Wildfires forced a mandatory evacuation Sunday in a North Carolina county still recovering from Hurricane Helene, and South Carolina’s governor declared an emergency in response to a growing wildfire in that state. Hundreds of miles north, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service was battling a blaze in the Wharton State Forest.

The North Carolina Department of Public Safety announced a mandatory evacuation starting at 8:20 p.m. Saturday for parts of Polk County in western North Carolina about 80 miles (129 kilometers) west of Charlotte.

“Visibility in area will be reduced and roads/evacuation routes can become blocked; if you do not leave now, you could be trapped, injured, or killed,” the agency said in a social media post.

A shelter had been established in Columbus, North Carolina.

There were three active fires in Polk County, with one spanning 1.9 square miles and another spread over 2.8 square miles with no containment by Sunday afternoon. County spokesperson Kellie Cannon said one home was lost to the larger of the two fires.

Three arrested in fatal N.M. shooting

LAS CRUCES, N.M. >> A 20-year-old man and three teens have been arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with Friday night’s shooting at a park in Las Cruces, New Mexico, that left three people dead and 15 others hurt, authorities said Sunday.

Tomas Rivas and a 17-year-old male were taken into custody Saturday and a second 17-year-old male and a 15-year-old male were arrested Sunday, according to a statement from the city of Las Cruces. Each could face a murder charge and additional charges were pending, the statement said.

It wasn’t known Sunday if the defendants had attorneys. A message was sent to the public defender’s office in Doña Ana County inquiring whether its attorneys were representing them.

Gunfire erupted shortly around 10 p.m. Friday at Young Park, where an altercation broke out after an unauthorized car show had drawn about 200 people to the park in the desert city, police said. Nine male and six female gunshot victims ranging in age from 16 to 36 were treated there or taken to hospitals.

U.S. lifts bounties on Taliban leaders

The U.S. has lifted bounties on three senior Taliban figures, including the interior minister who also heads a powerful network blamed for bloody attacks against Afghanistan’s former Western-backed government, officials in Kabul said Sunday.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, who acknowledged planning a January 2008 attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul, which killed six people, including U.S. citizen Thor David Hesla, no longer appears on the State Department’s Rewards for Justice website. The FBI website on Sunday still featured a wanted poster for him.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said the U.S. government had revoked the bounties placed on Haqqani, Abdul Aziz Haqqani, and Yahya Haqqani.

“These three individuals are two brothers and one paternal cousin,” Qani told The Associated Press.

The Haqqani network grew into one of the deadliest arms of the Taliban after the U.S.-led 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

The group employed roadside bombs, suicide bombings and other attacks, including on the Indian and U.S. embassies, the Afghan presidency, and other major targets. They also have been linked to extortion, kidnapping and other criminal activity.

Schumer defends vote to avoid shutdown

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the minority leader, remained defiant in the face of continuing criticism and growing calls to resign more than a week after he cleared the way for a Republican spending bill without negotiating any major concessions.

“I’m not stepping down,” he said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” “The GOP’s six-month bill was certainly bad,” Schumer said of the stopgap spending measure that funds the government through Sept. 30. “But a shutdown would be 10 or 20 times worse.”

Critics within his party have said Schumer squandered the leverage provided by the standoff over the bill to negotiate a bipartisan spending measure that would allow Democrats to reclaim some power in the Republican-controlled Congress.

Defending his decision, Schumer said the Trump administration could have wielded unchecked power during a shutdown, a situation that he had sought to avoid.

Venezuela resumes accepting deportees

The Trump administration sent a flight carrying deportees from the United States to Venezuela on Sunday, the first such flight since the Venezuelan government reached an agreement with the Trump administration on Saturday to resume accepting them.

Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s interior minister, invited journalists to an airport near Caracas, the capital, on Sunday night for the arrival of the flight, which the government said was part of what it is calling the Return to the Homeland. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration has made it a priority to get the Venezuelan government to agree to accept flights carrying people deported from the United States.

In recent years, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have entered the country amid a historic surge in migration, and during his campaign, President Donald Trump vowed that he would carry out mass deportations and to send home those migrants.

However, because the United States has limited diplomatic relations with the autocratic regime of Nicolás Maduro, the U.S. government has not been able to send regular deportation flights to Venezuela.

Probes ordered over fires near Heathrow

LONDON>> The British government has ordered an urgent investigation into how a fire at an electricity substation left Heathrow Airport in London in darkness on Friday, crippling one of the world’s busiest airports.

“We are determined to properly understand what happened and what lessons need to be learned,” British Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said in a statement late Saturday.

Friday’s closure disrupted more than 1,000 flights, leaving planes and aviation crews out of position and stranding passengers — some of whom may not reach their destinations for a few more days.

The fire, which authorities believe was likely accidental, raised questions about the resilience of Britain’s key infrastructure and whether the country has invested enough to maintain it. But some experts said the blackout was probably unavoidable given the scale of the blaze at the substation.

Britain’s government has faced pressure for years to maintain and modernize the country’s transportation infrastructure, like roads and trains.

S. Korea court nixes PM’s impeachment

SEOUL, South Korea >> South Korea’s Constitutional Court on Monday overturned the impeachment of Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, reinstating the nation’s No. 2 official as acting leader, while not yet ruling on the separate impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol.

Han became acting president after Yoon was impeached by the National Assembly over his Dec. 3 imposition of martial law that triggered a massive political crisis. But Han was impeached by the assembly as well in late December following political strife with opposition lawmakers.

The unprecedented, successive impeachments that suspended the country’s top two officials intensified a domestic division and deepened worries about the country’s diplomatic and economic activities. The deputy prime minister and finance minister, Choi Sang-mok, had since serving as acting president.

The Constitutional Court said Monday it has decided to overturn Han’s impeachment, but it has yet to rule on Yoon’s impeachment.

If the court upholds Yoon’s impeachment, South Korea must hold a election for a new president. If it rules for him, Yoon will be restored to office and regain his presidential powers

- From news service reports