The University of Nebraska Medical Center is showing off its new $30 million eye institute.

The grand opening celebration for the Stanley M. Truhlsen Eye Institute is being held on Wednesday.

The institute houses research facilities, offers treatments for macular degeneration, glaucoma and other degenerative eye diseases, and provides eye exams.

Officials hope the institute will produce revolutionary research and become recognized as one of the top eye care centers. It is led by Doctors Quan Dong Nguyen and his wife, Diana Do.

The institute is named after a former faculty member in UNMC’s ophthalmology department and former president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Ophthalmological Society.

Residents in Lincoln and a group of Boy Scouts have collected 47,000 pounds of outdated phone directories for recycling.

The Cornhusker Council Boy Scouts collected telephone directories door-to-door in Lincoln neighborhoods. Directories were also dropped off at parks and recreation centers throughout Lincoln.

The collections were part of the “Think Yellow, Go Green” recycling campaign. It was run by The Berry Company, which prints Windstream Yellow Pages, along with the city of Lincoln, Southeast Community College and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

More than 323,000 pounds of outdated directories have been collected over the last five years.

(AP)-The mayor of the Oklahoma City suburb battered by a monstrous tornado says he is pushing to require safe-room shelters in all new homes.

Glen Lewis said Wednesday he will propose an ordinance in the next couple of days at the Moore City Council that would modify building codes to require the construction of reinforced shelters in every new home in the town of 56,000.

The suburb was also hit by a massive tornado in 1999 that followed nearly the same path as the storm Monday that killed at least 24 people.

Lewis says he is confident he’ll get the four votes needed on the six-member council. The measure could be in force within months.

Underground safe rooms are typically built below garages and can cost around $4,000.

(AP) — The U.S. Air Force has launched an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile from a California base, a month after the test flight was postponed because of tensions with North Korea.

Vandenberg Air Force Base says the Minuteman 3 lifted off at 6:27 a.m. PDT Wednesday. It later splashed down thousands of miles away in the Pacific.

It’s the first Minuteman test-launch of the year. Several Minutemans are launched each year at from Vandenberg to determine the weapon system’s accuracy and reliability.

Officials say the original mid-April flight plan was delayed to avoid it being misconstrued by North Korea during a time of heightened tensions. It was rescheduled for Tuesday morning but was pushed back a day due to a problem with range safety instruments.

(AP) — A 38-year-old Lincoln man who was drunk when he drove the wrong way down an Interstate 180 exit ramp has been sentenced to up to five years in prison for his third DUI.

Chad Faden was sentenced Tuesday in Lancaster County District Court.

A Lincoln police officer stopped Faden in July driving the wrong way on an off-ramp to get onto the interstate.

In issuing the sentence, Judge Jodi Nelson noted that Faden was convicted of drunken driving in 2010 and 2011 before his latest conviction. Faden also was arrested for shoplifting beer in 2011 while his second DUI was pending.

The judge told Faden, “You are dangerous because you drink and you drive.”

Faden’s driver’s license also was suspended for 15 years.

A Bassett woman has died in a single-vehicle crash in central Nebraska.

Rock County Sheriff James Anderson said 27-year-old Claudia Koenig died in the Monday morning crash.

Anderson says Koenig was driving northbound on U.S. Highway 183 about 25 miles south of Bassett when her Jeep went into a ditch, veered back across the highway and rolled several times.

Anderson says Koenig was not wearing a seat belt and was thrown from the Jeep. She died at the scene.

Anderson says investigators believe speed played a factor in the crash.

(AP) — A Lincoln man has been sentenced to 240 days in jail for assault and threatening two women with a machete.

43-year-old Clarence Edwards II was sentenced Monday in Lancaster County District Court.

Police say Edwards punched a 21-year-old woman in the face during a parking lot confrontation. The woman told police that when she went to an apartment Edwards shared with another woman to tell her what happened, Edwards came at both the women with a machete. Police say the women barricaded themselves in a bedroom, and that Edwards hacked at the bedroom door with the machete and threatened to kill then on Jan. 16.

Edward received credit for 120 days already served, meaning he must serve another week in jail.

(AP) — Officials in Columbus say it’s too early to know whether the city will replace a downtown Civil War memorial smashed in last weekend’s storm.

High winds Saturday night toppled a tree in the downtown Frankfort Square, which smashed the Civil War memorial in the middle of the square on its way down.

City officials are meeting with property damage experts later this week and have lots of other work to be done to clean up the wreckage from the storm.

Public Property Director Doug Moore says the city hopes to have the tree removed Tuesday, but that it’s too early to know when or how much it would cost to restore the monument.

(AP)-Scottsbluff city leaders are considering a proposal to build a meatpacking plant in the western Nebraska city.

During a City Council meeting Monday, Keith DeHaan with Future Food Energy LLC outlined the company’s proposal to buy 43 acres of city land.

The company has already signed a letter of intent to buy the property in the Immigrant Trails Subdivision along state Highway 26. The company is now hoping the city will approve the sale, with Future Food Energy offering $10,000 per acre.

The Wyoming-based company is seeking to construct a 358,000-square-foot plant that would initially employ 250 to 400 workers to process 300,000 to 375,000 cattle per year.

The facility would use reclaimed heat in a process that DeHaan says eliminates the odor commonly associated with meat-packing facilities.

(AP) — A Lincoln bus driver who was fired after a video showed him beating a rider has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor assault.

43-year-old Troy Fischer entered his plea Tuesday during a brief court hearing.

The StarTran Bus Service suspended Fischer for two days and then fired him after a disciplinary hearing. He also was charged with misdemeanor assault.

The case stems from a March 23 incident that was recorded on surveillance video from the bus.

The video showed Fischer appearing to punch a 40-year-old rider more than a dozen times before pushing him off the bus.