The LeClaire RAGBRAI Committee has won $1,000 from Our Iowa magazine in its Best Bloomin' Towns in Iowa contest. Plans for LeClaire include beginning a "downtown makeover" with barrels along the main street with planted flowers. Barrels with wave petunias will be in place by early June. LeClaire is the ending point for this year's RAGBRAI ride. On Saturday, July 26, more than 15,000 cyclists will be riding from Tipton to LeClaire. For more information about RAGBRAI in LeClaire, visit (http://www.leclaireragbrai.com).

Many of the lighter moments in Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning film Schindler's List came when the industrialist Oskar Schindler protested to German officials that children and people with disabilities were essential to his wartime manufacturing effort.

Leon Leyson, who will speak Monday at the i wireless Center in Moline, was the youngest person in Schindler's factory, and one of roughly 1,200 Jews that he saved from the Nazi death camps.

Another actress crosses over into music next week with the release of Anywhere I Lay My Head from Scarlett Johansson. Featuring one original track, "Song for Jo," co-written with David Sitek of TV on the Radio (who also serves as producer and player), the rest of the CD consists of interpretations of songs by Tom Waits. Guests include Nick Zimmer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sean Antanaitis of Celebration, and David Bowie on two tracks: "Fannin' Street" and "Falling Down."

For the past two years, Scott County's mental-health and developmental-disability advisory committee has outlined proposed cuts to services. For Fiscal Year 2008 (which ends June 30), the budget reductions totaled $1.7 million. For Fiscal Year 2009, the proposal is just under $1 million.