A small town in Mississippi is mourning after a police officer was killed, and two others were wounded in a shooting. 

According to the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, the shooting happened when officers with the Summit Police Department were performing their duties at a traffic checkpoint. 

During the interaction, a car approached, and a passenger fired a gun at the officers, hitting and killing one of them and injuring two others.

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves identified the fallen officer as Summit Police Department Patrolman Troy Floyd.

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Reeves said that Floyd “was killed today by a criminal, while heroically performing his duties as a law enforcement officer.”

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McComb Police Department Officers Tyler Harvey and Joey Roberts were shot and sustained non-life-threatening injuries during the shooting, Reeves said.

The suspected gunman has been killed, authorities said. 

The two other officers received non-life-threatening injuries and the suspect was killed. (Summit Police Department)

Reeves offered his condolences to Officer Floyd’s family and friends, saying that law enforcement “represent the very best of Mississippi.”

“Please join Elee and me in praying for Patrolman Floyd, for his family, his brothers and sisters in blue, and for the Summit Police Department,” he wrote in a X post. “Please also pray for a quick recovery for Officers Harvey and Roberts.  Our men and women of law enforcement represent the very best of Mississippi.”

“All of Mississippi stands with them as we honor and mourn this hero who has been taken from us too soon,” he said.

The shooting is under investigation by agents with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation (MBI).

Summit has a population of approximately 1,460 people and is about 75 miles south of the state’s capital, Jackson.

American families have faced painful financial difficulties the last few years, and a continuous concern of many families is a struggle to access high-quality, affordable child care.

We represent Virginia and Alabama in the U.S. Senate, and parents across both our states have repeatedly expressed frustration with the impediments to finding the care they need for their kids. 

More than half of all American families live in child care deserts. Many parents are forced to place their names on long wait lists. If they are lucky enough to get off a list, they face the daunting challenge of figuring out how they’ll actually pay for care.

The national average price of child care was $11,582 in 2023. In Virginia, families pay some of the highest costs of child care in the country, with the average annual price of center-based infant care exceeding $15,000 in 2022. In both of our states – Virginia and Alabama – child care costs for two young children are more than what the average family spends on housing. This is, unfortunately, the norm across the country.

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Exacerbating accessibility and affordability hurdles for families is the fact that 100,000 child care workers left the profession during the pandemic, with the child care sector shrinking 9.7% between February 2020 and September 2022. Even with the high cost of child care, the median wage for a child care worker is just under $15 per hour.

In a hot job market, many child care staff understandably leave jobs they love for higher pay outside the child care sector because they cannot otherwise pay their bills. The struggle to maintain staff in the child care sector has led to fewer options for parents.

The impact of the child care crisis does not end with families. It affects our country’s economic growth. A 2023 report found that the U.S. child care crisis has an economic toll of $122 billion in lost earnings, productivity and revenue every year. Tens of thousands of people miss work every month due to child care issues. 

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A 2023 study estimated the annual economic impact of the infant-toddler child care crisis on Virginia was over $3.1 billion in lost earnings, productivity and revenue. A 2021 study found that 64% of Alabama parents with a young child worked fewer hours due to a lack of adequate child care, and approximately one in five parents missed work that year due to child care challenges – the highest rate in the nation.

While Congress has passed legislation to help alleviate the child care crisis coming out of the pandemic, we still have work to do in order to create a long-term solution to help American families. That’s why we are joining together to introduce a bold bipartisan proposal to help working families access and afford high-quality child care and boost supply.

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Our proposal is twofold. The Child Care Workforce Act works to build supply. Our bill incentivizes child care workers and providers to stay in the industry by creating a competitive grant program for states, localities and tribes interested in adopting or expanding pay programs for child care workers. This additional pay will provide a boost for workers who want to stay in the industry but are currently priced out. 

For parents and families, we are creating several pathways to reduce cost. Through the Child Care Availability and Affordability Act we are increasing the size of the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, expanding access to more low- and middle-income families, allowing families to deduct 50% more in expenses via the Dependent Care Assistance Program, and increasing the maximum Employer-Provided Child Care Tax Credit to incentivize businesses to provide child care to employees – while retooling the credit to allow Main Street small businesses to participate. 

Together, these measures would lower the cost of child care for families, expand the choices parents have, encourage businesses to support child care supply, and get more resources to child care providers and to the child care workforce. 

While we continue to debate the future of federal child care policy, it is critical we find a path forward on actionable common ground solutions to make sure kids have safe, enriching places to learn and grow, child care workers are supported, and parents can participate in the workforce. 

Doing nothing is not an option. It’s time for bold, bipartisan action now.

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Republican Katie Britt represents Alabama in the U.S. Senate.

As the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua continues to expand its footprint in the United States, authorities say yet another member of the criminal enterprise is connected to the illegal immigrant accused in the brutal murder of a Georgia college student earlier this year.

Jose Ibarra, 26, is being held without bail for allegedly killing nursing student Laken Riley, 22, as she jogged on the University of Georgia campus in February. He has pleaded not guilty to a range of charges, including murder and kidnapping.

Authorities also arrested his 29-year-old brother, Diego Ibarra, for alleged green card fraud after they say he used fake identification to get a job in Athens. Both were suspected of having ties to Tren de Aragua, or TdA.

Their younger brother, Argenis Ibarra, who also entered the U.S. illegally and was deported twice before he joined them in Georgia, is also a suspected member of the gang, the New York Post reported Friday, citing Homeland Security sources.

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

An ICE spokesperson previously confirmed that the youngest Ibarra entered the U.S. twice illegally in 2023 — first on April 3 and then again three weeks later. He was taken into ICE custody after authorities found him in Athens, Georgia, while searching for Riley’s killer on Feb. 23.

Authorities around the country have been warning of the violent Tren de Aragua gang for months.

TdA members have been linked to a mob assault on police officers in New York City earlier this year — and more recently, Homeland Security officials warned that the gang was urging its members to kill police.

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Jose Ibarra appears in court for a status hearing in the Laken Riley murder case. (WAGA)

The gang has also been blamed for a spike in strong-arm robberies using motorized scooters as getaway vehicles, organized retail theft and human trafficking. According to federal prosecutors, it has established a presence in New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois and Georgia and continues to expand.

The gang’s imagery includes Chicago Bulls paraphernalia and tattoos of crowns, trains and other symbols, as well as the hand gesture pictured below.

The hand sign shown here, with index finger, pinky and thumb extended and the other fingers closed in, is a gesture often used by the Tren de Aragua prison gang, according to federal prosecutors. (Middle District of Georgia)

Tren de Aragua began its international expansion with a turf war across the Colombian border in 2018, according to InSight Crime, a nonprofit group that studies criminal organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Facing tough competition in the drug trafficking business, the gang took up human trafficking and smuggling instead.

Federal prosecutors say Tren de Aragua members often wear Chicago Bulls clothing, even when they have no ties to Chicago and are not fans of the team. Investigators found this photo among multiple images of Diego Ibarra, a suspected member of the gang, wearing Chicago Bulls items. (Middle District of Georgia)

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As it expanded, it violently seized territory from smaller local groups, according to the nonprofit. It now operates in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia and Brazil — as it grows in the U.S.