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The money was intended for property and improvement costs at a Lake Life Island property.

ALTON - At Alton Godfrey Rotary’s meeting on Monday, June 9, 2025, club President Donna Bemis presented a check for $15,000 from Alton Godfrey Rotary to Grafton Mayor Mike Morrow to help fund the National Memorial of Military Ascent that is currently under development in Grafton. Mayor Morrow presented details of the project to the Rotarians. The Memorial will be set against the limestone bluffs in Grafton overlooking the Mississippi River. The centerpiece of this memorial will be life-sized bronze statues of U.S. Army Rangers placed along the bluff, replicating the climb they endured to reach the top of Pointe Du Hoc cliffs on Omaha Beach as part of the initial D-Day landings. Plans for the Memorial include tributes to all who have served, and will include educational events, interactive and immersion experiences, and walkways designed to foster an enhanced historical perspective of the D-Day events. Morrow explained that the memorial will be a place of solemn reflection where

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) joined U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and U.S. Representative Glenn Ivey (D-MD-04) in leading 96 of their colleagues in pressing for answers from the Department of Homeland Security and Department of State around the decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Afghan nationals living in the United States. The lawmakers’ letter, sent to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, notes the devastating impact of this decision, including on the many Afghans who supported the U.S. military during the war in Afghanistan and who face significant danger upon their return. “We write with deep concern about the Department of Homeland Security’s termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Afghanistan, which is scheduled to take effect on July 14, 2025. This decision is devastating

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From The Construction Broadsheet:  The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) on Thursday said it has assembled a list of three teams qualified to bid on a $425 million contract, the fourth piece of the more than $3 billion Improve I-70 widening project. The full, eight-piece project will see construction of a third lane in each […]

Today On TAP: Los Angeles schools try to safeguard their ceremonies from the threat of deportation raids.

by William Turton, Christopher Bing, Avi Asher-Schapiro, Al Shaw and Jake Pearson

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

In an effort launched shortly after DOGE’s creation, ProPublica has now identified more than 100 private-sector executives, engineers and investors from Silicon Valley, big American banks and tech startups enlisted to help President Donald Trump dramatically downsize the U.S. government.

While Elon Musk has departed the Department of Government Efficiency, the world’s richest man is leaving a network of acolytes embedded inside nearly every federal agency.

At least 38 DOGE members currently work or have worked for businesses run by Musk, ProPublica found in an examination of their resumes and other records. At least nine have invested in Musk companies or own stock in them, a review of available financial disclosure forms shows.

ProPublica found that at least 23 DOGE officials are making cuts at federal agencies that regulate the industries that employed them, potentially posing significant conflicts of interest. One DOGE member tasked with overseeing mass layoffs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for instance, did so while owning stock in companies the agency regulated.

At least 12 remain, on paper, employees or advisers of the companies they worked at before DOGE, a review of financial disclosure forms shows. And at least nine continue to receive corporate benefits from their private-sector employers, including health insurance, stock vesting plans or retirement savings programs. These employment agreements could create a situation in which a DOGE staffer would be shaping federal policies that affect their employer.

The people behind DOGE are largely men in their 20s and 30s, most of whom bring no government experience to the task. Many of them previously worked in finance.

ProPublica’s list — the largest of its kind by any news organization — allows readers to gain a comprehensive understanding of the backgrounds of the people assigned to one of the Trump administration’s signature efforts. It comes at a crucial moment, as some of the first-generation DOGE members are leaving the government and a new crop is joining.

“Even though Elon Musk and some of his top officials are shifting their attention to other issues, I see no indication that the DOGE team members who remain will slow down their work to test the legal and ethical boundaries of using technology in the name of improving government services,” said Elizabeth Laird, a director at the nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology.

While the Trump administration asserts it is the most transparent in history, DOGE operates shrouded by the shadows of bureaucracy.

Many of its staffers have deleted their public profiles, have wiped the internet of their professional backgrounds or were encouraged by leadership not to discuss their work with friends. At the behest of the Trump administration, the Supreme Court halted a court order Friday that would have required DOGE to turn over information to a government watchdog — challenging whether the group will ever be subject to public records requests. The Trump administration has banned DOGE staffers from speaking publicly without approval.

To cast a light on this secretive group, ProPublica began reporting in February on Musk’s influence inside the Trump administration, cataloging who was part of DOGE and how associates of the billionaire tech mogul were taking up senior posts across agencies. Our DOGE tracker, the first such list published by media outlets, is the culmination of hundreds of conversations with sources across government.

Today, we are adding 23 staffers to our tracker, taking the total to 109. They are spread throughout the government, from the Department of Defense to the General Services Administration to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

And we are revealing the makeup of the DOGE team at the Defense Department, a group made up primarily of tech startup founders. They are led by former Special Forces soldier turned tech entrepreneur Yinon Weiss, according to a former senior Pentagon official familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Weiss has repeatedly appeared on Fox News pushing the U.S. to do more to support Israeli military operations in Gaza. He did not respond to a request for comment.

A White House official praised DOGE in an interview, saying that “bringing people in from the outside is precisely what this federal government needed after decades of stagnant bureaucrats who allowed the status quo to continue while the American people got screwed.”

The White House official said there is “no need” for the public to know who’s in DOGE and asserted that there have been no conflict-of-interest violations.

“For decades, we’ve been able to operate without these people's names,” the official said. “There’s no need to know the palace intrigue of who’s working in the building.”

Musk has defended DOGE’s work as “common sense” and “not draconian or radical.” He did not respond to requests for comment.

Musk’s retreat from Washington comes after his electric vehicle company Tesla sputtered amid economic turmoil — caused by a mixture of his own declining favorability and some shareholders reportedly losing confidence in his leadership. His relationship with Trump has fractured, with the billionaire blasting the president’s budget, Trump threatening to cancel Musk’s government deals and Musk then calling for the president’s impeachment.

How that fissure affects DOGE is yet to be seen, but the White House has already requested $45 million in funding for the group’s operations next year, an Office of Management and Budget document shows.

One of Musk’s top DOGE lieutenants, Steve Davis, who ProPublica reported has operated as the group’s de facto leader, is also departing government. Davis ran DOGE from the commissioner’s suite on the sixth floor of the GSA. Some believe Trump loyalist and OMB Director Russell Vought, a Project 2025 architect who once said he wanted to put federal workers “in trauma,” will take the DOGE reins.

Questioned Results

Whether DOGE has accomplished its mission — to downsize the federal bureaucracy into a more streamlined and effective workforce — is far from clear.

Musk initially said the initiative would save taxpayers $2 trillion. He later amended that figure, suggesting in April that DOGE would cut $150 billion from the national debt this year. The $180 billion in savings that DOGE claims on its website has come under scrutiny by media fact-checkers who have cast doubt on its accuracy after finding errors in DOGE’s accounting of canceled contracts.

Still, DOGE has fired tens of thousands of federal workers and gutted humanitarian aid programs domestically and abroad. This includes pushing out some critical government employees in health, science and safety offices.

To compile our list, ProPublica tracked the industries where DOGE employees previously worked. We looked at the professional experience they brought to government and whether their assignments in DOGE could pose conflicts of interest. ProPublica pored through archived resumes, federal financial disclosures forms, online databases and other documents. We interviewed more than two dozen federal workers, some of whom shared internal agency emails, calendar invites and other material mapping DOGE’s activities. We sought comment from everyone listed in our tracker. Most declined our requests.

With DOGE entering a post-Musk chapter, here are our core findings:

Potential conflicts of interest are increasing.

One 25-year-old software engineer helped DOGE shrink the agency’s staff even after he was warned by ethics attorneys not to do anything that could boost the value of as much as $715,000 in stocks he owned in companies regulated by the agency. The White House has said the aide, who has since left the CFPB, “did not even manage” the layoffs and called the allegations “another attempt to diminish DOGE’s critical mission.” Another DOGE staffer, a political adviser to Musk, was paid between $100,001 and $1 million by one of his billionaire boss’ companies while simultaneously overseeing staff cuts at the CFPB. Neither staffer responded to requests for comment.

These and other instances of DOGE staffers overseeing government operations that could benefit their financial interests have prompted three Democratic lawmakers to ask the Department of Justice, government ethics officials and inspectors general to investigate.

The administration has made assessing such financial arrangements difficult. So far, federal agencies have released only 22 financial disclosure forms for the more than 100 DOGE members requested by ProPublica.

DOGE’s image as a group of computer engineers isn’t quite right. Many DOGE Members Came From Financial or Science-Related Industries

The DOGE 100-plus come from a variety of professions: 29 were executive managers, 28 were engineers, 16 were investors and 12 came from legal backgrounds. A scattered few others previously worked in cybersecurity, design and science.

More staffers come from finance backgrounds than any other area. Private equity investor Michael Cole, the founder of Shareholder Capital LLC, has worked at the Department of Agriculture, for example. Cole did not respond to a request for comment.

DOGE staffers are mostly young men with limited government experience.

Under Trump and Musk, DOGE has become a largely male entity. Of the 109 staff members ProPublica has identified, 90 are men and 19 are women, making the group 83% male. That’s a far higher percentage of men than work in the executive branch as a whole, where 54% of staffers are male, according to 2024 data from the Office of Personnel Management.

Many are young and inexperienced. More than 60% of the DOGE staffers are in their 20s or 30s. One was 19 when he joined. As a percentage, the number of staffers under 30 in DOGE is about three times as high as in the executive branch as a whole.

Of staffers for whom ProPublica has identified ages, 28 are 29 or younger, 35 are 30 to 39, and 36 are 40 or older. The oldest is 67.

The DOGE Wrecking Crew: Executives, Engineers, Investors, Lawyers

Few had experience working in state or federal government. ProPublica identified 21 DOGE staffers with previous government roles, including stints at the DOJ and NASA. That means more than 80% joined the government dismantling effort without previously working in government.

Those staffers continue to fire longtime federal employees, cut budgets and choke off government programs while protected by an administration that has pushed to keep their maneuverings out of the public spotlight.

DOGE’s secrecy has been part of its overall strategy, some experts believe, allowing it to obscure its work from government watchdogs and the courts.

“It’s harder to stop what they’re doing if you don’t know what they’re doing or who’s doing it,” said Faith Williams, director of the Effective and Accountable Government Program at the nonpartisan, nonprofit Project on Government Oversight. “It’s not inherently a bad thing these people come from outside the government. It’s that they lack any experience in the methods used to uncover waste and inefficiency.”

SPRINGFIELD – Governor JB Pritzker announced today that the State of Illinois has teamed up with two leading Chicago Hospitals – Rush University Medical Center and the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago – to serve as Elite Special Pathogen Treatment Centers for "High-Consequence Pathogens." Under two agreements with the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), the hospitals will upgrade their capacity to treat people suffering from high-consequence pathogens. The term refers to highly infectious diseases that pose a threat to public safety, such as such Ebola virus, Lassa fever and pneumonic plague. The agreement with the two world-class, Chicago-based healthcare leaders is one of a series of steps that IDPH is taking to strengthen its global surveillance efforts in the wake of the federal government pulling out of the World Health Organization (WHO) and cutting funding for the US Department of Health and Human Services. “Here

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The bill has been called “Trey’s Law,” referring to the late Trey Carlock, who died by suicide in 2019 after being sexually abused by Pete Newman at the Branson-based Kanakuk Kamps.

From Construction Dive:  One of Chicago’s largest construction companies remains confident in the data center and advanced manufacturing project pipeline, according to its CEO. In May, Clayco made a slate of key leadership promotions, including Ryan McGuire as president of construction and new national roles for several division leaders, according to a release. The moves aim […]

Clayco Inc., a design, engineering, and construction firm, has been authorized by the FAA to operate drones beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) at its construction sites across the U.S. According to a social media post by Antoine Tissier, Clayco’s drone operation manager on the company’s virtual design and construction team, this is only the second […]

From The Peggy Smedley Show:  Peggy Smedley and Ryan McGuire, president, Clayco Compute, talk about data center construction trends. He says this year, which is the same as last year, the company’s revenue in the data center business will represent about 50% of the total revenue of the company, which is approaching $8 billion. They […]

Associated Builders and Contractors reported Tuesday (June 10th) that its Construction Backlog Indicator fell to 8.4 months in May, according to an ABC member survey conducted May 20 to June 3. The reading is up 0.1 months since May 2024. View ABC’s Construction Backlog Indicator and Construction Confidence Index tables for May. View the full Construction Backlog Indicator and […]

Emmet Metzger pleaded guilty on April 7 to the first-degree murder of Alexis Maki. He was sentenced to life in prison on Monday.

WASHINGTON — Republicans in the U.S. Senate will spend the next couple weeks defending the party’s “big beautiful bill” against Democratic criticisms and attempting to pass a final version that can win 51 votes. Reconciliation, the name for the process under which the massive bill is being considered, comes with a lot of rules in […]

Catch a close up of the full moon tonight here in St. Louis

From KSDK:  The St. Louis Land Reutilization Authority is moving up the demolition of nearly 200 vacant buildings damaged in the May 16 tornado. Neighbors in the area say they’ve only become more of a hazard since the storm. Many of these buildings were already on the chopping block but were not necessarily a priority […]

Your backyard fruit trees could bring in some extra cash this spring and summer, if you're growing the right kind.

Hawley and U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, call for minimum wage of $15 an hour beginning January 2026, with further increases based on inflation