RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Copacabana Beach is an Olympic construction site. The beach volleyball venue is going up, broadcast studios rise on scaffolding above the sand and a mammoth tent is jammed with thousands of pricey souvenirs.
But there are few signs across town in crumbling, working-class areas that the Rio de Janeiro Olympics open in just a month.
Promises that hosting the Games would remake even Rio's most ramshackle neighborhoods have been eclipsed by myriad problems: security threats and soaring violence, the Zika virus, slow ticket sales, and water pollution in venues for sailing, rowing and distance swimming.