The River Music Experience last week announced the lineup for its 2006 River Roots Live festival along with a new partnership with Living Lands & Waters. The festival, which will be held September 22 and 23 in Davenport's LeClaire Park, will feature two stages of music this year. The Black Crowes will headline, and other acts will include Umphrey's McGee, Martin Sexton, Bo Ramsey, Susan Tedeschi, Junior Brown, The Make Believe, The Gourds, The Hackensaw Boys, L'il Brian & the Zydeco Travelers, Calexico, Alejandro Escovedo, Girlyman, and Scott H. Birum. River Music Experience President and CEO Lon Bozarth said following the press conference that Living Lands & Waters would receive a portion of the event's profits; he said he hoped profits for this year's festival would be $100,000. In its inaugural year, River Roots Live drew roughly 8,000 people and finished about $4,000 in the black, Bozarth said. This year, he said, he's targeting attendance of 7,500 each day. For more information on River Roots Live, visit (http://www.riverrootslive.com). To view an edited version of the press conference, visit the River Cities' Reader's online multimedia repository: (http://www.qcspan.com).

WVIK 90.3 FM will present the program Quad City Oral Histories throughout July, giving audiences an opportunity to hear Quad Citians relate their experiences (both at home and abroad) during World War II. The program will air at 7 p.m. on Mondays. The project was a collaboration between WVIK and the Davenport Public Library's Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center. According to a press release: "Now in their 70s and 80s, these local citizens were chemists on the Manhattan Project, brides from England, farm boys on ‘scrap drives,' MedEvac nurses, and ‘Rosie-the-Riveters.' They were at Pearl Harbor and survived ‘D-Day.' One man shot the padlock on the gates of Dachau, and several liberated labor camps across Europe."

The cities of Moline and Rock Island will receive a $514,000 grant for the construction of the north connector of the West Rock River Bridge Trail, and Moline will receive $701,845 for the Western Illinois University River Tech Streetscape. The Moline and Rock Island grants are part of the Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program, the latest round of which includes more than 100 projects totaling $60 million. The grants are to improve the quality of life in Illinois by promoting alternative transportation, such as bike/hike trails and preserving transportation-related resources.

Next month, Bethany for Children & Families will team up with Moline Centre Partners (MCP) to host a Clean-A-Thon in downtown Moline. Volunteers will walk the streets of downtown Moline sweeping the sidewalks, pulling weeds, and picking up trash. Since May 1, volunteers from Bethany for Children & Families and MCP have been collecting sponsor pledges per pound of trash they collect. The event will be held on Thursday, June 15, from 5 to 7 p.m. For more information, or to make a pledge, call (309)762-7804. The cleanup-effort proceeds will be divided between Bethany, which will offer a special recreational-outing opportunity for children that volunteer, and MCP to support growth, change, and beauty in the downtown area.