NYC BRIEFS

Teacher's aide faces sex abuse charges

Another city education employee has been arrested on sex abuse charges, police said Thursday.

Hany Abdalla, a teacher's aide at P.S. 84 on the Upper West Side, was arrested Wednesday at 5 p.m. and accused of sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child, police said. According to published reports, Abdalla allegedly touched an 8-year-old girl inappropriately and also made her touch him. A police spokeswoman would not confirm or deny the allegations.

Abdalla, 35, has worked at the school since 2007, an education department spokeswoman said Thursday, adding that he had no prior disciplinary history. He was removed from the classroom without pay on Monday, when education department officials first learned of the allegations against him.

Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott visited the school Thursday and spoke with the principal, staff and some parents, a spokeswoman said.

Abdalla is at least the ninth education department employee to be arrested on sexual abuse charges this year.

amNewYork

Poetry in Motion arrives in NYC taxis

A month after poetry was brought back to subways, it's being added to city taxis.

Beginning Friday, passengers will see a silent 15-second animation of poems on TV screens in cabs, officials announced Thursday. The animations will run once every 12 minutes.

The poems are picked by Poetry in Motion, the popular subway literary program run by the Poetry Society of America that the MTA reinstated after a four-year hiatus. Eight poems each year will simultaneously appear in all cabs, 1,500 subways and on the back of some MetroCards. The poetry displays do not cost anything, officials said.

"Noche de Lluvia, San Salvador," by Aracelis Girmay will be the first poem to be shown in cabs, along with artwork by Elizabeth Murray installed at the Court Square-23 Street station titled "Stream."

-- amNewYork