Parse from XML, insert to mysql; characters give java.sql.SQLException: Incorrect string value

I am parsing a bunch of XML files and inserting the value obtained from them into a MySQL database. The character set of the mysql tables is set to utf8. I'm connecting to the database using the following connection url - jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/articles_data?useUnicode=false&characterEncoding=utf8

Most of the string values with unicode characters are entered fine (like Greek letters etc.), except for some that have a math symbol. An example in particular - when I try to insert a string with mathematical script capital g (img at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/corehtml/pmc/pmcents/1D4A2.gif) ( http://graphemica.com/