INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — With summer’s rising temperatures, the 2008 Kroger Indy Jazz Fest presented by Coca-Cola adds heat with steamy performances by Grammy Award-winner John Legend, Buddy Guy and Freddie Hubbard. For the first time in the history of the Indy Jazz Fest, the soul music will continue with a performance each day by an award-winning American Pianists Association (APA) Jazz Fellow. For more information about the Jazz Fellowship, visit http://www.americanpianists.org/programs/jazzFell.aspx.

In addition, performances at the Kroger Indy Jazz Fest will be the only thing smoking, as the fest goes smoke-free for the first time. The Festival also does its part to keep Military Park and the community clean by partnering with community leaders Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, Countrymark Co-op and Cummins Power Generators.

Artist Line-up includes performances by:

Friday: Mike Milligan and Steam Shovel, Bettye LaVette, Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood, Adam Brinbaum (former APA Jazz Fellow) and Buddy Guy

Saturday: Headliner John Legend, Jerry Gonzalez & the Fort Apache Band, Stephanie Browning Quartet, Dan Tepfer Trio (APA Jazz Fellow), Freddie Hubbard, Tad Robinson, Dave Koz and Kenny Phelps and Hannaneel

Sunday: Robin McKelle Quartet, Aaron Parks Quartet (former APA Jazz Fellow) and Legends of Jazz Tour presented by AARP, including Ramsey Lewis, Paquito D’Rivera and Fourplay

Tickets are now available at any Kroger store in Indiana or through June 11 at indyjazzfest.net. Single day tickets are $25 and $65 for a three-day pass. Tickets can also be purchased at Military Park the day of the event with CASH ONLY for $25 for Friday and $35 for Saturday and Sunday. Children 14 and younger are free when accompanied by a ticket-holding adult.

For more information about the Kroger Indy Jazz Fest presented by Coca-Cola or to purchase tickets, visit www.indyjazzfest.net or call (317) 940-8072.

The American Pianists Association receives support from the City of Indianapolis through the Arts Council of Indianapolis, the Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, Christel DeHaan Family Foundation, the Indiana General Assembly through the Indiana Arts Commission and the U.S. Congress through the National Endowment for the Arts, among others.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Vintage Indiana Wine and Food Festival returns to Indianapolis on Saturday (June 7) at Military Park.

The 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. festival, sponsored by the Indiana Wine Grape Council located at Purdue University, will give visitors the opportunity to taste more than 200 wines from 21 Indiana wineries.

“Vintage Indiana is a wonderful celebration of Indiana’s wine industry,” said Jeanette Merritt, marketing director for the Indiana Wine Grape Council and festival director. “Whether you’re a wine connoisseur or simply appreciate a good glass of wine from time to time, Vintage Indiana offers a broad range of flavors and styles.”

The event also will feature foods from local restaurants, cooking and wine demonstrations and live music.

Cooking and wine demonstrations will be held in the Wine and Food Experience Pavilion and will be hosted by Indianapolis TV personality Jill Ditmire. Live music will be performed throughout the day by the Woomblies, Brigid’s Cross and Jennie DeVoe.

Radio Disney will provide entertainment for children in the form of the Radio Disney KidZone – a Disney-themed interactive attraction that includes carnival games, miniature golf and ice cream for an additional cost.

Festival tickets are available at participating wineries, Marsh Supermarkets and online at www.vintageindiana.com. Advance ticket prices are $20 for adults (21 years and older), $10 for designated drivers and $5 for youth (ages 6-20). Children 5 and under will be admitted for free.

Tickets also can be purchased at the event for $23 for adults, $10 for designated drivers and $5 for youth. All guests are required to show proof of age at the gate.

A list of all participating wineries and vendors is available online at www.vintageindiana.com or by calling (800) 832-WINE.

All Vintage Indiana Wine and Food Festival proceeds benefit the Indiana Wine Grape Council, which promotes the development of the state’s wine and grape industry.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — A federal award to fund the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute validates Indiana’s position as a biomedical research leader, and citizens across Indiana and beyond will benefit, say Hoosier life sciences leaders.

The National Institutes of Health has awarded a five-year grant of $25 million to the IU School of Medicine to fund Indiana CTSI activities at Indiana and Purdue Universities. The NIH created the clinical and translational awards program as a high priority effort to improve the process by which the laboratory discoveries of basic science are transformed into new medical treatments and products – a process called translational research.

Officials at the NIH said the Indiana CTSI is one of the most broadly collaborative of the more than two dozen such programs it has funded to date, with community partners including Clarian Health, Eli Lilly and Co., BioCrossroads, Cook Group, Roche, Wellpoint, the Indiana Economic Development Corp., the Indiana Department of Health and the Marion County Health Department.

“The institute harnesses all of Indiana’s major life sciences research centers into a commonly focused enterprise that will give Indiana’s research scientists many new advantages in finding ways to do their work more effectively and efficiently,” said IU President Michael A. McRobbie. “Over the long term, this will have an enormously positive impact on the state and will make laboratories at both IU and Purdue far more competitive for the major research awards of the future.”

“This partnership creates the only national clinical and translational sciences institute that’s a statewide research laboratory, and the National Institutes of Health acknowledged that,” said France A. Córdova, president of Purdue. “This unique structure means Purdue and Indiana university researchers can address the human health needs of the entire state, especially those in our more rural communities.”

One key to the success of the Indiana CTSI will be its ability to go beyond translating scientific discoveries to treatments and standard health care practices, said Anantha Shekhar, M.D., Ph.D., professor of psychiatry at IU School of Medicine and IU assistant vice president for life sciences, who has been named director of the Indiana CTSI.

“We will build systems that facilitate all levels of research and provide community feedback to researchers. This will enable the researchers to improve and refine the conduct of their science and improve care of their patients. We call it the “translational circle,’ ” Dr. Shekhar said.

Connie Weaver, Ph.D., head of the Department of Foods and Nutrition at Purdue, has been named deputy director of the CTSI at Purdue. Bennett Bertenthal, Ph.D., dean of the IU College of Arts and Sciences, has been named deputy director for the IU Bloomington campus.

D. Craig Brater, M.D., vice president for life sciences of IU and dean of the IU School of Medicine, noted that the institute represents the future of biomedical research.

“The health issues facing us are enormous, the science is complex, and resources must be used carefully. Just as the emphasis on translational science is of vital importance, so are broad-based partnerships and collaborations keys to our success in Indiana. Both are epitomized by the CTSI,” Dr. Brater said.

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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University will award degrees at five campuses and seven College of Technology locations throughout Indiana during commencement ceremonies in May.

Commencement at the West Lafayette campus is scheduled for May 9-11 at Elliott Hall of Music. An estimated 5,947 degrees will be presented in four ceremonies that weekend, including 4,560 undergraduate degrees, 229 professional degrees, 773 master’s degrees and 385 doctoral degrees.

Purdue President France A. Córdova will address graduates at each ceremony. The ceremonies will feature two large video screens above the Elliott Hall stage. The screens will display a close-up image of each graduate receiving his or her diploma.

A live feed of the ceremonies also will be available online at mms://video.dis.purdue.edu/graduation

This link will not become active until 48 hours before the first ceremony.

Each graduation candidate is guaranteed four tickets to the commencement. Candidates can request up to two additional tickets, however, extra tickets are not guaranteed. Doors open to guests 90 minutes prior to the ceremony.

The ceremonies for the West Lafayette campus are:

• May 9. 8 p.m. Colleges of Education and Engineering. Rebecca Lynn Hurst of Troy, Ohio, who will receive a bachelor’s degree from the College of Education, will provide the class response.
• May 10. 9:30 a.m. College of Consumer and Family Sciences, School of Management and College of Science. Elizabeth Anne Proctor of Libertyville, Ill., who will receive bachelor’s degrees from the colleges of Science and Liberal Arts, will provide the class response.
• May 10. 2:30 p.m. Colleges of Agriculture and Liberal Arts. Cody Elyse Cheetham of Zionsville, Ind., who will receive a bachelor’s degree from the College of Liberal Arts, will provide the class response.
• May 11. 9:30 a.m. College of Technology and schools of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy, Nursing and Health Sciences. Akshay Thomas of Chennai, India, who will receive a bachelor’s degree from the School of Health Sciences, will provide the class response.

Commencement videos for each school will be available. A DVD costs $30, and order forms are available at Stewart Center’s Loeb Playhouse box office or by calling (765) 494-3933. Order forms can be submitted both before and after each commencement ceremony.

Commencement times and locations at other Purdue campuses are:

• Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. 7 p.m. May 14 at the Memorial Coliseum and Exposition Center, where 420 Purdue degrees will be conferred.
• Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, where 963 Purdue degrees will be awarded on May 11 in two ceremonies in Halls A-B-C of the Indiana Convention Center. The first ceremony, at 10 a.m., will include the schools of Dentistry, Education, Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Informatics, Law-Indianapolis, Medicine, Nursing, Physical Education, Tourism Management, Public and Environmental Affairs, Social Work and the University Graduate Schools. The second ceremony, at 3 p.m., will include the Kelley School of Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering and Technology, Herron School of Art and Design, Journalism, Liberal Arts, Library and Information Science, Jacobs School of Music, and Science.
• Purdue Calumet. 1:30 p.m. May 18 at the Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville, where 687 Purdue degrees will be conferred.
• Purdue North Central. 7 p.m. May 19 in the Athletics-Recreation Center at Valparaiso University, where 285 degrees will be conferred.

College of Technology commencements at locations around the state are:

WASHINGTON, DC — The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law issued a statement today expressing disappointment that the Supreme Court rejected a facial, constitutional challenge to Indiana’s voter identification law in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board. However, the Lawyers’ Committee notes that the Supreme Court left the door open for future constitutional challenges to voter identification laws.

“We remain committed to ensuring that laws which restrict the ballot to traditionally disfranchised voters without any evidence of in-person voter fraud will not go unchallenged,” stated Jon Greenbaum, director of the Lawyers’ Committee’s Voting Rights Project. “This is not the end of our fight to ensure that elections are open to all eligible citizens.”

The Supreme Court found that a voter identification law may place such a burden on groups of disadvantaged voters that the law would be unconstitutional, but that the plaintiffs fell short in developing their evidence of how the Indiana law burdened voters. Greenbaum cautioned that “state legislatures considering voting restrictions must consider the effect of those restrictions on minority, elderly, poor, disabled and homeless voters before enacting them.”

Unfortunately, during this primary season in its administration of the Election Protection program, the Lawyers’ Committee has already seen instances of the purpose of voter identification requirements being misunderstood by poll workers or applied in a discriminatory manner.

As part of its mission to protect and uphold the rights of traditionally disenfranchised voters, the Lawyers’ Committee will continue to combat unnecessarily restrictive voting laws, including photo identification and proof of citizenship requirements.

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCRUL), a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, was formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to involve the private bar in providing legal services to address racial discrimination. The principal mission of the Lawyers’ Committee is to secure, through the rule of law, equal justice under law, particularly in the areas of housing, community development, employment, voting, education and environmental justice. For more information about the LCCRUL, visit www.lawyerscommittee.org.