Good morning. Welcome, Naxios today. It's Thursday, June 8th. I'm Naila Boudou.

Today on the show, preparing for student loan payments to come back this summer.

But first, record air pollution hits the Eastern U.S. What to know about the wildfire smoke across the country?

That's our one big thing.

The Eastern U.S. has been blanketed in smoke from Canadian wildfires over the past two days.

It's gotten so bad that many places broke air quality records for pollution.

Yesterday afternoon, New York City had the worst air quality anywhere in the world.

So I thought I'd talk to a few exeos colleagues around the country about what's going on.

Let's start in Manhattan with managing editor Javier David. Here's his dispatch from yesterday afternoon.

So the vibe in New York City can only be described as something quasi-apocalyptic.

Like I'm like Californians, New Yorkers really aren't accustomed to air quality alerts unless it's during the dark days of summer when it gets very hot and humid.

So this is something of a new experience for big Apple citizens.

The skies are darkened and in midday and it's bathing the buildings and streets in the strange sepia or orange color during daylight hours.

And the smell of smoke is pungent and I'm the present.

Their air has a really grimy feel to it that makes it kind of hard to breathe.

City officials issued a call for people to stay home.

So sidewalks are nearly empty and where there are people, they're masked.

It's almost like 2020 all over again.

The U.S. has set more than 600 firefighters and other personnel to help for the fires in Canada.

But Canadian officials say it's shaping up to be the worst wildfire season on record.

One of my DC co-workers, Axios' Jacob Knudsen, actually used to fight wildfires and he's been reporting on this one.

Wind currents that are traveling from the north to the southeast carry the smoke produced by the world fires which contains air pollutants.

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