Chapala Mexico

Five years ago on his first trip from Mexico to visit former members of his flock in Los Angeles, Father Raul Navarro was disappointed that there was no music to greet him. Navarro, 72, a music lover and legendary figure in the lakeside town of Chapala, near Guadalajara, founded that community's reknowned children's banda de pueblo , or town band, an institution there since 1946.

Five years ago on his first trip from Mexico to visit former members of his flock in Los Angeles, Father Raul Navarro was disappointed that there was no music to greet him. Navarro, 72, a music lover and legendary figure in the lakeside town of Chapala, near Guadalajara, founded that community's reknowned children's banda de pueblo , or town band, an institution there since 1946.

MEXICO CITY - Mexican authorities responding to an anonymous tip discovered about 50 mostly mutilated bodies dumped on the side of a highway between Monterrey and the U.S. border, a region where rival gangs are battling for control over a lucrative drug-trafficking corridor. The bodies of at least 43 men and half a dozen women were found Sunday in plastic garbage bags near the town of Cadereyta Jimenez, the location of a large state-run oil refinery, officials in the state prosecutor's office told The Times.

Eugene T. Copsey of Thousand Oaks, a retired supervisor for McDonnell Douglas and World War II veteran, has died. He was 81. Copsey was born on Aug. 19, 1914, in Norwalk, Ohio, and spent his childhood there. After graduating from high school Copsey became a naval corpsman and saw "a lot of service in the Pacific" during World War II, said his brother-in-law, Chuck Bolin, of Lake Chapala, Mexico. Copsey served from 1942 to 1945.

More thought and planning goes into choosing an international sister city than one might imagine. Recommendations are made to the city council by various civic groups involved in international relations. Upon the council's approval, letters and forms are forwarded to the intended sibling for acceptance. After agreement is reached, there is an exchange of plaques commemorating the event and in some cases officials from the two cities visit each other to see how each conducts city business.

"I'm moving out of the classroom and the newsroom and into the conference room," said journalism professor Felix Gutierrez after being named the first dean of academic services and special programs at USC's College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "We want to identify good students earlier and establish strong relationships with them, their teachers and their parents," said Gutierrez.

Dan and Donna Williams conducted a meticulous search for the dream retirement locale: a place with temperate weather and a small-town atmosphere yet close to an international airport and good healthcare. When the Arizona couple finally landed on the shores of Lake Chapala in central Mexico about 40 miles south of Guadalajara, they knew they had found their spot. But they resisted any temptation to become "margarita buyers": first-time visitors who purchase quickly.

Throughout Mexico, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, better known as the Simpson-Rodino act, is the most absorbing topic since Fernando Valenzuela. It has meant hope to those who seek to qualify for its amnesty provisions, but its main purpose--controlling U.S. borders--inspires mostly scorn. Mexicans conclude that, like the flurry of panic when it went into effect last May, Simpson-Rodino will eventually subside and be forgotten.

Tucked away in a dim corner of his lodgings in this hilly, rural community, Horace Bristol may look like an old man biding his time, but in fact he has embarked on his third life. When he isn't talking to reporters, curators or publishers about his first life as a photojournalist--explaining how he amassed so many credits and so little recognition--he composes memoires on his word processor.

If cities were people, New Orleans would be the earthy and lovable old uncle who shows up drunk (and with a young thing at his side) at sedate family gatherings, all the while secretly reveling in his open defiance of polite society. It has had that attitude for centuries, way before its label "The City That Care Forgot" was mongrelized into the coarser sound bite of "The Big Easy."