Virginia Supreme Court rules Charlottesville can remove two Confederate statues

• The statues are of Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson.

The big picture: The Robert E. Lee statue was the focus of a violent white nationalist rally in 2017, where demonstrators came to Charlottesville to protest the city's plans to remove the statue, Axios previously reported.

• A group of residents sued to block the statues' removal and the circuit court had ruled in their favor, per AP.

Details: In the ruling, Justice Bernard Goodwyn said that the statues can be removed because they were built before the passage of a law that regulates the “disturbance of or interference with" war memorials and monuments.

• “In other words, [the law] did not provide the authority for the City to erect the Statues, and it does not prohibit the City from disturbing or interfering with them,” Goodwyn wrote.