Supreme Court supports Mojave cross in Calif.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said today that a lower court went too far in ordering the removal of a congressionally endorsed war memorial cross from its longtime home atop a remote outcropping in California.

Signaling support for keeping the cross, the justices ordered the federal court in California to look again at Congress' plan to transfer a patch of federal land beneath it into private hands.

The lower court had barred the land transfer as insufficient to eliminate concern about a religious symbol on public land — in this case, the Mojave National Preserve.

The ruling was 5-4, with the court's conservatives in the majority.

The VFW erected the large cross in the federal preserve more than 75 years ago.

It has been covered with plywood for the past several years after the court rulings. Court papers describe the cross as 5 feet to 8 feet tall.