Valarie Hodges
Valarie Dawn Hope Hodges (born March 12, 1955) is a politician and businessperson from Denham Springs, Louisiana. She is a member of the Republican Party and represented the 64th state House district of the Louisiana House of Representatives which includes the rural portions of northwest Livingston Parish and northeast East Baton Rouge parish including the areas of Pride and Watson from January 2012 to January 2024. On January 8, 2024, she assumed her role in the Louisiana State Senate where she represents the constituents of the 13th district which largely encompasses Livingston Parish north of Interstate 12. Personal life Hodges met her future husband, Leland M. Hodges, while they were both students at Central High School. The two married in 1972 at Amite Baptist Church in Watson. The couple has three children, six grandchildren, and they jointly own and operate two small businesses. Hodges served as a missionary with her husband for 18 years. Through their work, they es ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party, also known as the Grand Old Party (GOP), is a Right-wing politics, right-wing political parties in the United States, political party in the United States. One of the Two-party system, two major parties, it emerged as the main rival of the then-dominant Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party in the 1850s, and the two parties have dominated American politics since then. The Republican Party was founded in 1854 by anti-slavery activists opposing the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the expansion of slavery in the United States, slavery into U.S. territories. It rapidly gained support in the Northern United States, North, drawing in former Whig Party (United States), Whigs and Free Soil Party, Free Soilers. Abraham Lincoln's 1860 United States presidential election, election in 1860 led to the secession of Southern states and the outbreak of the American Civil War. Under Lincoln and a Republican-controlled Congress, the party led efforts to preserve th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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David Vitter
David Bruce Vitter (born May 3, 1961) is an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Louisiana from 2005 to 2017. A member of the Republican Party, Vitter served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1992 to 1999 and in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1999 to 2005. Vitter was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004. He was the first Republican to represent Louisiana in the Senate since the Reconstruction Era, and the first ever Republican to be popularly elected. In 2007, Vitter admitted to and apologized for past involvement with prostitution as a client of a Washington, D.C. escort service. Despite Vitter's disclosure, he was re-elected to the Senate in 2010; however, the disclosure is believed to have played a part in his loss of the 2015 gubernatorial election. Vitter ran for governor to succeed the term-limited Bobby Jindal in the 2015 gubernatorial election, losing the general election to Democrat John Bel Edwards. While concedi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stay-at-home Order
A stay-at-home order, safer-at-home order, movement control order – also referred to by loose use of the terms quarantine, isolation, or lockdown – is an order from a government authority that restricts movements of a population as a mass quarantine strategy for suppressing or mitigating an epidemic or pandemic by ordering residents to stay home except for essential tasks or for work in essential businesses. The medical distinction between such an order and a quarantine is that a quarantine is usually understood to involve isolating only selected people who are considered to be possibly infectious rather than the entire population of an area (though many colloquially refer to stay-at-home orders as quarantines). In many cases, outdoor activities are allowed. Non-essential businesses are either closed or adapted to remote work. In some regions, it has been implemented as a round-the-clock curfew or called a shelter-in-place order, but it is not to be confused with a shelter-in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Soon after, it spread to other areas of Asia, and COVID-19 pandemic by country and territory, then worldwide in early 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020, and assessed the outbreak as having become a pandemic on 11 March. COVID-19 symptoms range from asymptomatic to deadly, but most commonly include fever, sore throat, nocturnal cough, and fatigue. Transmission of COVID-19, Transmission of the virus is often airborne transmission, through airborne particles. Mutations have variants of SARS-CoV-2, produced many strains (variants) with varying degrees of infectivity and virulence. COVID-19 vaccines were developed rapidly and deplo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as Louisiana State University (LSU), is an American Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States. The university was founded in 1860 near Pineville, Louisiana, under the name Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy. The current LSU main campus was dedicated in 1926 and consists of more than 250 buildings constructed in the style of Renaissance, Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, occupying a plateau on the banks of the Mississippi River. LSU is the Flagship campus, flagship university of the state of Louisiana, as well as the flagship institution of the Louisiana State University System. In 2021, the university enrolled over 28,000 undergraduate and more than 4,500 graduate students in 14 schools and colleges. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classified ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Bel Edwards
John Bel Edwards (born September 16, 1966) is an American politician, attorney, and Army veteran who served as the 56th governor of Louisiana from 2016 to 2024. A Southern Democrat, he previously served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 2008 to 2015. Edwards represented parts of the Florida Parishes and served as minority leader from 2012 to 2015. Edwards graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1988 with a Bachelor of Science in engineering and served in the United States Army as an infantry officer for eight years. In 1996, he was honorably discharged with the rank of Captain. After leaving the Army, Edwards attended and graduated from LSU Law. Following his tenure as a law clerk to Judge James L. Dennis, he returned home to Amite and began his career as a lawyer in private practice. First elected to the Louisiana House in 2007, Edwards became Democratic minority leader in 2012. He defeated Republican U.S. Senator David Vitter in the second roun ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Founding Fathers Of The United States
The Founding Fathers of the United States, often simply referred to as the Founding Fathers or the Founders, were a group of late-18th-century American Revolution, American revolutionary leaders who United Colonies, united the Thirteen Colonies, oversaw the American Revolutionary War, War of Independence from Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain, established the United States, United States of America, and crafted a Constitution of the United States, framework of government for the new nation. The Founding Fathers include those who wrote and signed the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States — all adopted in the colonial capital of Philadelphia — certain military personnel who fought in the American Revolutionary War, and others who greatly assisted in the nation's formation. Many of them were wealthy Slavery in the United States, slave-owners before and after the country's founding. The singl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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School Voucher
A school voucher, also called an education voucher in a voucher system, is a certificate of government funding for students at schools chosen by themselves or their parents. Funding is usually for a particular year, term, or semester. In some countries, states, or local jurisdictions, the voucher can be used to cover or reimburse home schooling expenses. In some countries, vouchers only exist for tuition at private schools. History When France lost the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) many blamed the loss on its inferior military education system. Following this defeat, the French Assembly proposed a voucher that they hoped would improve schools by allowing students to seek out the best. This proposal never moved forward due to the reluctance of the French to subsidize religious education. Despite its failure, this proposal closely resembles voucher systems proposed or used in many modern countries. The oldest extant school voucher programs in the United States are the Town Tu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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School Choice
School choice is a term for education options that allow students and families to select alternatives to traditional public schools. School choice options include scholarship tax credit programs, open enrollment laws (which allow students to attend public schools other than their neighborhood school), charter schools, magnet schools, virtual schools, homeschooling, education savings accounts (ESAs), and individual education tax credits or deductions. Forms Scholarship tax credits Scholarship tax credit programs grant individuals and businesses a full or partial credit toward their taxes for donations made to scholarship granting organizations (SGOs; also called school tuition organizations). SGOs use the donations to create scholarships that allow students to attend private schools or out-of-district public schools. These programs currently exist in fourteen states: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Far-right Politics
Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and Nativism (politics), nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on the far end of the right-wing politics, right, distinguished from more mainstream right-wing ideologies by its opposition to Liberal democracy, liberal democratic norms and emphasis on Exclusivism, exclusivist views. Far-right ideologies have historically included fascism, Nazism, and Falangism, while contemporary manifestations also incorporate neo-fascism, neo-Nazism, white supremacy, and various other movements characterized by chauvinism, xenophobia, and theocratic or reactionary beliefs. Key to the far-right worldview is the notion of societal purity, often invoking ideas of a homogeneous "national" or "ethnic" community. This view generally promotes organicism, which perceives society as a unified, natural entity under threat from D ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Floodplain
A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrology), discharge.Goudie, A. S., 2004, ''Encyclopedia of Geomorphology'', vol. 1. Routledge, New York. The soils usually consist of clays, silts, sands, and gravels deposited during floods. Because of regular flooding, floodplains frequently have high soil fertility since nutrients are deposited with the flood waters. This can encourage farming; some important agricultural regions, such as the Nile and Mississippi Basin, Mississippi Drainage basin, river basins, heavily exploit floodplains. Agricultural and urban regions have developed near or on floodplains to take advantage of the rich soil and freshwater. However, the Flood risk, risk of inundation has led to increasing efforts to Flood control, control flooding. Formation Most floodplai ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it flows generally south for to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's Drainage basin, watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky Mountains, Rocky and Appalachian Mountains, Appalachian mountains. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The main stem is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is , of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the world's List of rivers by discharge, tenth-largest river by discharge flow, and the largest ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |