The Third Incident, The Evacuation, and The Pell Grant

Mimi Brown breaks down the day. The third shooting incident around President Trump in just one month.  Fifty thousand people in Orange County, California evacuated after a chemical tank overheated. And a major change to federal student aid could reshape how Americans think about college. Plus, the Tuesday Two-Minute Take.

From the Black Effect Podcast Network.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Another day, another shooting near the White House. And today
we're learning new details about the suspect who opened fire
while the President was still inside. And fifty thousand people
in California are still displaced after a dangerous chemical triggered
mass evacuations.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
We got an evacuation notice and we had to get
out and notice, so we did.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
At A major change to federal student aid could reshape
how Americans pay for job training and college. It's Tuesday,
May twenty six, from the Black Effect Podcast Network. I'm
Mimi Brown. This is front page and here are the
day's biggest stories plus today on the two minute take,
Vice President Jade Vance has laid out who deserves federal

(00:48):
compensation and there's a question nobody in Washington is asking
stay with me. For the third time in one month,
there's been a shooting related incident near President Trump. This
time it happened right outside the White House. Investigator say,
a twenty one year old man walked up to a
secret service checkpoint near seventeenth Street in Pennsylvania Avenue over

(01:10):
the Memorial Day weekend on Saturday night, pulled a gun
from his bag and opened fire.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Shame is something like that? What happen right here in
this part of DC. But it's the world we live
in now when people need to be alert, keep their
head on a swivel, and we gotta be honest with ourselves.
If hatred is starting to control us, this is where
it can lead.

Speaker 4 (01:30):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Secret Service agents immediately returned fire, killing the suspect. A
civilian bystander was also shot during the chaos and remains hospitalized.
President Trump was inside the White House at the time
of the shooting, but was not injured. Journalists covering the
White House described hearing rapid gunfire before being rushed into
lockdown by Secret Service agents.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
What is that fum.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Federal officials say the suspect was already known to law
enforcement after a previous incident near the White House last year.
Investigators also say they found troubling social media posts that
included alleged threats towards the president, and with this now
marking the third incident near the president in just weeks,
federal officials are increasingly focused on what appears to be

(02:19):
a growing pattern of political violence around the White House.
Imagine being told you have to leave your home and
nobody can tell you when you can come back. That's
the reality today for roughly fifty thousand people in California
after a dangerous chemical tank and an aerospace facility in

(02:39):
Garden Grove overheated, triggering mass evacuations across multiple cities in
Orange County. Some residents are now staying in shelters, hotels,
or with family waiting for answers. Officials now say the
threat of a catastrophic explosion has been eliminated, but the
danger is not completely over. Whose are still working with
the tank around the clock because there's still concent learned

(03:00):
about a smaller rupture or chemical leak.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
We are happy to report that the threat of a
bloody is now off the table.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
That threat has been eliminated.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Our members went into that exclusions a zone again to
validate what we were seeing and get those temperatures. The
crack is there. We have verified that it's there and
the tank has released its pressure. Additionally to that, the
temperature has been stabilized and actually reducing.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
And for thousands of families, the hardest part right now
is the uncertainty, not knowing when they'll be allowed to
return home, get their medication, or even grab more clothes.

Speaker 4 (03:38):
Concerned because both my husband is physically disabled, my daughter's
mentally disabled, and I and you know they have breathing issues.
And I didn't want them to be around that chemical
because we weren't really telling us a whole lot, but
they were saying it was very toxic to your skin
and for you to inhale it. So I was really
nervous for them to get out, temper us to get

(03:59):
out together.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
And so far, air monitors have not detected dangerous contamination levels,
but evacuation orders remain in place as crews continue monitoring
the situation. It's Tuesday, which means it's time for Front
Page two minute take. Every Tuesday, I take two minutes
and give you one thought, one opinion, and one conversation

(04:22):
from the headlines. I think deserves a little more honesty
and a little more context. Sometimes it's politics, sometimes it's culture,
and sometimes it's something that someone said and didn't get
enough attention. So today we're talking about the one point
eight billion dollar fund the federal government is setting up
and the question that I think a lot of Black
Americans are asking. So Vice President JD. Vans has described

(04:44):
the fund this way.

Speaker 5 (04:45):
We're going to evaluate these things on a case by
case basis. And if we think that somebody, whatever they
were accused of, if we think that somebody was unfairly
prosecuted and deserves just compensation, then that's what this fund
is going to exist. It's just going to correct a wrong.
I think this fund is a good part of getting
justice for the people who were wrongly treated.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
So if that's the standard, let me make this case.
Black Americans were enslaved in this country for nearly two
hundred and forty six years by federal law. The Constitution
protected slavery, the Supreme Court enforced it, and the federal
government returned slaves who had escaped to their enslavers. And
even after slavery ended, the federal government enforced Jim Crow
federal housing policies redline black neighborhoods. The federal government ran

(05:31):
the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment on hundreds of black men for
forty years, and the FBI's intelligence programs targeted black political leaders.
The federal War on drugs filled prisons with disproportionately black bodies.
And can we add the nineteen ninety four crime Bill
that locked away a generation for years. So if the

(05:53):
standard is wrongly hurt by the federal government. Black Americans
are not just on the list, are the the oldest
items on the list. And here's the part on the
list that I think should make everyone upset. This country
has paid reparations before. Japanese Americans in turns during World
War II received twenty two thousand dollars each under a

(06:14):
federal law that was passed in nineteen eighty eight. Native
American tribes they perceived land settlements and federal compensation for generations.
The families of Americans who died on September eleventh, they
got Federal Victims Compensation fund. Even hostages held in Iran
in nineteen seventy nine got compensation. The point is the
United States has cut checks, many checks to many groups

(06:36):
for acts of government itself committed or failed to prevent.
But the one group that has never received reparations for
what the federal government did over the longest period of
time in this country's history is Black America. And now
there's a one point eight billion dollar fund sitting in
the Department of Justice built to compensate people who were
wrongly targeted by the same federal government. And the people

(06:59):
in line are are the January sixth rioters So let
me just say this. If JD. Vance's standard is real,
if the principle behind that fund is real, then Black
Americans should be at the front of the line, not
in the back. We've been waiting for four hundred years
for the same logic that just produced a check for

(07:20):
the Proud Boys Leader. And if the federal government can
find one point eight billion dollars to apologize to people
who attack the capital, it can find a lot more
than that apology to the descendants of people who built it.
That's your Tuesday to minute take. There's a major change

(07:42):
coming to federal student aid that could completely reshape how
some Americans think about college, job training, and debt. So
starting next year, students will be able to use pelgrants,
which traditionally help pay for college, on shorter workforce training
programs that can take just weeks or months to complete
of four years. Translation, a government is basically saying not

(08:03):
everyone needs a traditional college degree to get into a
stable career. So if somebody wants to go into healthcare,
it manufacturing, construction, or skilled trades, they may now be
able to get financial federal aid for faster training programs
tied directly to jobs that are hiring, and for a
lot of people listening right now, especially working adults or
parents trying to switch careers, this could be huge. College

(08:26):
has become so expensive that many people are questioning whether
taking on massive student debt is even worth it anymore.
But critics also warn people to be careful because not
every certificate program actually leads to a good paying job,
and under these new rules, schools have to prove students
are actually finishing the program and finding work afterwards in

(08:46):
order to qualify for the funding. Still, this could become
one of the largest shifts in career education in years.
That's your front page from the Black Effect Podcast Network.
I'm Mimi Brown. Follow me Mini Brown TV.