WASHINGTON (AP) — The government announced a $12 billion plan Tuesday to assist farmers who have been hurt by President Donald Trump’s trade disputes with China and other trading partners.

The plan focuses on Midwest soybean producers and others targeted by retaliatory measures.

The Agriculture Department said the proposal would include direct assistance for farmers, purchases of excess crops and trade promotion activities aimed at building new export markets. Officials said the plan would not require congressional approval and would come through the Commodity Credit Corporation, a wing of the department that addresses agricultural prices.

“This is a short-term solution that will give President Trump and his administration the time to work on long-term trade deals,” said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. Officials said the direct payments could help producers of soybeans, which have been hit hard by the Trump tariffs, along with sorghum, corn, wheat, cotton, dairy and farmers raising hogs.

In Kansas City, meanwhile, Trump told a veterans convention that he was trying to renegotiate trade agreements that he said have hurt American workers, and he asked for patience ahead of key talks.

“We’re making tremendous progress. They’re all coming. They don’t want to have those tariffs put on them,” Trump told the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention.

(backslash)rump declared earlier Tuesday that “Tariffs are the greatest!” and threatened to impose additional penalties on U.S. trading partners as he prepared for negotiations with European officials at the White House.

Tariffs are taxes on imports. They are meant to protect domestic businesses and put foreign competitors at a disadvantage. But the taxes also exact a toll on U.S. businesses and consumers, which pay more for imported products.

The Trump administration has slapped tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese goods in a dispute over Beijing’s high-tech industrial policies. China has retaliated with duties on soybeans and pork, affecting Midwest farmers in a region of the country that supported the president in his 2016 campaign.

Trump has threatened to place penalty taxes on up to $500 billion in products imported from China, a move that would dramatically ratchet up the stakes in the trade dispute involving the globe’s biggest economies.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is flooding into the agricultural sector on reports that the Trump administration is preparing a plan that would send billions in aid to U.S. farmers hurt by tariffs.

CF Industries Holding and Mosaic Company both traded up more than 3 percent, while Deere & Co. shot up more than 4 percent after news of the aid package was leaked to The Associated Press by two people briefed on the plan. Shares in Archer-Daniels-Midland and FMC Corp. also rose.

The Agriculture Department is expected to announce details later Tuesday. The plan would attempt to give relief to farmers who have faced retaliation from U.S. trade partners with duties on products like soybeans and pork.

President Donald Trump is in Kansas City Tuesday, the heart of the nation’s farm country.

BRANSON, Mo. (AP) — The 17 people killed when a tourist boat sank in a Missouri lake were remembered Sunday during a service attended by hundreds of people in the tourism community of Branson.

A church bell at Williams Chapel at College of the Ozarks chimed 17 times for those who died Thursday at Table Rock Lake.

More than a dozen survivors of the tragedy, along with their family and friends, filled the front pews of the church to organ music. Although a patrolman guarded their privacy, he allowed one attendee, Carmen Lawson, to deliver pink and red roses after the service to a family that lost nine loved ones.

“It was such a tragedy,” said Lawson, 61, of Branson, who delivered the flowers. “I feel for the family.”

Branson Mayor Karen Best recalled the desperate family members who turned to City Hall for information about their loved ones.

“We started putting faces with names. Those who were once strangers to us quickly became family,” Best said. “They were a part of our community. And we did what families do. We held hands, we wept and we prayed together.”

She praised the people who tried to save others from drowning, calling them “heroes who did everything in their power to save lives.”

The service was held at the college near the site of the accident, which happened as winds approached hurricane strength. The city and college hosted the remembrance for the victims.

“Today we are all family,” said College of the Ozarks President Jerry C. Davis. “We are here to comfort those who have been affected by this tragedy in so many, many ways.”

Online fundraisers had raised more than $400,000 for the Indiana family’s funeral expenses by Sunday afternoon.

GoFundMe spokeswoman Katherine Cichy says it’s verified one campaign that’s raising money. Ingrid Coleman Douglas says a second campaign is also legitimate.

Others killed were from Missouri, Arkansas and Illinois.

During the closing benediction, Nixa Fire Chaplain Steve Martin said of the victims that while “most of them are visitors … they are not strangers to us.”

By CELIA LLOPIS-JEPSEN

The deadline to register before the Aug. 7 primaries is Tuesday, July 17. Fear not, registering is easy.

So is finding your polling location, or voting in advance. Read on.

First, check if you’re already registered and have a party affiliation

All you need is your birth date, county of residence and full name to check online.

Easy, right?

You’ll also see whether you have declared any party affiliation. Your address needs to be current, so pay attention to that detail. Even if you just moved within your apartment building or block.

You need a party affiliation to vote in the primary. You can still pick Republican or Democrat by re-registering — or you can declare at the polls. But if you already have one and were hoping to switch, it’s too late to do so for the primary.

Not registered yet or want to update your registration?

Online, mail and in-person options will all work in time for the July 17 deadline. You don’t need to include copies of citizenship documents, such as a passport or birth certificate, as was the case in the past.

IN PERSON: Visit your county election office, which is easy to find. If you happen to be at your local DMV to get or renew your driver’s license, you can do it there, too.

ONLINE: Register online using the state form on the Kansas Secretary of State’s website. Some civic groups have been recommending filling out the federal form on the third-party website KSvotes.org instead, for reasons related to a protracted and convoluted legal showdown between the League of Women Voters and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. (It’s a long story.) Either form will get you fully registered to vote in local, state and federal elections. Just remember to leave enough time for the internet to do its magic by midnight July 17.

BY MAIL: You can print a state form or federal form and send it by good old snail mail. As long as it is postmarked July 17 or earlier, it counts.

Vote in advance or from home if you want!

IN PERSON: You can vote at your county election office before noon, Aug. 6 during the week leading up to the election. Voting starts earlier in some counties. The evening of July 17 the Secretary of State’s Office will post those counties and their extended dates.

BY MAIL: Request a ballot from your county election office by July 31. Fill it out in your kitchen or wherever and mail it back postmarked no later than election day. As long as it reaches the county by the Friday after the election, it will be counted.

Or, heck, go to the polls on election day!

Don’t forget you need to take ID to the polls in Kansas. Your driver’s license or concealed carry permit will work, among other things.

Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. on Aug. 7. Check your voting location.

But who’s even running?

Your online registration record will show you the districts you live in. For example, “State Board of Education 4” and “Kansas Representative 46.” You can see who’s running in State Board of Education District 4 or any other position by pulling up the complete candidate list.

What to make of the candidates? You’ll have to do your own homework on that.

If you have a criminal record

If you’ve been convicted of a misdemeanor, you can vote. If you’ve been convicted of a felony, you can vote, too, once you have completed any prison, probation and parole time you received.

You may need to re-register, so remember to check now whether you are registered.

Celia Llopis-Jepsen is a reporter for the Kansas News Service. You can reach her on Twitter @Celia_LJ.

By STEPHAN BISAHA

Some Republican gubernatorial candidates are calling for the end of in-state tuition for undocumented students at public universities in Kansas.

Secretary of State Kris Kobach wants undocumented students to pay the more expensive non-resident tuition rate. Gov. Jeff Colyer expressed a similar view during a Republican forum Tuesday night hosted by KWCH and KMUW.

“I would happily sign that bill if it ever came to us,” Colyer said.

According to the Kansas Division of the Budget, that would raise about $2.3 million in tuition revenue.

But that figure comes with an asterisk — it assumes all undocumented students would stay at Kansas universities. Board of Regents President Blake Flanders says those students could be driven away.

“Some would say … they just won’t go as opposed to paying the higher rate,” Flanders said.

The non-resident rate is more than twice the in-state rate.

“It’s hard to image that any of these students would be able to afford the out-of-state rate because they’re not eligible for any financial assistance at all,” said Matt Casey, the director of government relations at the Board of Regents.

According to the Board of Regents, 670 undocumented students received in-state tuition in Kansas last fall. A 2004 Kansas law allowed “persons without lawful immigration status” to receive the reduced rate, as long as they attended a Kansas high school for at least three years and graduated from one.

As state funding for higher education has dwindled over the years, Kansas universities have relied on increased enrollment as a way of covering costs. For those universities, every additional student helps their budget, regardless of whether they are paying the in-state or non-resident rate.

“If you got room for another two students in the class and they’re paying an in-state rate, that’s better than them not attending,” Casey said.

Stephan Bisaha reports on education for the Kansas News Service. Follow him on @SteveBisaha.

By BRIAN GRIMMETT

Kansas water use is declining, according to a new report from the U.S. Geological survey.

Kansans decreased their water usage by 25 percent over the past 25 years — which is great. But conservation experts say there’s still a lot more work to be done.

In 2015, Kansas used on average more than 4 billion gallons of water each day. That’s down nearly 25 percent from 1990. Of that, 2.6 billion gallons per day are used for irrigation — a decrease of 36 percent from 1990.

“What we’re doing is great, it’s just not enough of it,” said Kansas Water Office Director Tracy Streeter.

He’s particularly concerned about areas of western Kansas where farmers draw from the diminishing Ogallala aquifer.

“Overall, we’ve got to see more widespread adoption of conservation efforts,” he said.

The top three water consuming counties are Stevens, Finney and Seward — all located in southwestern Kansas.

Linn County, in eastern Kansas, withdraws the most water per day of any county. The culprit is the LaCygne coal-fired power plant, which withdraws 610 million gallons per day. But the plant puts almost all the water it withdraws back into the lake it comes from, consuming just 1 percent of it.

Mandy Stone is a hydrologist at the USGS in Kansas. She said the data is a good tool to show policymakers, and Kansans, where their water comes from and where it goes.

“This water use data is important, ultimately because all of us in the economy depend on water every day,” she said.

Brian Grimmett, based at KMUW in Wichita, is a reporter focusing on the environment and energy for the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KMUW, Kansas Public Radio, KCUR and High Plains Public Radio covering health, education and politics. Follow him on Twitter @briangrimmett.