Chapala area residents can start marking their calendars for the series of festive events scheduled to mark the 200-year anniversary of Mexico’s independence.

The lakeside area’s celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Mexican Independence Movement gets into full swing next week with the arrival of a horsemen’s cavalcade bearing the Bicentennial Flame originating in Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato.

The renovation of the Parque La Milagrosa, a small waterfront park that snakes along the roadway at the western perimeter of Chapala, got underway last week as a large work crew muscled in to uproot dozens of trees and extract molded stone walkways.

Stark words of warning were issued at Mexico's first National Meeting on Biodiversity, held in Ajijic.

City officials have pared back the schedule of events to celebrate of the fifth anniversary of the Cultural Center of Ajijic in order to direct funds to people in the village of Atotonilquillo trying to get their lives back together after their homes were flooded out last week.

As the public has wised up to diverse telephone ploys criminals may use to elicit payoffs from unwary victims, canny scam artists have recently cooked up a new scare tactic that is  labeled as the secuestro virtual (virtual kidnapping).