A federal judge approved a land-swap settlement of a lawsuit over a remote site in the Mojave National Preserve where war memorial crosses have been erected for decades.

The settlement announced Tuesday calls for the site at Sunrise Rock to be turned over to a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Barstow in exchange for five acres of donated land.

The National Park Service said it hopes to complete the swap by year's end, allowing the VFW to once more erect a cross on the site. The most recent permanent cross was stolen and a replacement was removed to comply with a court injunction...