Waking up with the sun and going to sleep after midnight is the new spring experience for many students. Although it’s only the second week of classes, there is an impending semester’s worth of assignments. 

It’s a struggle to get back into the swing of things and, on top of it all, to stay informed. 

Here are some notable events in politics while FGCU students had their noses buried in their syllabi. 

Venezuela update 

There have been updates on the situation in Venezuela after the capture of the standing president Nicolás Maduro Moroson on Jan 3. Initially, the notion of pressuring Venezuela was to take down Maduro’s corruption, but after the capture, there has been a lot of talk about the oil. 

Story continues below advertisement

According to an article from the Guardian,“Trump had urged the group to spend $100bn to revitalise Venezuela’s oil industry in a meeting less than a week after US forces captured and removed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro from power in a brazen overnight.”

This sequence of events reflects poorly on America’s intentions, making people question whether the purpose was to help Venezuela or just take their oil. 

Revitalizing Venezuela’s oil would boost its economy, but it would also make it an American asset. This has caused America to directly profit from its oil. The deal to invest is still pending, and Exxon was mentioned multiple times by President Trump, as he was hoping they would take the investment. 

To his dismay, Exxon viewed it as uninvestable.

Other than oil, there is more to the situation involving America’s intentions. Trump posted on Truth Social a screenshot of a Wikipedia page that declared him the acting president of Venezuela. 

He is not the acting president and stating so is harmful. Our president is the most influential person in America. Stating oneself as the leader of another country causes negative feelings toward the country’s individuality. 

Now, others want America to take over, and this is the same thing that happened to mass opinion toward Greenland after Trump said he wanted to buy it. 

Posting on social media has real-life effects on people and society.

ICE Shooting

Last week, the day the spring semester began, there was a shooting in Minneapolis where someone was killed. That person was 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, and the person who shot her was an ICE agent.

It began when ICE was conducting an enforcement operation, and their car got stuck in the snow. With them being stuck, people noticed, and a protest began. 

Good had just dropped off her child at school and was a few blocks away from home. While she was on the street, she was also stopped by the protest. Her partner was also on the scene. He was talking to the ICE agents as one stepped in front of her car and another approached her door. 

She turned her wheel away and moved her car away from the agent. Then, the agent shot her three times as she was driving away. 

These shots were fatal. The story is being spun. According to CBS News, the  Trump administration is labeling her as a domestic terrorist. ICE has stripped away families, disrupted safe spaces and is killing innocent people. Good was an award-winning poet. 

On Thursday, I attended a poetry class by Professor James Brock, who read us one of her poems. It moved me. The title is “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.” This poem is what won her the Academy of American Poets Prize. 

Poets are inherently selfless in the act of writing poetry, as there is very little to gain in current society by doing so. This poem directly reflects others and gives understanding and hope.

Renee Good did not deserve to die. Something needs to change.