stepped up

Many in Zion saw the stepped-up pressure as a prelude to a crackdown, but few anticipated it would be as large as it turned out to be, she said.

Could there be other explanations for the stepped-up acquisition activity?

County officials allowed people to camp on their land after the fire, and then offered several extensions, but stepped-up code enforcement against long-term RV living may be coming soon.

Less directly, but with horrific ongoing consequences, stepped-up U.S. military aid to Israel has enabled its air power to systematically kill Palestinian children, women and men with the kind of industrial efficiency that fascist leaders of the 1930s and 1940s might have admired.

Svyrydenko called for tougher sanctions on Russia and stepped-up weapons deliveries.