North America

OTTAWA, May 20 (Reuters) - Firefighters in Alberta are on high alert for a surge in blazes over a long weekend in the oil-rich Canadian province, which is enduring throttled energy production, home evacuations and property damage after an intense start to the wildfire season.

Record-high temperatures and lack of rain this year have led to widespread fires burning nearly 830,000 hectares (2 million acres) of land in Alberta, about 10 times the size of the province's largest city, Calgary, according to Alberta Wildfire.

MEXICO CITY, May 20 (Reuters) - Mexico City's Benito Juarez International Airport resumed operations on Saturday after it suspended flights for hours due to ash spewing from nearby Popocatepetl volcano.

"After removing the volcanic ash, checking the runways and verifying favorable wind conditions, we resumed takeoff and landing operations starting at 10:00 a.m.," the airport said on Twitter. "Check with your airline the status of your flight."

The airport halted operations at 4:25 a.m. for more than five hours. Several flights were delayed and others canceled.

WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) - White House and Republican congressional negotiators on raising the federal $31.4 trillion debt ceiling were not expected to meet on Saturday after talks on Friday failed and as the country inched closer to the debt ceiling deadline on June 1.

U.S. Representative Patrick McHenry, a Republican negotiator, said no meetings were scheduled for Saturday. Republicans leaders were "going to huddle as a team and assess" where things stood," McHenry said at the U.S. Capitol. He did not comment whether there would be more talks on Sunday.

NEW YORK, May 19 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump are just the latest in a four-decade-long chain of recent presidents who have mishandled classified documents during their tenure, New York Post has reported.

Every U.S. administration since President Ronald Reagan has in some form fumbled federal procedure when managing top-secret records, the report said on Wednesday, citing the testimony of National Archives officials in a closed-door hearing before a congressional committee in March.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. envoy charged with trying to protect children caught in conflicts is in Moscow, where she is reported to be meeting Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, who is charged with war crimes for deporting children from Ukraine.

Human Rights Watch strongly criticized Virginia Gamba’s reported meeting with Maria Lvova-Belova, saying the Russian commissioner should be behind bars and not meeting with senior U.N. representatives.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — At least 19 inmates were left with minor injuries after a car ran a red light and crashed into a bus Friday morning in downtown Sacramento, authorities said.

The car crashed a few blocks away from Sacramento County Main Jail, the Sacramento Fire Department said in a tweet showing damage to a white bus.

Fire officials said there were 23 inmates on board and three were taken to the hospital, KCRA-TV reported. None of the injuries were considered life-threatening, officials said.

KERNERSVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker is expected to formally join next year’s race for North Carolina governor this weekend, entering a Republican primary already filled with the standing lieutenant governor and state treasurer.

Walker, a former pastor, scheduled a Saturday morning announcement at a Christian K-12 school in Kernersville to reveal his plans for the governor’s race. A spokesperson for a political consulting firm advising Walker said last month that the Guilford County Republican was preparing to enter the race.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court got rid of a pandemic-related immigration case with a single sentence.

Justice Neil Gorsuch had a lot more to say, leveling harsh criticism of how governments, from small towns to the nation’s capital, responded to the gravest public health threat in a century.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis urged the nation to show Daniel Penny that “America’s got his back.” Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley called for New York’s governor to pardon Penny, and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy donated $10,000 to his legal defense fund.

UNITED NATIONS, May 19 (APP): Reaffirming its commitment to reduce disaster risk, Pakistan told the UN General Assembly Thursday of the government’s “outstanding” efforts in responding to last year’s devastating floods across the country, with swift rescue and relief operations to get some 30 million affected people out of immediate risk.

In spite of huge financial challenges, Lt. General Inam Haider Malik, Chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), said the government demonstrated its resolve and commitment for the urgent needs of the affected people.