For the young men and women at the University of Guadalajara’s Study Center for Foreigners (CEPE), the Mexican student experience isn’t only about acquainting themselves with the local nightlife and numerous brands of tequila. Each week, the center offers a trip to visit sick kids in the Hospital Civil – a way of giving back to the community.

Crime reporter Jose Luis Romero was kidnapped in Sinaloa on December 30. Hours later, the chief investigator in the kidnapping was murdered. Two weeks ago, Romero’s remains were found in the same northern state, his body riddled with bullets, his hands and one leg broken.

A small but active car-free culture is taking root in Guadalajara, allied with important institutions and the arts. The newest addition is a weekly group that attends theater by bike, meeting at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays.

The saga of the Holohlavsky family in Mexico began with steel and, a century later, has veered off in an unexpected but fortuitous direction. Three descendants of a man who was summoned in 1904 by President Porfirio Diaz from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to set up a steel mill in Monterrey now run a thriving business making and selling breakfast sausage, bacon, ham and chorizo along with 80 other products, including pastrami, corned beef, liver paté, smoked turkey, kielbasa, sauerkraut and yogurt.