Free breast cancer detection tests will be carried out in the Plaza Tapatia on Saturday October 19 – Breast Cancer Awareness Day.

Four members of a gang of bank robbers responsible for at least a quarter of Jalisco’s total of 120 heists this year are under lock and key, Attorney General Carlos Najera announced this week.

Some Guadalajara Spanish-language newspapers reported that 2.5 million people assembled to watch the colorful procession honoring the revered statue of the Virgin of Zapopan on October 12. Among the distinguished guests was Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio (the Pope’s envoy) to Mexico.

Fed up of driving along roads riddled with potholes, a group of Guadalajara-based lawyers have banded together and are preparing legal action to force the local authorities to carry out adequate road repairs.

Religion and politics meet once again on Saturday, October 12, when vast crowds will gather in Guadalajara. More than a million people – some say two or three – will jam the streets to celebrate the return of the Virgin of Zapopan to her 18th century basilica and in somewhat more subdued festivities a handful of dignitaries and the Spanish and Italian consuls will mark the anniversary of the day Christopher Columbus is said to have sighted land in what he thought was the Far East. The religious celebrations will eclipse the civic ones by far. Unfortunately for Columbus, the anniversary of his “discovery” is also a reminder here of Spain’s bloody conquest of Latin America’s native peoples. For the Virgin of Zapopan, on the other hand, the day celebrates the many miracles attributed to her.

Guadalajara’s answer to Oktoberfest, the annual Festival de Cerveza, returns from October 18 to 20 at the Estadio Omnilife.