For some, a new year offers the chance of wiping the slate clean and exorcising the demons of the past 12 months.

To the more practical among us, it provides yet another chance at gradual self-improvement.

Unfortunately, most new year’s resolutions turn into unfulfilled wishes because people set themselves impossible goals.

Like all life-changing exercises, creating a set of realistic resolutions for the year ahead requires careful thought. People may be more successful if they avoid saying, “I will not” as part of their resolution. Be careful of: “I will not eat chocolates ... I will not use bad language ... I will not be rude to anyone.”

Responsible newspaper editors are acutely aware that disproportionate coverage of crime can create elevated levels of fear and perceptions of personal risk.

Guadalajara may be one of the world’s fastest developing metropolitan areas but staging the Pan American Games in a city still with many deprivations did not sit comfortably with some folks.

The outlook for a recent graduate in Mexico is bleak. The unemployment rate in the last quarter of the year was 5.38 percent.

For a student fresh out of university the chances of finding work are very slim, not only due to the high rate of unemployment in the country but also because there are few real opportunities available to students.

Was there anything sinister about the overwhelming support that Mexico’s national soccer team received when they took on the United States in the final of the soccer Gold Cup last weekend in the Pasadena Rose Bowl?