IN BRIEF
RUSSIAN DEFENSE OFFICIAL TO REPLACE AMBASSADOR
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday appointed a former defense official, Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly Antonov, to replace controversial Ambassador Sergey Kislyak as his envoy to the United States.
Antonov, 62, a 30-year veteran of the Foreign Ministry, is under sanctions imposed by the European Union for his role in the Ukraine conflict while serving as deputy defense minister.
Russia has supported a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine. In 2015, the EU blacklisted Antonov for “supporting the deployment of Russian troops in Ukraine.”
Kislyak, 66, who served as Moscow’s ambassador to Washington since 2008, has become a lightning rod because of his meetings with Trump campaign officials during the 2016 elections.
He returned to Moscow in July to represent a provincial governor in Russia’s upper house of parliament, according to Russianstate-controlled Sputnik News.
GIRL IN ‘SLENDER MAN’ STABBING CASE MAKES PLEA
One of the two Wisconsin girls charged in the “Slender Man” stabbing in 2014, pleaded guilty Monday to a reduced charge and will proceed to trial only on whether her mental condition should make her legally responsible.
Anissa Weier’s attorney and prosecutors announced the resolution Monday at a status conference before her trial, which is scheduled to begin next month. Assistant District Attorney Ted Szczupakiewicz said the family of the victim, Payton Leutner, supports the plea arrangement.
Weier, 15, pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree homicide, as a party to a crime, with use of a deadly weapon. She pleaded guilty by reason of mental disease or defect in September.
She agreed that if a jury finds her not guilty, she would not seek conditional release from a state mental hospital until July 2020.
UT-AUSTIN REMOVES CONFEDERATE STATUES
When students begin classes at the University of Texas-Austin on Aug. 30, they won’t see statues honoring the Confederacy on campus at the South Mall. Monday, the university removed its Confederate statues.
University President Greg Fenves said in a statement Sunday that it’s become clear “that Confederate monuments have become symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism.”
SIX FLAGS OVER TEXAS WILL FLY ONLY AMERICAN FLAGS
Texas’ storied amusement park, Six Flags Over Texas, on Friday scuttled its 56-year tradition of flying the emblems of all the nations that reigned over the Lone Star State amid growing criticism of reminders of the Confederacy.
The park, which has affiliated theme parks across the country, will fly only the American flag on its properties, a company representative said in a statement to news outlets.
“We always choose to focus on celebrating the things that unite us vs. those that divide us,” spokeswoman Sharon Parker said. “As such, we have changed the flag displays in our park.”
ALSO...
uDozens of people, including members of a Native American tribe and their supporters, set up an encampment on Brown University land in Bristol, R.I., saying the land was illegally taken from them hundreds of years ago.