World/Nation

• State of Union: Obama to focus on realistic goals

WASHINGTON - No longer about bold ambitions, this year's State of the Union address will focus more on what's actually achievable.

For the White House, that dose of realism is aimed at avoiding a repeat of 2013, when a long list of unfulfilled policy goals - including gun control and an immigration overhaul - dragged President Barack Obama down like an anchor. Tuesday's prime-time address will focus instead on redefining success for Obama - not by what he can jam through Congress but rather by what he can accomplish through his own presidential powers.

He is expected to announce executive actions on job training, retirement security and help for the long-term unemployed in finding work. All are part of the White House focus this year on boosting economic mobility and narrowing the income gap between the wealthy and the poor.

• Issue of Assad's future blocks progress in talks

GENEVA - The key issue of a transitional government to replace President Bashar Assad blocked any progress Monday in Syrian peace talks, described by one delegate as "a dialogue of the deaf."

The chief U.N. mediator expressed frustration over inflammatory public remarks by the two sides as he sought to identify some less-contentious issues in hopes of achieving any progress at all at the bargaining table.

But even the most modest attempts at confidence-building measures faltered - including humanitarian aid convoys to besieged parts of the central city of Homs and the release of detainees. Veteran mediator Lakhdar Brahimi somberly declared at the end of the day that he had little to report.

• After debacles of 2012, GOP tries to train hopefuls

WASHINGTON - Having watched several promising campaigns collapse in 2012 after candidates made catastrophic mistakes, national Republican leaders are leaving nothing to chance as they prepare for this year's midterm elections.

They're summoning contenders- especially those who seem inexperienced, unpredictable or inclined to provocative opinions - to first-of-a-kind training at the GOP's Senate campaign headquarters to learn, in part, what not to say and how not to say it.

It's a delicate intervention, but one deemed essential by officials smarting from campaign debacles that cost the GOP winnable races, including Senate seats in Missouri and Indiana, last time.

The two-day sessions, which feature top experts in communications and public policy, have brought in more than a dozen Senate and about 50 House candidates. The GOP's hopes for winning a Senate majority this year depend on picking up six seats, some by candidates who are less seasoned.

• Mexico legalizes vigilante groups, nabs drug leader

MEXICO CITY - Mexico essentially legalized the country's growing "self-defense" groups Monday, while also announcing that security forces had captured one of the four top leaders of the Knights Templar drug cartel, which the vigilante groups have been fighting for the last year.

The government said it had reached an agreement with vigilante leaders to incorporate the armed civilian groups into old and largely forgotten quasi-military units called the Rural Defense Corps. Vigilante groups estimate their numbers at 20,000 men under arms.

The twin announcements may help the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto find a way out of an embarrassing situation in the western state of Michoacan, where vigilantes began rising up last February against the Knights Templar reign of terror and extortion after police and troops failed to stop the abuses.

"The self-defense forces will become institutionalized, when they are integrated into the Rural Defense Corps," the Interior Department said in a statement. Police and soldiers already largely tolerate, and in some cases even work with, the vigilantes, many of whom are armed with assault rifles that civilians are not allowed to carry.

Vigilante leaders will have to submit a list of their members to the Defense Department, and the army will apparently oversee the groups, which the government said "will be temporary." They will be allowed to keep their weapons as long as they register them with the army.

• Teen sets himself on fire at Colorado school

WESTMINSTER, Colo. - A 16-year-old boy set himself on fire at a suburban Denver high school on Monday in an apparent suicide attempt that left him critically injured, authorities said.

The boy didn't make any threats before starting the fire in the cafeteria at Standley Lake High School at 7:15 a.m., Westminster Police Department spokeswoman Cheri Spottke said.

A custodian was able to use a fire extinguisher to put out the blaze before it could spread, Spottke said. Several other students were in the cafeteria at the time, but none were injured.

Investigators went through the school with bomb detection dogs as a precaution, and no devices were discovered, Spottke said.

- The Associated Press