his interview with WRGB. “To poison them and to stab them is a monstrous act that deserves nothing less than a special place in hell.” His anguished words echo the unfathomable ordeal his children endured.

Brady Harmon, who had been locked in a bitter custody dispute with his ex-wife Myers, lives in Utah and hadn’t seen his children in person since November 2019.

His children were supposed to spend the summer in the Beehive State before they were killed.

Investigators revealed Tuesday they found a note written by Steadman which stated that “the author accepts responsibility for what occurred and states that they believed killing the children was the only way to keep them safe from alleged abuse in Utah.”

Cops also found letters they suspect were written by Myers where she also claimed her children had been abused.

“Although those writings were unsigned, the author repeatedly referred to ‘my babies,’ expressed anger toward the Utah family court system, made allegations that she and the children had been abused while living in Utah and complained that she had been unable to obtain legal representation,” Rabbitt told reporters.

“Whatever [Myers and Steadman] believed justified their actions, the deliberate murder of four children cannot be described as protection,” he blasted.

Brady Harmon has categorically denied the allegations, and Rabbitt revealed police could independently verify the claims.

Harmon had previously claimed Steadman didn’t want him to see his children.

Rabbitt revealed Steadman had visited several pharmacies in the days leading up to the June 10 killings – and had messaged her daughter about the sadistic plot.

Text messages included “discussions regarding obtaining medications, where the murders would occur, how those medications would be administered, how the children would be brought together, what they would be told and how suspicion could be avoided,” according to the police chief.

“In one exchange, Sarah Myers instructed Amy Steadman that the medications should be administered between 10:30 a.m. and noon so they could be finished before a scheduled telephone call at 6 p.m. with the children’s father,” Rabbitt said. 

Later that morning, “as the children failed to respond in the manner that Steadman and Myers had anticipated,” one of the women messaged the other saying: “‘It’s not working. We need another option,’” Rabbitt said. 

Gracelynn complained about her stomach hurting, prompting Steadman to message her daughter, “Gracie is aware.”

Investigators combed through Steadman’s internet history – where they found several sickening searches.

She researched medication reactions, with later searches including “Where is the most fatal place to be stabbed’,” which produced results about a specific artery as well as the neck.” according to Rabbitt.

Brady Harmon said he spoke with Myers on the day of the murder, and was told to call back the next day. 

Myers reportedly told him that the children were sick, but would be able to chat on June 11.

The bodies were not found until June 23 when cops swooped on their home carrying out a welfare check.

Days after the bodies were found, Rabbitt said the human remains were too badly decomposed, which made it difficult for responding cops to identify them.

Syringes were also found in Steadman’s home, leaving Brady Harmon with unanswered questions.

“They stabbed my son; they poisoned my children,” he told the Times-Union.

“All in the delusional state of, ‘We’re doing this for your benefit.’”

If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis and live in New York City, you can call 1-888-NYC-WELL for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the five boroughs, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.

In a dramatic lunar collision, a discarded SpaceX rocket launched by Elon Musk has made an impact on the moon, slamming into its surface at an astonishing speed of 5,400 miles per hour (8,690 km/h).

This wayward rocket, known as the upper stage of a Falcon 9, weighs a substantial 4,500kg and stretches 39 feet (12m) in length. Essentially, it rivals the height of a five-story building.

The impact occurred close to the Einstein Crater, positioned on the moon’s western hemisphere that directly faces our planet.

Experts suggest that the crash unleashed force comparable to the detonation of 15,000 sticks of dynamite, equating to approximately three tonnes of TNT.

While this cosmic event was expected to create a flash visible from Earth with the aid of telescopes, it remains invisible to the naked eye.

Due to the lack of wind and low gravity, the impact will also launch a cloud of dust and debris that will linger for tens of minutes.

Scientists and space agencies were carefully watching as the rocket approached, but we are still waiting to see if any pictures of the crash were captured.

Astronomers expect that the impact will carve a crater into the lunar surface roughly 27m across and five metres deep.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, in January last year.

It was carrying two private lunar landers, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost and ispace’s Resilience, into lunar orbit and was not intended to crash into the moon.

Parts of the Falcon 9 are designed to be reusable, safely returning to Earth after pushing the upper stages out into space.

However, other sections are simply jettisoned and left to drift through space, where they usually burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

However, after delivering the scientific instruments to the moon, the upper stage has been drifting through space under the influence of the moon’s gravitational pull.

Nasa’s Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), concluded that the rocket was on a collision course with our lunar satellite after independent astronomers noticed its dangerous trajectory.

Every year, the moon is hit by thousands of meteors that leave impact craters along its surface.

However, it is very rare for scientists to have such a good opportunity to see something with a known size and mass hit the moon.

Scientists hope to observe the flash, dust plume and crater to learn more about the moon’s history of collisions.

That data will become especially important in the coming years as the US and Chinese space agencies attempt to establish permanent human settlements on the moon. 

Without an atmosphere, there is nothing to protect the moon from asteroid impacts, which makes even the smallest space rock a potentially deadly threat.  

However, since the impact was on the very westernmost edge of the moon, it has proven significantly more difficult to observe than expected.

On X, veteran space photographer Andrew McCarthy reported that he ‘couldn’t see a thing’.

Two spacecraft in lunar orbit, Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea’s Danuri spacecraft, were nearby but neither was in a position to watch the crash live.

South Korea’s Danuri spacecraft was in the best position, having passed over the crash site shortly beforehand.

However, the South Korean space agency has told local news outlets that it will only be releasing images once analysis by astronomers has been completed.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, meanwhile, is in position to pass over the crater in the coming days, so observations may arrive soon. 

This is the second time that a piece of human-made debris has crashed into the moon.

The first incident happened in 2022, when pieces of a Chinese spacecraft left two craters on the far side of the moon.

These impacts don’t pose a threat to any human life, and the debris they kick up won’t affect the Earth.

However, scientists are beginning to become concerned about the growing mounds of human junk piling up on the lunar surface.

There are now roughly 3,000 human-made objects on the moon, with a combined weight of approximately 190 tonnes.

Some experts are concerned that this contamination could jeopardise future scientific studies of the moon’s surface, altering the chemical composition of the otherwise pristine environment.

Some researchers have even proposed that this could hamper the search for life among the stars, by obscuring any traces of life that could have been carried to the moon on asteroids and comets over billions of years.