JERUSALEM — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice opened an intense round of Mideast shuttle diplomacy Sunday, struggling to bring Israelis and Palestinians close enough to make a planned U.S.-hosted peace conference worthwhile.

The two sides are at bitter odds over an outline of a peace agreement that would be presented at next month's conference, and Rice sought to lower expectations her mission would finalize preparations for the gathering.

Underscoring her less-than-optimistic assessment, Israeli and Palestinians traded shots about the other's commitment to peace even as she arrived in the region. During her four-day visit, she will bounce between Israel and the West Bank, seeking a consensus.

Her hope is to close the gap as Israel and the Palestinian Authority try to forge an outline of an eventual peace deal and produce a joint statement for the conference. It is expected to held in Annapolis, Md., in late November.

But after Rice's first series of meetings, a senior State Department official hinted that the date could slide as the lead negotiators for the two sides will begin only this week to try to craft the document.

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House Dems vow to pass bipartisan children's insurance bill

WASHINGTON — House Democratic leaders said Sunday they were working to gather votes to override a veto on a popular children's health program, but pledged to find a way to cover millions without insurance should their effort fail.

At the same time, the White House sought to chide the Democratic-controlled Congress as the obstructionists in reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Program. It said Democrats were the ones who had shown unwillingness to compromise.

Deputy press secretary Tony Fratto quoted President Bush as saying he is "willing to work with members of both parties from both houses" on the issue.

In talk show interviews, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer did not dispute claims by Republican leaders that the GOP will have enough votes to sustain Bush's veto when the House holds its override vote on Thursday.

Pelosi and Hoyer promised to pass another bipartisan bill if needed.

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Turkish general warns of irreversible damage to U.S. ties

ISTANBUL, Turkey — Turkey's top general warned that ties with the U.S., already strained by attacks from rebels hiding in Iraq, will be irreversibly damaged if Congress passes a resolution that labels the World War I-era killings of Armenians a genocide.

Turkey, which is a major cargo hub for U.S. and allied military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, has recalled its ambassador to Washington for consultations and warned that there might be a cut in the logistical support to the U.S. over the issue.

"If this resolution passed in the committee passes the House as well, our military ties with the U.S. will never be the same again," Gen. Yasar Buyukanit told the daily Milliyet newspaper.

Despite the general's strong words, it is not clear how far Turkey will go to express its dismay to Washington.

Turkey suspended its military ties with France last year after the French parliament's lower house adopted a bill that that would have made it a crime to deny that the Armenian killings constituted a genocide.

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Investigators seek cause of fiery L.A. pileup

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — Investigators picked through scorched tire rims, truck axles and other wreckage Sunday hoping to pinpoint what triggered a fiery interstate tunnel pileup that killed three, while police and commuters braced for a traffic nightmare at the start of the work week.

With miles of Interstate 5 shut down, traffic was snarled on surrounding roads where drivers looked for alternative routes after Friday night's pileup, which engulfed more than two dozen trucks and other vehicles in flames and closed a stretch of the heavily used freeway north of Los Angeles.

Warren Stanley, California Highway Patrol assistant chief, refused to speculate on the cause of the crash but said authorities would finish their on-scene investigation shortly. He did not know when findings would be released.

Investigators determined that 28 commercial vehicles — including many big rigs — and one passenger car were involved in the crash, which killed two men and an infant and injured at least 10 people, said John Tripp, Los Angeles County deputy fire chief.

The fire spread from vehicle to vehicle, sent flames shooting nearly 100 feet in the air outside the tunnel and reached temperatures as high as 1,400 degrees, Tripp said.

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Crews search for 4 students who never came out of cave

AUSTIN, Texas — Four college students exploring a cave didn't emerge when they were supposed to, and teams began a search-and-rescue operation Sunday.

Three women and a man who attend the University of Texas went into the narrow passage, called Airman's Cave, on Saturday morning and told friends to call for help if they weren't back by midnight, said Austin Fire Department Lt. Matt Cox.

The cave is more than 12,000 feet long and is difficult for even experienced cave explorers, Cox said. The "keyhole" entrance is less than 18 inches across.

"It's really, really long, very small and very tight," Cox said. "They could be lost. They could simply be fatigued or tired."

Rescuers have found water bottles and cell phones apparently left behind by the four students, Cox said. By Sunday afternoon, 14 rescuers were helping in the search and were waiting to hear from a team that had reached the end of the cave, he said.

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Car bomb strikes Shiite worshippers in Baghdad, killing 9

BAGHDAD — A bomb in a parked car struck worshippers heading to a Shiite mosque Sunday in Baghdad, killing at least nine people as Iraqis celebrated a Muslim holiday, while the death toll rose to 18 in a coordinated suicide truck bombing and ambush north of the capital.

Relatives and rescue workers pulled bodies from under piles of concrete bricks and rubble in the Sunni city of Samarra, where a suicide truck bomber detonated his explosives late Saturday. Guards had opened fire before he could reach the targeted police headquarters.

Gunmen drove up and fought with police immediately after the blast, which tore through nearby buildings. At least 18 people were killed and 27 wounded, police said.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attacks in Baghdad and Samarra, but they bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq militants who had promised an offensive during Ramadan to undermine U.S.-Iraqi claims of success in quelling the violence in the capital with an 8-month-old security operation.

The fasting month ended this weekend with the three-day Eid al-Fitr festival that began on Friday for Sunnis and Saturday for Shiites.

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Edwards continues criticism of Clinton's Iran vote

HUDSON, N.H. — Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards has spent two weeks questioning Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's judgment in voting to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.

On Sunday, he questioned her sincerity.

Last month, Clinton was one of 75 senators who voted for a resolution giving the president the authority to call the guards terrorists. She has characterized the vote as a way to gain leverage for U.S. negotiations with Iran, but some of her rivals, including Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama, argue it amounted to giving Bush another blank check to go to war.

At several stops Sunday, Edwards referred to a New York Times column in which unidentified Clinton supporters say she voted for the resolution in part because she already has shifted from "primary mode," when she must appeal to liberals, to "general election" mode, when she must find broader support.

"I may have missed something — and you can tell me — have we already had the New Hampshire primary? Have we decided who's going to win the New Hampshire primary yet? I think we're going to actually have a campaign and an election," Edwards said at a town hall meeting in a school cafeteria.

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Selling ads is Google's bread and butter

SAN FRANCISCO — Like a gourmet chef who rarely eats out, Google Inc. feeds advertising services to hordes of other businesses while skimping on its own marketing.

The recipe has been extremely fruitful. While the Internet search leader has sold more than $30 billion in advertising since 2001, Google has become a household name without buying expensive ad campaigns on television or radio or in print.

"It's almost as if they have this cultural allergy to advertising," said Mark Hughes, author of "Buzzmarketing," a book about unconventional ways to build a brand. "It has been an advantage because it has helped keep them cool. They have zigged while everyone else has been zagging."

This advertising aversion has freed up money for engineers, computing hardware and other resources that fuel Google's search engine while leaving plenty of profit to keep shareholders happy and lift the company's stock ever higher.

Some marketing experts view Google as the archetype of an Internet-driven age that has made it possible for startups like YouTube, MySpace and Facebook to permeate pop culture with little or no advertising.

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Ben Affleck says directing 'satisfying and exhilarating'

NEW YORK — Fresh off his directorial debut, Ben Affleck says he's found his calling. "In the beginning, part of wanting to be a director was just a natural extension of acting," said Affleck, whose movie "Gone Baby Gone," opens Friday. "But now this feels like what I am, or what I want to be. It's so satisfying and exhilarating.

"In fact, the central preoccupation of my life right now is trying to find another movie to direct," he told The New York Times for a story in Sunday's editions.

Affleck co-wrote the script and directed "Gone Baby Gone," a crime thriller set and filmed in Boston about the search for an abducted 4-year-old girl.

He told the newspaper he included as many locals as he could in the film, people plucked off the street or discovered in bars, even for speaking roles. One woman was cast as a beer-drinking smart-mouth after approaching him and saying, "I should be in your movie."