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A timely field trip for some local teachers.

Several Chinook School Division teachers recently participated in a professional development opportunity with the Social Studies Teacher Institute on parliamentary democracy in Regina.

"Essentially it was kind of an inside look at how our political system kind of works," said Ecole Centennial teacher Ashley Wagner. "I teach grade 3 and we did a student vote with the provincial election. So the kids get to look at some video and we learn about the candidates, and they're all confused. Well, why don't I get to vote for Scott Moe? I think during that teaching some of that to High school kids is one thing, but kids are like what's the party? What's a seat? What is a caucus? For me it was just like getting a really firsthand look. I feel so much more confident in how it works."

The level of cooperation stuck out for Wagner.

"During this political time, it was really interesting to kind of get to see how much all the MLA's kind of work together," she noted. "As much as they fight on question period, it's really about problem solving and working together. So that was pretty cool."

It was several days of activities for all the educators in attendance.

"We first kind of toured around," Wagner said. "Then we got to meet with various people from the Ministry of Education, different MLAs, we got to sit in Scott Moe's office and around the big table where they have meetings which is pretty amazing.

"We got to meet the caucus leaders of each group and the whips, which was fascinating to kind of learn how they, I feel like it's a little bit like principals and vice principals, but within each caucus. We got to go to a question period and then watch the scrum after. Then the last day we got to actually pretend that we were MLAs and we had arguments about funding zambonis around the province and things like that. Kind of gives you a real look at the process and how it works."

Wagner felt they took a lot from the experience that will contribute to how they teach their kids about these issues at varying stages of their learning.

After returning she had her class watch a segment of question period and had them ask to keep watching during lunch.

"It's in English and it is a French immersion class, so that might have been part of the appeal," Wagner joked. "But I think they really like it more than you'd think."

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Crews worked early Thursday to restore power to Puerto Rico after a blackout across the entire island that affected the main international airport, several hospitals and hotels filled with Easter vacationers

The outage that began past noon Wednesday left 1.4 million customers without electricity and 328,000 without water. At least 175,000 customers, or 12%, had power back at the end of the day. Officials expected 90% of customers to have power back within 48 to 72 hours after the outage.

“This is a shame for the people of Puerto Rico that we have a problem of this magnitude,” said Gov. Jenniffer González, who cut her weeklong vacation short and returned to Puerto Rico on Wednesday evening.

The blackout snarled traffic, forced hundreds of businesses to close and left those unable to afford generators scrambling to buy ice and candles.

It’s the second islandwide blackout to hit Puerto Rico in less than four months, with the previous one occurring on New Year’s Eve.

“Why on holidays?” griped José Luis Richardson, who did not have a generator and kept cool by splashing water on himself every couple of hours.

The roar of generators and smell of fumes filled the air as a growing number of Puerto Ricans renewed calls for the government to cancel the contracts with Luma Energy, which oversees the transmission and distribution of power, and Genera PR, which oversees generation.

González promised to heed those calls.

“That is not under doubt or question,” she said, but added that it’s not a quick process. “It is unacceptable that we have failures of this kind.”

González said a major outage like the one that occurred Wednesday leads to an estimated $230 million revenue loss daily.

Ramón C. Barquín III, president of the United Retail Center, a nonprofit that represents small- and medium-sized businesses, warned that ongoing outages would spook potential investors at a time that Puerto Rico urgently needs economic development.

“We cannot continue to repeat this cycle of blackouts without taking concrete measures to strengthen our energy infrastructure,” he said.

Many also were concerned about Puerto Rico’s elderly population, with the mayor of Canóvanas deploying brigades to visit the bedridden and those who depend on electronic medical equipment.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Vega Alta opened a center to provide power to those with lifesaving medical equipment.

It was not immediately clear what caused the shutdown, the latest in a string of major blackouts on the island in recent years.

Daniel Hernández, vice president of operations at Genera PR, said Wednesday that a disturbance hit the transmission system shortly after noon, a time when the grid is vulnerable because there are few machines regulating frequency at that hour.

Puerto Rico has struggled with chronic outages since September 2017 when Hurricane Maria pummeled the island as a powerful Category 4 storm, razing a power grid that crews are still struggling to rebuild.

The grid already had been deteriorating as a result of decades of a lack of maintenance and investment.

Dánica Coto, The Associated Press

SAN MIGUEL ESCOBAR, Guatemala (AP) — Stitch by stitch, artisans have worked for months on the elaborate garments that will debut this week in Holy Week processions across Guatemala and beyond.

The hefty velvet cloaks, finely embroidered with gold thread will cover the wooden Virgin Mary and Christ figures carried by the faithful down cobblestone streets lined by thousands.

Palm Sunday commemorates the Christian belief in the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, when he was greeted by cheering crowds waving palm branches that they set out on the ground along his path, according to the Bible. The most sacred week of the Christian year also includes the Good Friday re-enactment of Jesus’ crucifixion story and death, and their belief in his resurrection on Easter.

At Alejandro Juárez Toledo’s María Auxiliadora workshop about 25 miles (41 kilometers) southwest of Guatemala City, 28 artisans — mostly women — lean over yards of rich velvet spread across tables, hand-stitching the cloaks, embroidering gold floral designs. The dormant Volcano of Water, one of Guatemala’s highest, acts as an impressive backdrop to their workshop.

A cloak for the Virgin Mary can measure 4 square yards (about 3 meters) and weigh more than 50 pounds, requiring a metal frame to support the weight of the fabric without damaging the wooden figure.

Juárez Toledo has been crafting the pieces for 26 years but is still moved to tears when they robe the figures at the center of the Holy Week processions.

“The moment most important for me is when the embroidery is attached to the fabric, that’s when you start to live the process with your client, it starts to generate more emotion, you start to enjoy (the work) even more,” he said.

His workshop’s creations have clothed figures from Guatemala to El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama.

Guatemala’s Holy Week celebrations are especially exuberant. UNESCO, the United Nations cultural arm, designated them as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2022.

Walter Gutiérrez, a history professor at San Carlos University in Guatemala, said that “the processions are the true expression of Guatemala in all cultural, spiritual and traditional areas.”

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Sonia Pérez D., The Associated Press

The owners of a golf course in West Kelowna say they are demanding restitution from those involved in a physical altercation on their course earlier this week — an incident they describe as a desecration of the property and a breach of community values.