The Bureau County Soil and Water Conservation District will hold its annual meeting at 9 a.m. Thursday at The Cliff Event Center in Princeton.

Nearly the entire state is abnormally dry or in some form of drought as a result of a shortfall of precipitation last year, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor released Jan. 15.

Catch up on the week’s top Illinois Valley news in minutes for Jan. 18-24. Hear the week’s 5 most popular stories, read aloud for you

Graduates and their degrees or certificates are listed by hometown. The students are eligible to participate in the college’s spring commencement.

The Municipal Utilities Association (IMUA) and member municipalities are offering four $1,000 scholarships for high school seniors in the area.

A single-family home in Ottawa that sold for $608,000 tops the list of the most expensive residential real estate sales in La Salle County in the past week

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Crews are close to completing a new solar farm located in the 9900 block of Illinois Route 71 on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026 in Granville. The Corn Belt Granville substation will provide energy to 650 members. The 1.5 megawatt farm sits on 9 acres with a total of 2,678 panels. The substation has only a single transmission feed with no redundancy. The solar farm and battery energy storage system will provide backup power to the substation during transmission outages. The solar farm will use a single-axis tracking system, allowing the solar panels to track the sun from east to west. This provides 5% to 6% more energy than a fixed array while utilizing a smaller footprint.

La Salle, Bureau and Putnam County are in the midst of a winter weather advisory. The advisory is supposed to last through late tomorrow afternoon.

U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood has announced millions of federal dollars secured for three projects in the 14th District: A Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation building in Shabbona, a food pantry in La Salle and a health center in Mendota.