OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Crews have begun working at the future site of the long-awaited Omaha National Cemetery in western Sarpy County.

Local officials have been discussing plans for the cemetery for more than a decade. But they weren’t able to immediately make it a reality due to a Department of Veterans Affairs rule requiring at least 170,000 veterans to live within a 75-mile radius of the proposed site.

In 2009, President Obama’s administration relaxed the rule and started budgeting for the cemetery the following year.

Cemetery director Cindy Van Bibber moved onto the property earlier this month. She says the VA plans to open a small portion of the property for in-ground burials in about a year.

Construction on the cemetery’s first phase will continue into 2018.

LEIGH, Neb. (AP) — Two teenagers have been injured in the collision of an all-terrain vehicle and a pickup at a rural intersection in Colfax County.

The accident occurred around 1:30 p.m. Sunday about five miles southeast of Leigh. The Colfax County attorney’s office says 17-year-old Blake Paprocki, of rural Clarkson, didn’t stop his northbound ATV at a stop sign and it collided with a westbound pickup.

Paprocki was taken to a Schuyler hospital. His passenger, 16-year-old Sydney Folken, of rural Leigh, was flown to an Omaha hospital.

The attorney’s office says the pickup driver wasn’t injured. He was identified as 47-year-old Jarrod McCullough, of rural Leigh.2

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is hosting its first-ever Rural Opportunities Fair to connect students with rural communities and businesses.

The event hosted by the university’s Rural Futures Institute is scheduled for Oct. 21 in the Nebraska East Union, from noon to 2 p.m. Representatives from nearly 40 communities, companies and organizations are expected to attend.

The fair will allow students to explore internship, job, social and business opportunities in rural Nebraska. All students who are interested in living and working in a rural community are invited to attend at no cost.

Fields where internship or job opportunities will be available include agribusiness, agronomy, community planning, education, engineering, entrepreneurship, accounting and finance, health care, information technology, marketing and communications, natural resources, veterinary and animal sciences.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — One motorcyclist died and three others were injured when a car crashed into a group of riders who were escorting a veteran’s body home to Nebraska.

The crash happened Saturday afternoon on Interstate 80 near Atlantic, Iowa.

The Iowa State Patrol says 81-year-old Donald Kerby of Des Moines struck the motorcycles when he changed lanes to avoid a trailer on the right shoulder. Thirty-eight-year-old Ryan Lossing of Omaha, Nebraska, died and three other riders were hurt.

The fatal crash echoed the events near Manassas, Virginia, that caused Army veteran Bill Henry’s death earlier this month.

The 69-year-old died Sept. 14, two weeks after suffering head injuries while helping provide a motorcycle escort for six West Coast veterans being transported to Arlington National Cemetery for burial.

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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Police say three people have been shot in two separate shootings in Omaha overnight, including a convenience store clerk shot during a robbery.

Police say the 31-year-old clerk at a Mega Saver in southeast Omaha was shot once in a leg around 10 p.m. Friday by a man wearing a ski mask after he had already taken the store’s cash. She was taken to an Omaha hospital and is expected to recover.

Police are seeking the shooter and a second suspect in the robbery.

Police say hours later, around 4 a.m. Saturday, two men sitting in a vehicle on a north Omaha street were shot.

Both were taken to an Omaha hospital for treatment of injures not considered to be life-threatening.

No arrests have been reported in that shooting.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A judge has found that a lawsuit by a man denied a liquor license so he could open a nightclub in Lincoln can proceed against the city.

Senior U.S. District Judge Lyle Strom ruled that a third amended complaint filed by Shane Harrington meets the legal criteria to move forward.

Harrington alleges in the lawsuit that the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission wrongfully denied him a license that would have allowed him to open Club Smooth, a nightclub planned for downtown Lincoln. Harrington is seeking $12 million in damages.

Much of the testimony during a 2011 commission hearing focused on Harrington’s ownership of pornographic websites. Harrington says he was harassed by Lincoln officials and that his license application was unrelated to his websites.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha has joined efforts with two other U.S. zoos to save 18 elephants living in a southern Africa park from being slaughtered.

The elephants live in a Swaziland park with 15 other elephants, some endangered black rhinos and other animals. The country is enduring its worst-ever drought, and officials there had to make a decision to either cull the elephants or put a black rhino population already on the brink of extinction at further risk.

The Omaha zoo, which had been searching for elephants for the zoo’s new African Grasslands exhibit, last year partnered with the Dallas Zoo and the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, Kansas, on the problem. Each zoo is taking six of the park’s elephants.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A Douglas County jury has awarded Omaha software developer Baldwin Hackett & Meeks Inc. $43.8 million in a lawsuit against a rival software firm.

Thursday’s award was the second time a jury has ruled against ACI Worldwide, which was founded in Omaha but now has its headquarters in Naples, Florida.

The conflict came to a head in 2011, when ACI accused Baldwin Hackett & Meeks, commonly called BHMI, in a lawsuit of pirating ACI’s software to process debit and credit card transactions. BHMI won that case last year.

In a countersuit, BHMI accused ACI of violating antitrust laws and breaching a nondisclosure agreement. ACI had signed that agreement when it was allowed to see parts of BHMI’s business software in an effort by BHMI to ward off accusations of piracy.