Driving the news: A Virginia circuit court judge ruled this week that the city has the right to dismantle the statue of Ambrose P. Hill, which has stood over his remains since 1892, per the New York Times.The big picture: More than two years after Richmond — the site of massive protests in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd — began its reckoning with Confederate iconography, legal battles over removing statues have continued.- But the removal of Hill's statue, a process which stalled because it's also his grave site, would mark the end of Confederate statues dotted across the city that was the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War.What they're saying: "This is the last stand for the Lost Cause in our city," Mayor Levar Stoney said regarding the post-Civil War movement by former Confederates to justify the Confederacy.- However, Judge D. Eugene Cheek Sr. disagreed in his ruling last week, saying the statue couldn't belong to them because it never belonged to Hill himself."