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VCU senior forward Courtney Hurt became women’s basketball’s all-time leading scorer Thursday night.

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Local & VCU National & International

Father, 3-year-old twin daughters found dead

A 40-year-old man and his 3-year-old twin daughters were found dead in their Mechanicsville home by Hanover County deputies Saturday after the department responded to a call about suspicious deaths at the residence.

At 3:36 p.m., the sheriff’s office received an emergency call about the home off Mechanicsville Turnpike near Lee-Davis High School. When officers arrived, they found the man and the girls dead, said Sgt. Chris Whitley, a spokesman for the department.

Whitley did not reveal the cause of death and did not immediately release the names of the victims. He said the county medical examiner was investigating and that the names were being withheld pending notification of family.

The deaths were being investigated as suspicious, but Whitley said there was no danger to the public and that no suspect was being sought.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Richmond area lags U.S. in volunteering

When it comes to volunteering, Richmond has some catching up to do.

In 2010, 20.9 percent of Richmond-area residents volunteered, 5 percentage points less than the national average and 7 points behind the state as a whole, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service website VolunteeringInAmerica.gov.

According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, there has been an uptick in volunteering nationwide. In 2010, the country saw the highest growth rate in volunteerism since 2005, climbing to 63 million.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Medical school for Southside Va. proposed

The man behind the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville wants to bring the first medical school to Southside Virginia.

The Martinsville Bulletin reports that the school is the brainchild of Noel Boaz, who turned an empty school into the Virginia Museum of Natural History.

Boaz has a medical degree and is an affiliate research professor of anthropology at Virginia Commonwealth University.

He envisions a medical school operated by the Integrative Centers for Science and Medicine, a nonprofit educational, research and charitable institutions based in Martinsville. It would cost $25 million for the first two years to start the college and get the medical school accredited.

Boaz said there are no medical schools in Southside and the state as a whole needs more schools to educate future doctors.

Brief by the Associated Press

Times-Dispatch asks readers to name eagles

The two stars of the Richmond Eagle Cam need names, but you are going to change that.

Today through Thursday, you can suggest names by emailing rspringston@timesdispatch.com. Include your name, telephone number and the locality where you live.

The Times-Dispatch will choose five finalists and announce them Friday on TimesDispatch.com. You will then be able to choose the two winning names in an online poll through Feb. 9. Winners will officially be announced online Feb. 10.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Researchers find cancer in ancient Egyptian mummy

A professor from American University in Cairo says discovery of prostate cancer in a 2,200-year-old mummy indicates the disease was caused by genetics, not environment. The genetics-environment question is key to understanding cancer.

AUC professor Salima Ikram, a member of the team that studied the mummy in Portugal for two years, said Sunday the mummy was of a man who died in his forties.

She said this was the second oldest known case of prostate cancer.

“Living conditions in ancient times were very different; there were no pollutants or modified foods, which leads us to believe that the disease is not necessarily only linked to industrial factors,” she said.

A statement from AUC says the oldest known case came from a 2,700 year-old skeleton of a king in Russia.

Brief by the Associated Press

300 arrested in Occupy Oakland protests

Dozens of police maintained a late-night guard around City Hall following daylong protests that resulted in 300 arrests. Occupy Oakland demonstrators broke into the historic building and burned a U.S. flag, as officers earlier fired tear gas to disperse people throwing rocks and tearing down fencing at a convention center.

Saturday's protests – the most turbulent since Oakland police forcefully dismantled an Occupy encampment in November – came just days after the group said it planned to use a vacant building as a social center and political hub and threatened to try to shut down the port, occupy the airport and take over City Hall.

An exasperated Mayor Jean Quan, who faced heavy criticism for the police action last fall, called on the Occupy movement to “stop using Oakland as its playground.”

“People in the community and people in the Occupy movement have to stop making excuses for this behavior,” Quan said.

Protesters clashed with police throughout the day, at times throwing rocks, bottles and other objects at officers. And police responded by deploying smoke, tear gas and bean bag rounds, City Administrator Deanna Santanta said.

Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan said about 300 arrests were made.

Brief by the Associated Press

Obama tells colleges to stop tuition increases

President Barack Obama embraced the idea of federal action to restrain the rapidly increasing cost of higher education, giving a boost to a long-simmering policy idea that has gained steam amid growing frustration with rising tuition. His proposal that colleges and universities cut costs or risk losing out on some federal aid was part of a larger package of “college affordability” ideas unveiled by the president Friday in a speech at the University of Michigan.

Obama wants to increase money for higher education, mostly through an expansion of federal loan programs. He also will require colleges and universities to give families standardized information to allow comparison shopping on financial aid packages, graduation rates and employment prospects for a college's graduates.

Brief by the Associated Press

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In this section:

Bill would allow faculty to carry guns • 4 The Well enters early stages of data collection • 4 VCU kicks off RecycleMania • 5