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Joe Angeles/WUSTL Photo ServicesThree aspiring playwrights will present staged readings of their works Sept. 25 and 26 as part of the 2007 A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Festival, sponsored by the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences. Named in honor of alumnus A.E. Hotchner, the festival consists of an intensive two-week workshop that culminates in the staged readings. Each of the participating plays — which are selected by jury — also will be eligible for a full production as part of the PAD’s 2008-09 season.

Photo by David KilperPakrasi’s passion is bringing together unlikely University partnerships — then seeing what good can come of it

Julie Thornton (left), director of student activities, gets a snack after giving blood during the University-wide blood drive Sept. 11. The drive was a huge success — 908 people attended and produced 690 units of blood compared with 609 units collected during the entire 2006-07 academic year.

“I always thought the fashion police were a myth, but they seem to be real,” Richards says.A growing number of cities have enacted laws that would make wearing saggy or low-slung pants indecent exposure. “It’s an interesting question whether these laws would violate the First Amendment as currently understood,” says Neil Richards, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Saggy pants laws form a hybrid case. They are regulating in terms of indecent exposure but seem to be directed at the expression of identity through clothing.” Richards is available to discuss the constitutional issues surrounding these laws.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesKaylin Boosalis as Ginger BrooksLive from the fabulous Hotel Astor in New York City, it’s The 1940s Radio Hour! Set against the backdrop of World War II, Walton Jones’ nostalgic ode to the glory days of big band music follows a group of broadcast has-beens and wannabes as they attempt to make it big on the “Mutual Manhattan Variety Cavalcade.” Mimicing an actual radio broadcast, the show features nearly two dozen classic songs, including “Blue Moon,” “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and “Old Black Magic,” as well as comedy segments, radio plays and period commercials.

Michael Widlanski, a former New York Times and Cox News reporter with 20 years experience in the Middle East, will discuss “The Big Mouth Theory: Communication Power in the Global Arena” as he delivers the second annual Schusterman Lecture at 7:15 p.m., Oct. 8, in Holmes Lounge, Ridgley Hall, Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis.

A team of researchers, including Herman Pontzer, Ph.D., assistant professor of physical anthropology in Arts & Sciences, has determined through analysis of the earliest known hominid fossils outside of Africa, recently discovered in Dmanisi, Georgia, the former Soviet republic, that the first human ancestors to inhabit Eurasia were more primitive than previously thought.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Peanut-butter staves off starvation (week of Sept. 5) • Self-managing diabetes (week of Sept. 12) • Genes and blood thinners (week of Sept. 19) • Dangers of crib bumper pads (week of Sept. 26)

Best-selling suspense author Ridley Pearson will read the children’s book “The Story of Ferdinand” — the official campaign book for Jumpstart’s “Read for the Record” — at 4 p.m. Sept. 20, in the University’s Campus Store on the Danforth Campus.