Has the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) really changed from its authoritarian past or is it just adopting young, handsome faces to mask its true visage?

Stuart Andrews waves his printout in front of the waiter at California Wings at the corner of Manuel Acuna and Aztecas in Guadalajara. The name leaves no doubt as to the American-style sports bar perched over the edge of this trendy shopping plaza.

December 21, 2012. Doomsday. You may have heard this year’s winter solstice will coincide with an apocalypse forewarned by the ancient Mayan calendar, but this infamous “prophecy” is simply a misinterpretation of the pre-Columbian civilization’s history and culture.

Internationally, it was a massive year for news: the Arab Spring, the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the death of Osama Bin Laden, the massacre in Norway and, oh yes, the lavish marriage of two rich folks in England.

The United States had its fair share of big stories too: the Joplin tornado, Occupy Wall Street, the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, the Penn State sex abuse scandal and – it goes without saying – Washington gridlock.

South of the border in Mexico, President Felipe Calderon continued his policy designed to grind down the nation’s powerful drug cartels, despite many calls for him to scale back military operations.  The daily death toll  occupied the headlines most days, along with the occasional arrest of a drug kingpin.  Here’s a brief selection of some of the stories making headlines in this newspaper in Guadalajara, the Lake Chapala area and the rest of the nation during the past 12 months.

Google, the world’s most popular search engine, has just unveiled Zeitgeist 2011, the company’s 11th annual list of the most popular and fastest-rising internet searches.
Revealing the names, news stories and products that interested the most people, this is essentially the world’s biggest survey of the year.

Mexican artists continue to find inspiration in the birth of Jesus. And the Instituto de las Artesanias Jalicienses near Parque Agua Azul offers a gamut of creche scenes, some of which, pictured here, are not likely to be found in the Christmas markets that pepper Guadalajara.