Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC NOW, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Wednesday, July 17. Here's The Morning Headlines from Michael Hill.
Michael Hill: New York City Mayor Eric Adams is appointing a new leader to coordinate children's services. WNYC's Jessica Gould reports. The move comes as the administration faces criticism for how it's handled early childhood education programs.
Jessica Gould: Ahsia Badi will lead the Children's Cabinet, responsible for liaising between agencies, nonprofits and the private sector. Mayor Adams has faced criticism from parents angry about budget cuts to the city's free preschool program. The mayor says he's reorganizing the program to better meet children's needs. Badi previously worked in the city's Health and Human Services Department and with homeless youth. She steps into the new position a week after the administration announced another staffing shakeup. The official in charge of early childhood education announced she was leaving the post for a position outside government.
Michael Hill: A new report finds that the more women earn in New York City, the wider the pay gap is between them and men in the same salary level, and the disparity is the widest for women of color. The report is a collaboration between the nonprofit Women Creating Change and the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School. Lena Moe coauthored the report and is an associate director at the Center for New York City affairs. She says the trend may be different from what we would expect.
Lena Moe: As women climb the income ladder, as they gain more experience in the field or they've spent more years working, they're actually falling further behind their male counterparts.
Michael Hill: Researchers say the disparity is especially noticeable for people who work in education. They say white men with higher incomes make nearly twice as much their women counterparts, even after accounting for education level and experience.
Mayor Adams says there's no reason to believe FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanaugh is stepping down because of sexism in the fire department. Kavanaugh's the first woman to hold the role. She had faced sharp criticism from male fire chiefs over personnel and policy changes.
Mayor Eric Adams: I want to get to a day in this city and country where if a woman decided to do something else with her life, she's not all of a sudden saying, "Oh, you couldn't cut it, or it was too much, it was too hard for you."
Michael Hill: The mayor says he hasn't started looking for a new commissioner, but the Kavanaugh is more than welcome to stay in his administration.
79 and partly cloudy right now. A heat advisory till tonight. Afternoon showers and thunderstorms today. Some could be severe, a high near 94. The heat wave breaks tomorrow.
Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening. This is NYC NOW from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. See you this afternoon.
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