Scott Lewis

The City of Sulphur, the City of Lake Charles and KPLC-TV are teaming up with former New Orleans Saint Mike McKenzie’s charity foundation to collect relief items for the victims of Hurricane Isaac — and you can help.

With 160,601 votes cast, it’s fair to say that the first Lake Area School Spirit Contest was a success.  While it was awesome to see so many votes go to support our students, our hats are off to the winners — Sam Houston High in Moss Bluff, who collared 47 percent of the vote, beating out seven other schools.

UPDATE: 4:44 p.m. — No school for Jeff Davis Parish Thursday, either. UPDATE: 4:37 p.m. — Calcasieu and Cameron parish schools will remain closed on Thursday.

Let’s face it, The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore is the man. He fears no hurricane, no flood, no nor’easter, no tornado.  He is the freakishly muscled and cut weather man with a ball cap and head full of weather.  Women want him and men want to be him.  But how did Jim Cantore become Jim Cantore?  Well, there’s so much about him you never knew.

UPDATE 7 p.m., 8/27 — 26.7 N, 86.5 W, 70 mph, 981 mb: Isaac still remains too ragged to become strong enough to be a hurricane, but it is expected to get stronger overnight.  Officials are becoming more concerned about the storm surge that will likely push ashore near the Louisiana/Mississippi border, and are also concerned that Isaac will come ashore near New Orleans and simply sit there dumping

Flickr / juggernautco With only one more week to go in the voting, there’s still time to post enough votes to put your Lake Area school in the lead for our School Spirit Throwdown.

A Lake Charles man is behind bars after he took six people hostage on Denise Street Thursday night after he allegedly broke into another home.

In probably the only move left to him, Brandon Scott Lavergne pled guilty today to the murders of Michaela “Mickey” Shunick and Lisa Pate.  And, in doing so, he revealed the heartbreaking story of how everything went down on that fateful night back in May when Shunick went missing — and on another night in 1999 when he killed Lisa.

This image is property of http://www.roadtrafficsigns.com Starting Monday, if you’re using the stretch of Interstate between the big Calcasieu River bridge and PPG Drive along I-10, things are going to start getting slower.  For the next six months, the state DOTD will be rebuilding that nasty stretch of highway.

After a tense afternoon of back-and-forth in the media, Lafayette’s Police Chief Jim Craft confirmed to multiple media outlets that officials believe they have found the body of missing UL-Lafayette student Mickey Shunick, who has been missing since May.

Sometime in the middle of next week, Tropical Storm Ernesto will likely be making landfall on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico — but exactly where is still a mystery.  And while Ernesto is throwing out winds of around 50 mph this morning, it’s still uncertain at this hour just how strong he’ll become.

The 12-year-old boy allegedly shot by his 16-year-old cousin over the weekend remains in critical condition, according to Lake Charles police.  The fate of the alleged shooter, meanwhile, also remains in the air.