Lake Chapala is showing a dramatic dip as the dry season evaporation rate takes its toll. The water lapping on the shoreline in front of Chapala’s Malecon promenade has become so shallow that bathers can now easily wade out as far as the artificial island holding up the Jesus Pescador statue.

The Instituto Tecnologico Superior de Chapala (ITS) is one of a dozen college level technological schools nationwide selected to take part in the development of a new curriculum geared to train engineers in digital animation and visual effects.

The three top contenders for Jalisco’s governor’s chair have pledged to defend Mexico’s largest lake to the hilt.

Lakeside headquarters for the Jalisco Traffic Department (SVT) moved into new digs in downtown Chapala early this month, offering only limited services pending reconnection of its telephone line.

The prompt intervention of state and municipal police foiled the apparent criminal aims of an unidentified gang that staged a late-night roadblock on the Chapala-Jocotepec highway Wednesday, April 25.

So far April has been a frantic month for the men at Chapala’s fire department. Over the past three weeks they have been called out to battle seven forest fires, stamp out two brush fires and attend to three other incendiary incidents in closed structures.