California IN BRIEF : RIVERSIDE : Funds Appropriated to Repair Cemetery

Federal officials have appropriated $300,000 and dispatched a team of engineers to repair 800 collapsed graves at Riverside National Cemetery. Anthony J. Principi, deputy secretary of Veteran’s Affairs, said he also has asked Congress for a $10-million emergency allocation to head off other problems in the 113 national cemeteries his department oversees. Hundreds of graves--the resting places of U.S. war veterans and their families--were turned into muddy sinkholes early this month after storms dropped four inches of rain over the 58,000-plot cemetery in three days.