Cold weather tightened its grip on the area as daytime temperatures stayed in the mid to low 30s, dropping at night into the low 20s and down to 15 degrees Wednesday night as the artic front that hit the nation dropped into the South.
The Mississippi River was at 17.56 feet Jan. 3. It was 24.57 feet Friday. Flood stage is 43 feet.

A power outage caused after a train knocked down a power line crossing the tracks at Baldwin Ferry Road, caused classes to be delayed at Vicksburg and Warren Central junior high schools. School officials moved more than 1,236 junior high students to Vicksburg and Warren Central high schools for the morning, and by afternoon, the students return to their respective schools.

The civil case involving former Warren County Circuit Clerk Shelly Ashley-Palmertree was postponed a week at the request of her attorney. The suit challenges whether Palmertree owes the county $671,751.75 in excessive salary above the state-mandated cap for circuit and chancery clerks, and questionable subcontractor payments to her father and predecessor in office, Larry Ashley between 2006 and 2011.
• In other county news, Waste Management announced garbage rates in the county are going up 96 cents per month because of a rise in the cost of living index. The raise is calculated in the company’s contract with Warren County.

Mayor George Flaggs Jr. and North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield criticized restaurant owners who said they did not know the Board of Mayor and Aldermen were voting on a resolution to the Mississippi Department of Revenue seeking to revoke resort status for four businesses in the city, which would prevent them from serving alcohol 24 hours a day and make them cut off sales at 2 a.m.

Funeral services were held for Drue Randolph, a lieutenant paramedic with the Vicksburg Fire Department who was set to retire Jan. 15. Randolph was killed in a collision near his home in Franklin Parish, La. when a pickup truck driven by a 16-year-old from Winnsboro, La., crossed the centerline and hit his car.

Former sheriff’s deputy Otha Jones died Jan. 4. Jones joined the Warren County Sheriff’s Department in 1972, serving as chief deputy and then as interim sheriff following the retirement of former Sheriff Paul Barrett.

W.H. Jefferson Funeral Home observed its 120th anniversary as a Vicksburg business. The funeral home is the oldest black-owned business of any kind in the state and one of Vicksburg’s oldest businesses.

Vicksburg police working a holiday crackdown on DUI issued almost 200 tickets during the annual “Drive Sober or get Pulled Over” campaign. Seven people were arrested for DUI during the enforcement program, which ran from Dec. 20 to Jan. 1.

Vicksburg and Warren County ended 2014 with one homicide, the lowest rate in at least 20 years, according to statistics from the Vicksburg police and the Warren County Sheriff’s Department.

Qualifying opened for county and district races, which include all five supervisors seats, countywide offices of sheriff, circuit clerk, chancery clerk, assessor, tax collector and the state House and Senate seats.

Local deaths included Taye Templeton Taylor, Partricia “Patsy” Halford, Peggy Graves Conerly, Jeanne P. Bingham, Eddie Henry Ford Jr., Jacqueline “Jackie” Fillebaum and Wesley Clarence Miller.