TANAH KARO, Indonesia (AP) – An Indonesian volcano sent a new, powerful burst of hot ash high into the air early Friday, violently shaking homes and trees along the slopes and sending panicked villagers scurrying back to safety.

"This was a big one!" said 37-year-old Anto Sembiring, who fled his coffee shop not far from the crater's mouth, joining hundreds of others gathered near Mount Sinabung's base.

 "It shot up at least 3,000 meters." Mount Sinabung erupted for the first time in four centuries on Sunday and Monday, catching many scientists off guard and forcing at least 30,000 people living along its fertile slopes in North Sumatra province to be evacuated.

 In recent days, as the mountain quieted, many had returned home to tend to their dust-covered crops and to reopen small businesses, despite warnings by volcanologists that the alert level was still high.

MORE SOKOR, U.S. DRILLS SET

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – South Korea and the United States will hold joint anti-submarine exercises in another show of force against North Korea, officials said Friday, as Pyongyang renewed threats against the drills.

The exercises will be the second in a series of joint maneuvers the allies planned to conduct in response to the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship in March that they blame on the North. The two sides staged large-scale joint naval drills in July followed by South Korea's own naval drills last month.

The drills, set to run from Sunday through Thursday off the Korean peninsula's west coast, will involve about 17,000 US and South Korean troops, seven ships and two submarines as well as aircraft, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff and the US military in Seoul.

The announcement of the planned drills comes as China reportedly holds live-ammunition exercises in the Yellow Sea.

THOUSANDS OF TRUCKS IN JAM

BEIJING (AP) – Thousands of coal trucks were backed up for kilometers on a northern China highway Friday, the latest in a series of monster jams that have plagued the overloaded road since construction began on a parallel route earlier this summer.

Trucks loaded high with coal from Inner Mongolia inched along bumper-to-bumper on the Beijing-Tibet highway as police redirected traffic and reminded drivers to stay alert, an official with Jining traffic police in Inner Monglia said Friday.

State television broadcaster CCTV reported that about 10,000 trucks were stuck in the jam for at least 120 kilometers on Thursday, turning a stretch of road connecting the coal-rich city of Ordos to Jining in Inner Mongolia into a virtual parking lot.

The traffic jams are part of continuing congestion along the Beijing-Tibet highway that began escalating in mid-August, fueled by road construction on the nearby Beijing-Xinjiang highway and the opening up of coal mines in the northwest.

25 SILENCED IN MEXICO DRUG WAR

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) – Soldiers killed 25 suspected cartel members Thursday in a raid and gun battle in a Mexican state near the United States border that has seen a surge in drug gang violence, the military said.

A reconnaissance flight over Ciudad Mier in Tamaulipas state spotted several gunmen in front of a property, according to a statement from Mexico's Defense Department. When troops on the ground moved in, gunmen opened fire, starting a gun battle that killed 25 suspected cartel members, according to the military. The statement said two soldiers were injured but none were killed.

Earlier, a military spokesman had said the shootout happened when troops on patrol in neighboring Nuevo Leon state came under fire from a ranch allegedly controlled by the Zetas drug gang.

Violence has surged in northeastern Mexico this year since the Zetas broke ranks with their former employer, the Gulf cartel, making Tamaulipas one of the country's most dangerous battlegrounds.