Visitors stand in front of Michelangelo's "David statue" in the Accademia Gallery in Florence, Italy, Tuesday, March 28, 2023. The Florence museum and the city's mayor are inviting parents and students from a Florida charter school to visit and see Michelangelo's sculpture of David. The invitation comes after the school principal was forced to resign following parental complaints that an image of the nude Renaissance masterpiece was shown to a sixth-grade art class.

FLORENCE, Italy — Visitors flocked to see Michelangelo’s David sculpture in Florence on Tuesday, March 28, following an uproar over a Florida school’s decision to force the resignation of the principal over complaints about a lesson featuring the Renaissance masterpiece.

Tourists, many of them Americans on spring break or studying abroad, posed for selfies in front of the giant marble statue, which features the Biblical David, naked with a sling over his shoulder and a rock in his hand, ready for battle with Goliath.

Florence’s Galleria dell’Accademia, which houses the sculpture, reopened after its weekly Monday closure, and both tourists and locals alike couldn’t get over the controversy.

“It’s part of history,” said Isabele Joles from Ohio, who is studying French and Italian art with her school group. “I don’t understand how you can say it’s porn.”

She and other visitors were reacting to the decision by Tallahassee Classical School board to pressure Principal Hope Carrasquilla to resign last week after an image of the David was shown to a sixth-grade art class.

Carrasquilla believes the board targeted her after three parents complained because they weren’t notified in advance that a nude image would be shown, while a third called the iconic statue, which is considered the height of Renaissance sculpture, pornographic. The school has a policy requiring parents to be notified in advance about “controversial” topics being taught.

Over the weekend, both Florence’s mayor and the museum director voiced incredulity over the ruckus and issued invitations for the ousted principal and the school community to come and see the sculpture for themselves.

“We are talking about the roots of Western culture, and ‘David’ is the height, the height of beauty,” museum director Cecilie Hollberg said, as tourists brushed past her snapping selfies with the statue.

The controversy wasn’t only a topic of conversation in Florence. On March 27 in Tallahassee, a large crowd showed up for a school board meeting with public comment on the issue of the David statue controversy lasting over an hour, the Tallahassee Democrat reported. Some parents and teachers criticized the board and even asked chairman Barney Bishop to step aside.

“Given the dissatisfaction of all these parents with your leadership, would you be willing to lead us by integrity by resigning?” asked teacher Ben Steigner.

Bishop refused, saying he intends to remain as chairman through the end of his term in May and then another year on the board, the newspaper reported. The five trustees are elected by themselves, not the parents, and serve three-year-terms. New Principal Cara Wynn told the school board that nine students had left the school since the David controversy began, but that three had enrolled.

U.S. renewable electricity surpassed coal in 2022

NEW YORK — Electricity generated from renewables surpassed coal in the United States for the first time in 2022, the U.S. Energy Information Administration announced Monday.

Renewables also surpassed nuclear generation in 2022 after first doing so last year.

Growth in wind and solar significantly drove the increase in renewable energy and contributed 14% of the electricity produced domestically in 2022. Hydropower contributed 6%, and biomass and geothermal sources generated less than 1%.

“I’m happy to see we’ve crossed that threshold, but that is only a step in what has to be a very rapid and much cheaper journey,” said Stephen Porder, a professor of ecology and assistant provost for sustainability at Brown University.

California produced 26% of the national utility-scale solar electricity followed by Texas with 16% and North Carolina with 8%.

The most wind generation occurred in Texas, which accounted for 26% of the U.S. total followed by Iowa (10%) and Oklahoma (9%).

“This booming growth is driven largely by economics,” said Gregory Wetstone, president and CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy. “Over the past decade, the levelized cost of wind energy declined by 70 percent, while the levelized cost of solar power has declined by an even more impressive 90 percent.”

“Renewable energy is now the most affordable source of new electricity in much of the country,” added Wetstone.

The Energy Information Administration projected that the wind share of the U.S. electricity generation mix will increase from 11% to 12% from 2022 to 2023 and that solar will grow from 4% to 5% during the period. The natural gas share is expected to remain at 39% from 2022 to 2023, and coal is projected to decline from 20% last year to 17% this year.

“Wind and solar are going to be the backbone of the growth in renewables, but whether or not they can provide 100% of the U.S. electricity without backup is something that engineers are debating,” said Brown University’s Porder.

Russia says it test-fired anti-ship missiles in Sea of Japan

MOSCOW — Moscow test-fired anti-ship missiles in the Sea of Japan, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday, March 28, with two boats launching a simulated missile attack on a mock enemy warship about 60 miles away.

The ministry said the target was successfully hit by two Moskit cruise missiles.

The Moskit, whose NATO reporting name is the SS-N-22 Sunburn, is a supersonic anti-ship cruise missile that has conventional and nuclear warhead capacity. The Soviet-built cruise missile is capable of flying at a speed three times the speed of sound and has a range of up to 155 miles.

The ministry said the exercise, which included other warships and naval aircraft, took place in the Peter the Great Gulf in the Sea of Japan but did not give more precise coordinates. The gulf borders the Russian Pacific Fleet headquarters at Fokino and is about 430 miles from Japan’s northern Hokkaido island.

The Russian military has conducted regular drills across the country and Russian warships have continued maneuvers as the fighting in Ukraine has entered a second year — exercises that were intended to train the troops and showcase the country’s military capability.

The U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Japan reacted calmly to the missile exercise, which was conducted near Vladivostok, rather than directly into the waters between the two countries.

Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihiko Isozaki told a news conference that Tokyo will continue to monitor Russia’s military operations, as it has been stepping up activity in the region.