Good morning and welcome the kid news. I'm Tori. Today is Thursday, June 8, 2023, which

is National Best Friends Day and World Oceans Day. Or as CNN puts it, a great excuse

to take your bestie to the beach. Unless perhaps you're on the East Coast, which continues

to choke on smoke from 150 active wildfires in Canada. A thick gray haze is making its

way south, blocking out the sun, canceling school sports, postponing a Yankee game, and

prompting Americans from Maine to Maryland to dig out their pandemic air of face masks

all over again. 13 states have now issued warnings, but New York seems to be bearing

the brunt of it with LaGuardia Airport grounding flights and New York City recording the

most pollution of any major city in the world. According to IQ Air, Manhattan reached

a hazardous 353 on its air quality index yesterday afternoon, far worse than Dubai's 167, or

New Delhi's 164. As one doctor in the Syracuse area said in a Facebook post,

I can taste the air. Meteorologists predict the unhealthy haze will hang around for a few

more days before easing. 6,000 miles to the west, Earth's most active volcano is rumbling again

before dawn, yesterday morning, the United States Geological Survey detected a glow from

inside Hawaii's Kilauea crater, and a few hours later released a live stream of lava shooting

into the air at the summit. The local observatory raised the eruption alert level to red for warning,

but said populated areas nearby are not at risk. Traditional folklore says Kilauea is the home of

Hawaii's volcano goddess and the thin glass fibers that are formed by gas during an eruption

are known as Kilauea's hair. Because of that, and ash, downwind residents are, like those

impacted by the Canadian wildfires, being told to mask up for protection.

In other kid news notes, the leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics is back in the hospital.

Just two months after being treated for bronchitis, 86-year-old Pope Francis had surgery yesterday

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