Aprocession of women marched down Franklin Street yesterday morning to a spot where 100 years ago, the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia was born. Led by a trio of accordionists and a drummer, two granddaughters of one of the voting-rights group’s founders walked with more than 100 cheering women and supporters. “Recognition of this whole situation and for our grandmother was a long time coming, and there couldn’t be two people in the world more pleased than the two of us,“ Warfield Crenshaw Truesdale said. “I was moved to tears.“

A Richmond judge sentenced a man to 30 years in prison yesterday for a drug charge, refusing the defendant’s impassioned plea that the judge reduce a jury’s recommended sentence. The sentence marked the stiffest prison term in recent memory for a street-level drug conviction in Richmond Circuit Court, prosecutors said. It also highlights the gamble defendants take when they go to trial before a jury, and perhaps explains why so few do.

The state’s community colleges will increase tuition for next semester, and Virginia Commonwealth University plans to eliminate 91 jobs as the schools attempt to absorb multiple cuts in their budgets. The unusual, midyear tuition increase approved yesterday by the State Board for Community Colleges will add about $22 to the cost of a class and generate $10.7 million in revenue. That’s enough to offset about 42 percent of what the system is losing from the state this fiscal year.

Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th, and supporters yesterday defended his vote in favor of the $1.2 trillion health-care overhaul, while an anti-tax group picketed his offices in Martinsville, Danville and Farmville. “I thought it was important to solve this problem because families are being crushed under the cost of skyrocketing premiums,“ Perriello said during an afternoon conference call with reporters.

Swine-flu cases appear to be declining in central Virginia, though the supply of H1N1 vaccine still is lagging behind desired levels. School absenteeism is back to normal levels in the counties of Charles City, Goochland, Hanover and New Kent, a public-health spokesman said yesterday. Absenteeism is declining in Richmond and the counties of Chesterfield and Henrico, while hospital emergency rooms report fewer visits by people with flulike illnesses.

Mechanicsville doctor Torino R. “Tee” Jennings was sentenced to a year and one day in prison yesterday for writing tens of thousands of prescriptions over the Internet for people he never met or examined and failing to pay taxes on his earnings. Jennings, 36, a former staff physician at Retreat Doctors’ Hospital, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Boston, where he pleaded guilty in July to seven counts of introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce and four counts of tax evasion. He faced a maximum prison term of 27 years and $1.7 million in fines.

It’s always a clear sign that fall is approaching when I feel the unyielding need to belly up to the stove and create something warm, comforting and—most of all—brothy. It’s as if the very air outside is dictating my next meal. Will tonight be hearty beef and potato stew, a classic chicken noodle, or perhaps something more exotic, like a slow-cooked Vietnamese beef pho?

Authorities believe two weapons—a ball-peen hammer and a wood-splitting maul—were used to bludgeon four people to death inside a Longwood University professor’s home in September, a source close to the investigation confirmed yesterday. Also yesterday, Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III of Castro Valley, Calif., was served with indictments on six counts of capital murder in the bludgeoning deaths of professor Debra S. Kelley, 53; her estranged husband, Mark Niederbrock, 50; their daughter, Emma Niederbrock, 16; and Melanie Wells, 18, Emma’s friend from Inwood, W.Va. All four were discovered dead Sept. 18 in Kelley’s Farmville home.

A Henrico County man who died after crashing into a guardrail Saturday was one of three motorcyclists who eluded police on Interstate 95 while racing in and out of traffic at more than 100 mph, authorities said yesterday. Erwin Brower, 27, of the 4400 block of Foxtail Lane died at the scene after crashing his Suzuki GSX-R600 racing bike on the ramp leading from southbound Chippenham Parkway to northbound I-95, said Sgt. Thomas Molnar with the Virginia State Police.

In the past 30 years, the Washington Redskins have seen the best of times—three Super Bowl victories—and the worst of times, one playoff appearance between 1994 and 2004, including a 0-7 start in 1998 and a 0-5 start in 2001. Never did the players or the fans lose hope. The fans were steadfast in their belief things would improve.

CHARLOTTESVILLE—Winemaker and philanthropist Patricia Kluge has put on the market for $100 million her 24,000-squarefoot Albemarle House estate and 300 acres surrounding it. Kluge, 61, said she and her husband, William Moses, are planning to build a new home on a neighboring 900 acres. “[Albemarle] House is huge, and we would like to create our own house on the other side of the road and build a new house for ourselves and family,“ Kluge said. “Grandchildren are coming into our lives now, and we want to have a home that better fits our lifestyle.“

Cuccinelli Shannon The final debate in the campaign for attorney general took on racial overtones yesterday as Democrat Stephen C. Shannon accused Republican Ken Cuccinelli of being “an ideological crusader” who favors states’ rights. Shannon, a delegate from Fairfax County, likened it to an agenda that produced some of Virginia’s worst movements, such as secession and the fight to maintain segregation.

At the Virginia Military Institute, where three to six cadets share rooms “so small they put their bunks up during the day so they can get around,“ officials had expected roommates also would share the swine-flu virus. “But that’s not happening,“ said VMI spokesman Stewart MacInnis. “We’re really not sure of the pattern” of how the virus is spreading among cadets on the Lexington campus, he said.

Starting Monday, metropolitan Richmond hospitals will restrict visiting to try to curb the spread of swine flu. In what they described as an unprecedented level of cooperation, the 12 acute-care hospitals in the Richmond and Tri-Cities region all will limit visitors in patient-care areas to healthy adults who are 18 and older, and allow only two adults to visit a patient at one time.

Chesterfield County is projecting a $4 million pinch on its current fiscal year’s budget because of state cuts. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine last month announced a fiscal 2010 budget-reduction plan that will mean about $1.5 billion worth of cuts in state spending. As a result, Chesterfield officials expect to see at least $3.85 million less than expected from the state for the county’s $716 million general fund.