Topic: Focus
All Content
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Focus One tactic to shrink achievement gap: tackle 'summer learning loss'
Sailing, marine life, and field trips are part of a program to prevent a summertime loss of reading and math skills among low-income students in Boston. Its aim is to help close the achievement gap.
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Focus Lucha Libre: A spandex-clad campaign against obesity in Mexico
Mexico's health ministry has partnered with Lucha Libre wrestlers to fight obesity there. The campaign includes informational videos and weighing willing attendees outside of the junk food-centric events.
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Focus No gym membership, no problem in the Dominican Republic
Forget CrossFit. The most popular exercise class in Santo Domingo is a free hour-long group exercise session held in the middle of a closed park avenue, part of an effort to fight the nation's obesity woes.
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Focus Obesity weighing on America – Latin America, that is
The fattening of Latin America mirrors a global pattern that has left some 1.5 billion adults overweight. Now, from Mexico to Chile, it's triggering a political response.
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Focus Why Pentagon's progress against sexual assault is so slow
The military legal system is seen as often punishing victims of sexual assault instead of perpetrators. Pentagon efforts to make headway depend largely on improving prosecutions.
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Focus Using Chinese star power to fight ivory poaching in Africa
The biggest demand for ivory is in China, so conservationists are trying to give Chinese consumers a greater understanding of poaching – with the help of Chinese celebrities like Yao Ming.
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Focus A lot riding on California dream of high-speed rail
California is moving ahead with a massive high-speed rail project, with construction of the first link set to begin early next year. The project could put the state in the vanguard of a transportation revolution – but is it more a dream than reality?
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Focus Obama plan for high-speed rail, after hitting a bump, chugs forward again
High-speed rail plans, announced by the White House in 2009, are back on track after Amtrak commits to upgrades in the Northeast and California approves billions to build new tracks.
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Focus What's it mean that an Islamist rules Egypt?
Egypt's President Morsi moved to consolidate his power this weekend. Here's what Morsi and the new Islamist politicians in Tunisia and Libya want to do.
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Focus Weather? Climate change? Why the drought is persisting and growing.
Several factors, including La Niña events, have contributed to the expanded drought, meteorologists say. Conditions in the West may be setting up for a 'megadrought' by century's end, researchers warn.
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Focus Drought: Farmers dig deeper, water tables drop, competition heats up
A drier 'new normal' is forcing US farmers to dig deeper wells. That affects water tables and municipal supplies, and, if climatologists are right about global warming, it could also mean more competition for less water in the future.
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Focus Sudan's struggling government offers to go '100 percent Islamic'
The government faces new pressures from the loss of territory and oil revenue to South Sudan, but the push for an Islamic constitution has much older roots.
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Focus Sudanese factory destroyed by US now a shrine
President Bill Clinton ordered a cruise missile strike on the pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum in 1998; the Sudanese still haven't forgotten.
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Focus In North Korea's industrial center, factories and wood-fueled trucks
Hamhung, North Korea's largest industrial center, was opened to foreigners just two years ago. There's no hiding the poverty in the region.
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Focus Inside North Korea, more cellphones and traffic lights, but real change lags
A visitor to North Korea finds more signs of modernization in Pyongyang as Kim Jong-un consolidates power. But it's hard to tell if reform is afoot in a country that remains deeply impoverished and isolated.
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Focus Public-sector belt-tightening: thrift, or long-term drag on US economy?
Since June 2009, 504,000 jobs have been cut among municipal employees. Public-sector reductions at the local level have subtracted almost a quarter of a percentage point from annual GDP each of the past four years.
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Focus Mongolia strikes it rich, but at what cost?
Vast mineral deposits are bringing wealth to this country of 3 million. Now Mongolia is in a race to stem the threat of corruption.
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Focus Mongolia's relationship status with China? Complicated.
Mongolia just rushed a law through parliament to make it harder for China to invest in Mongolia.
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Focus In Midwest, fight over labor unions to be at heart of 2012 election
Although labor unions have had some reservations about President Obama, they're still looking to him as their best ally in the 2012 election. Meanwhile, Republicans who are hoping to further curb unions are putting stock in Mitt Romney.
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Focus It's all about Ohio: Could Rob Portman boost Romney's chances? (+video)
Sen. Rob Portman, a reported Romney short-lister for veep, is worth three to five points in battleground Ohio, says the state's Republican chairman. No Republican has ever won the presidency without winning the Buckeye State.
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Focus Chicago: A gang shooting, a stray bullet, an innocent victim
A second-grader's shooting death turns anguish into anger for the unwitting victims of Chicago's homicide epidemic. With schoolchildren caught in the gang crossfire on the Windy City's mean streets, parents say the only option they have is to keep their children home.
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Focus In Chicago, heat and homicide stoke fear and frustration
Chicago's surging murder rate is now four times that of New York. With drug cartels battling for turf and gang warfare turning chaotic, how can the Windy City get a handle on its homicides?
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Focus Ex-Israeli diplomat: Boycott my country
Former Israeli ambassador to South Africa Alon Liel argues that a boycott would put pressure on people and businesses, possibly persuading some to relocate inside Israel proper.
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Focus Fearing boycott, Israeli academics warn against accrediting West Bank school
The Israeli higher education committee for the West Bank approved accreditation of Ariel University Center today. One university president warns the move endangers Israel's 'next Nobel prize.'
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Focus Oh, for the simpler Olympic Games of 1948
In today's dollars, the 1948 London Olympic Games cost about $33 million. This year's tab: about $17 billion. What happened?
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