WEST DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Authorities have been searching for the driver of a car that crashed into a family burial site that sits in the middle of a West Des Moines roundabout. The Des Moines Register reports police were dispatched to Huston Cemetery around 3:30 a.m. Saturday. The driver had abandoned the car, which had damaged the fence, landscaping and some headstones before coming to rest.

Huston Cemetery is named for James B. Huston, patriarch of one of the first families to settle in Dallas County. The city website says the first two people buried there were former slave girls with the last name of Harper who “died on their way to freedom.”

The once rural site has been overtaken by West Des Moines’ expansion. The city now owns the parcel.

A coin collection lost to a Sioux City man for 47 years is back with its owner thanks to the Iowa Treasure Hunt. The collection started by John Potash and his father was turned over to the state treasurer’s office as unclaimed property in the form of safe deposit box contents almost 15 years ago. That was after the original bank changed owners and no rent had been paid on the deposit box for some years. Potash found the lost property by searching the state treasurer’s website,

Potash says he had given up on ever finding the coin collection, until one night when he couldn’t sleep and he went to the Iowa Treasure Hunt website and found his name a couple of times. “And it said ‘contents of safe deposit box’ and I got excited,” Potash says, “not so much for the monetary value — this is like reuniting with my father.”

Potash’s own son Elliot was also on the list and received a check for previously unclaimed funds totaling 398 dollars. State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald says many other Iowans can find cash and items waiting for them if they check the Great Iowa Treasure Hunt website.

Fitzgerald says everyone should check their name because there are thousands of dollars that could be returned to people. More than 33 million dollars in unclaimed property is turned over to the treasurer’s department each year. Fitzgerald says the state is able to return about 60 per cent of it by getting a name and address from residents. The website is GreatIowaTreasureHunt.gov.

(Radio Iowa)

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:50 a.m. CDT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa State University has lost a second appeal of a federal free speech lawsuit over administrators’ decision to prevent a marijuana advocacy group from printing a T-shirt showing the university logo and a marijuana leaf. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday that ISU administrators including President Steven Leath violated First Amendment rights of two students who were top officers of the ISU chapter of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws.

WEST BURLINGTON, Iowa (AP) — Students attending Southeastern Community College next year will pay more to do so. The Hawk Eye reports that the college’s board of trustees voted Monday to raise tuition and fees in lieu of cutting programs or faculty to deal with state budget cuts. Students will pay $6 more per credit hour, bringing the cost to $176 per credit hour for resident students and $181 for nonresident students.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Cedar Rapids police and Linn County deputies are investigating five break-ins at bars over the past 10 days. The Cedar Rapids Police Department tells Cedar Rapids television station KCRG that the burglaries began on June 5. Police say thieves are specifically targeting those bars that have gaming systems and vending machines.

DELHI, Iowa (AP) — Officials say the water in Lake Delhi has returned to the level it was before the dam broke in July 2010. The refilling began nearly a year ago. The lake on the Maquoketa (muh-KOH’-kih-tuh) River emptied when heavy rain caused the previous dam to fail.

Update 9:47-p.m., June 14th from Chief Brothers: “Missing Juvenile Bryant Fuller has been located. Thanks to all for their assistance”.

Since just before 1-p.m. Wednesday, Clarinda Police had been requesting the public’s assistance in locating a missing juvenile, 16-year old Bryant K. Fuller.

Missing Clarinda teen

The summer months can be especially tough on many low-income Iowa families as kids are home from school, pushing daycare costs and food bills higher. Angela Grote, spokeswoman for the Food Bank for the Heartland, says they’re launching the annual Strike Out Hunger campaign.

“We accept non-perishable food items,” Grote says. “We’re always in need of items like peanut butter, macaroni and cheese, and boxed meals. We have a lot of generous folks who bring surplus produce from their gardens as well.” Those just-picked fruits and vegetables are especially welcome.

“Fresh produce is the number-one item that we distribute at Food Bank for the Heartland,” Grote says. “We’re really proud to be able to offer families and seniors who are in need nutritious options that they otherwise might not have.”

The Omaha-based food bank serves 460 partner agencies in 93 counties across western Iowa and Nebraska. She says every dollar donated provides three meals to someone in need.

(Radio Iowa)

A traveling Texan who’s scammed churches in SEVEN other states has been caught in Iowa and accused of deceiving congregations in Cedar Rapids. Forty-one-year-old Alan Farha, a native of Dallas, Texas, told church-goers in Cedar Rapids his family had been killed by a roadside bomb in Syria and he needed money to fly home. It’s a story he’s used elsewhere recently.

He was arrested in Milwaukee a year ago after scamming some Catholic churches there. A few months before that, he was convicted and placed on five years probation for a con of church-goers in Rochester. He’s used a variety of down-on-his luck stories and been charged with scams in New Hampshire, New York, West Virginia, Illinois and Missouri, too.

Back in 2008, in the Columbia, Missouri area, he conned 17 churches, dozens of people and a few businesses out of at least 10-thousand dollars. The Columbia Tribune reports a group of pastors in St. Paul, Minnesota, were so concerned by his activity there more than a decade ago, they bought him a one-way bus ticket to Pennsylvania.

Last week, Cedar Rapids Police had warned churches that Farha was attending services in the area and trying to scam people. He is being held in the Linn County Jail, on a theft charge.

(Radio Iowa)