Bronze Confederates have officially been vanquished from city streets.

What's happening: Workers removed the last city-owned Confederate statue from its pedestal on Monday morning.

Why it matters: The moment marked the close of a more than two-year effort to remove memorials to the Confederacy.

• While most city-owned Confederate memorials came down in the summer of 2020, the removal of Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill's monument was delayed because his body is buried beneath the statue.

About two dozen people watched as a crane lifted the statue from the intersection of Hermitage Road and Laburnum Avenue just before 10am.

• Workers spent the rest of the day slowly disassembling the stone pedestal, carefully searching its interior for Hill's remains, which, by nightfall, remained unaccounted for.
• The excavation continues today.

What they're saying: "This is, I would say, the last day of the Lost Cause," Mayor Levar Stoney said as workers loaded the statue onto a flatbed trailer.

• "I cannot say I'm emotional about this because I've seen so many of the other ones come down already," he said. "I'm elated that we started a project and … now Richmond can turn the next page — fully turn the next page."

What we're watching: A legal challenge filed by some of Hill's relatives is still working its way through the courts.

• A judge rejected initial efforts to stop the removal altogether. The family members are now pushing to relocate the statue of Hill to the same cemetery as his remains.
• The family members say they oppose the city's plan to donate the statue to the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia, which took ownership of all the prior monuments removed.
• "It's his headstone," said John Hill, a Hill relative and steelworker from Ohio who traveled to Richmond to witness the removal.

A Richmond-based conservation group is under contract to buy Mayo Island and has plans to make it part of the James River Park System.

What's happening: The Capital Region Land Conservancy is piecing together grant money to purchase the island, which is privately owned and was listed for sale in April for $19 million.

• The organization's director, Parker Agelasto, declined to share the bid price, but in a grant application estimated the project would cost $11.8 million.

Why it matters: The 15-acre island sits in the middle of the James River in downtown Richmond, and while city planners have long hoped to convert it to park land, it has primarily served as a parking lot.

What they're saying: "It's just one more of the many things that our city has envisioned but has needed some attention to getting done," Agelasto tells Axios.

Details: The project landed a $1.5 million grant last month from the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation.

• Agelasto said other grant applications are pending, and private foundations are also supporting the project, including the Cabell Foundation and Mary Morton Parsons Foundation.
• The Mayo bid was first reported by Richmond BizSense.

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👀 After saying he wasn’t interested in running, state Sen. Joe Morrissey teased a “major announcement” today about the race to fill Rep. Don McEachin’s congressional seat. (AP)

• Sen. Jennifer McClellan and Del. Lamont Bagby have already filed paperwork to run.
• Gov. Glenn Youngkin set the special election for Feb. 21, giving Democrats and Republicans two weeks to pick their candidates.

🚨 Three inmates at the city jail have died so far this year — the highest number since 2015. (Times-Dispatch)

💪 ICYMI: Over the weekend, we published our inaugural list of Richmond's most influential people. Youngkin's hidden hand, a real estate czar and the Democrat other Dems love to hate all made the cut. (Axios)

Batting cages and African Pit Vipers topped the list of things trending on Google in Richmond this year.

Driving the news: The tech company just released a roundup of 2022 local trends and "near me" searches by city.

• Richmond was the only place in the country where users searched most for "batting cages near me."
• African Pit Vipers were the top trending animal this year, presumably because a local was bitten by his pet viper in March.

For context, gas prices, public libraries and N95 masks topped the searches in some other Axios Local cities.

• So Richmond, never stop being Richmond — the "hold my beer" city of Google search.

Keep reading to see the full list of top Richmond searches

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👋 Karri here. Our colleagues at Axios Raleigh decided to play the worst game, "What's your average screen time?"on your phone, and I wanted to play too.

Why it matters: Too much screen time is allegedly bad for you, especially when you spend the bulk of your workday in front of a screen anyway.

😬 And our stats: I averaged four hours and 43 minutes a day last week, but want to add the caveat that I spent a chunk of last Monday waiting on a delayed flight in an airport, so maybe I have a good excuse?

• Candy Crush, email and messages were my top three uses. But, again, delayed flight and then hours on a plane. Totally not my fault.

Ned came in at three hours and 35 minutes a day — with Instagram, Youtube and Twitter commanding the most of his screen time.

• (😵‍💫 Ned here. I've refused to download TikTok for fear it would consume my life, but have nonetheless allowed myself to get sucked into YouTube and Instagram's terrible knock-off versions.)

Yes, but: Our Axios Raleigh colleagues averaged six hours and 40-some-odd minutes each.

Play along: On any iPhone, go to Settings → Screen Time → See All Activity. Swipe right to "last week," screenshot and send it to us. (Youtube tutorial)