Maya Angelou becomes first Black woman on quarter
The U.S. Mint recently began shipping out a new series of quarters, including ones featuring writer Maya Angelou, making her the first Black woman to ever appear on a quarter.
The new coin is part of the American Women Quarters Program, which will later have coins bearing the likeness of Wilma Mankiller, the Cherokee Nation’s first female chief, Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American movie star, Adelina Otero-Warren, a suffrage movement leader and Sally Ride, the first American woman to go to space.
The Angelou coin has George Washington on one side and shows Angelou with her arms raising up in front of a bird and beams of sunshine. Angelou was a prominent civil rights activist.
The image is “inspired by her poetry and symbolic of the way she lived,” the Mint said.
“It is my honor to present our nation’s first circulating coins dedicated to celebrating American women and their contributions to American history,” Mint deputy director Ventris C. Gibson said.
Angelou, who gained worldwide fame after the release of her memoir “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings,” died in 2014 at the age of 86. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 during Barack Obama’s first term.
—New York Daily News
Michigan students back in class for first time since shooting
OXFORD, Mich. — Under the cover of darkness and in single-digit temperatures, Oxford High School students returned to a half-day of classes at the district's middle school.
Both parents and a phalanx of buses dropped off the students who were greeted by what appeared to be school officials. There was a presence, too, of Oakland County sheriff's deputies on hand to supervise.
Some students wore lettered school jackets inside; another wore a shirt that read "everything about us is tough" on the back.
There were two entrances students used to enter the building for the half day of sessions.
It's the first day back for students after a Nov. 30 shooting at the high school. Four students were killed, and six students and a teacher were injured.
For two weeks, through Jan. 21, Oxford High, Oxford Middle School and Bridges, its alternative high school, will be on "alternative hybrid schedules" at the middle school building, the superintendent has said.
Student Ethan Crumbley, 15, faces murder and terrorism charges in the shootings. His parents, James and Jennifer, each face four charges of involuntary manslaughter.
Last week, Ethan Crumbley waived preliminary hearings in his case and will proceed to trial. His parents on Friday lost their bid to have bond lowered. They face a preliminary hearing next month.
—The Detroit News
NASA’s new chief scientist absorbs climate adviser role
ORLANDO, Fla. — A NASA change of guard took place Tuesday morning when the space weather agency officially welcomed its new chief scientist and climate adviser.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson welcomed Katherine Calvin in a press call Tuesday to the dual leadership role in the agency after the agency announced her arrival to the agency on Monday.
“I’m thrilled to welcome Kate to the NASA family, where she will bring her expertise in integrated human-Earth system modeling to help ensure the Biden administration has the data needed to achieve the critical goal of protecting our planet.” Nelson said.
Calvin is taking control from both Jim Green, who held the title of NASA’s chief scientist for 40 years, and Gavin Schmidt, who served as climate adviser after the role was created last February as part of President Joe Biden’s climate science objectives. Schmidt will maintain his role as director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, NASA said in a press release.
As chief scientist, Calvin will advise NASA programs on future projects and science policy, Nelson said.
“The chief science role has been to integrate science across the agency and since we have a handful of mission directorates to harmonize that science activity in and among them. Her experience makes her especially qualified for this position,” Nelson said.
“I’m looking forward to helping communicate and advance all of NASA’s science going forward,” Calvin said.
—Orlando Sentinel
Abortion ban after 15 weeks proposed in Florida legislature
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — On the first day of Florida’s legislative session, two Republican lawmakers filed bills banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The measures, Senate Bill 146 and House Bill 5, would ban a physician from performing an abortion after 15 weeks unless the health of the mother is at risk, or if there is a “fatal fetal abnormality.” The bills would also require abortion providers to document the number of pregnancies terminated by medications and submit that figure to the Agency for Health Care Administration monthly.
Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, and Rep. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, filed the bills on Tuesday, turning up the temperature on what promises to be one of the most contentious legislative debates of the year.
Before the legislative session started, House Speaker Chris Sprowls put Grall and Rep. Colleen Burton, R-Lakeland, in charge of his chamber’s abortion legislation efforts. That could mean the proposals have momentum in a Legislature helmed by Sprowls and Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby.
With a conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court, and a state Supreme Court dominated by Republican appointees, anti-abortion activists see a unique opportunity to pass abortion restrictions this session.
Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, a staunch defender of abortion rights who used to work as a senior director at Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, expressed her outrage in a Tuesday morning tweet.
“Be ready to fight,” Eskamani wrote.
—Tampa Bay Times
