WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer conceded Tuesday evening in the state’s Republican gubernatorial primary, saying he would endorse Secretary of State Kris Kobach a week after their neck-and-neck finish threatened to send the race to a recount.

Remarks from Governor Colyer #ksleg https://t.co/iNCO2XOiU9

— Dr. Jeff Colyer (@DrJeffColyer) August 15, 2018

Colyer accepted defeat after a review of some provisional ballots from most Kansas counties failed to find enough votes for him to overcome a deficit of 110 votes at the time of poll closing in the Aug. 7 primary, out of more than 311,000 votes initially counted.

Kobach will face Democrat Laura Kelly, and is likely to face independent candidate Greg Orman, in the November general election in the decidedly conservative state.

The disputed race was intense and prompted a lengthy county-by-county review of provisional ballots. The aftermath of the primary included both candidates challenging each other’s legal interpretations, sending observers to monitor the vote count and raising the specter of lawsuits.

It included a fight over how to count unaffiliated voters who were simply given a provisional ballot by poll workers without first having them fill out a party-affiliation statement. Colyer’s campaign had representatives in all 105 counties when provisional ballots are reviewed.

Colyer also questioned whether Kobach — as secretary of state the top election official in Kansas — was advising counties not to count some mail-in ballots, including those with missing or unreadable postmarks.

Kobach removed himself from election-related duties on Aug. 10 until the primary outcome was resolved, but Colyer argued that Kobach still had a conflict of interest because his top deputy took over Kobach’s responsibilities.

Kobach rejected Colyer’s criticisms, saying his “unrestrained rhetoric has the potential to undermine the public’s confidence in the election process.”

Kobach, 52, has a national conservative following thanks to his strong stance against illegal immigration and his fervent defense of voter ID laws. He was vice chairman of the Trump administration’s election-fraud commission, though the commission eventually found no evidence to support Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election.

Kobach’s voter ID efforts also took a hit in June when a federal judge found the Kansas voter ID law he championed was unconstitutional.

Colyer, by contrast, is far more low-key. He is a 58-year-old plastic surgeon from suburban Kansas City. He served as lieutenant governor for seven years and took over as governor in January when Sam Brownback resigned to become ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.

He helped craft state health care legislation as a lawmaker before his election as lieutenant governor in 2010. As lieutenant governor, he supervised a 2013 initiative that privatized Kansas’ Medicaid health coverage for the needy.

Provisional ballots are cast when questions about a voter’s eligibility cannot be easily resolved. The problem could involve a name not showing up on the voter rolls or a voter’s address not matching a photo ID in states where that is required.

National data from the Election Assistance Commission shows that the most common reason for rejection was that a voter was not registered in the state. Other reasons include provisional ballots being cast in the wrong county or wrong precinct and problems with a voter’s identification or signature.

Colyer ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2002 before being elected to the Kansas House in 2006, then to the state Senate in 2008.

He has for three decades traveled abroad for medical relief missions, working and training local doctors in Afghanistan, Rwanda, Iraq and other countries.

Before becoming governor, Colyer was a loyal No. 2 to Brownback, even when budget problems that followed the governor’s aggressive income tax cuts caused his approval levels to plummet. Lawmakers in 2017 rolled back most of those cuts.

Colyer skirted legal trouble after making three $500,000 loans to Brownback’s and his own re-election campaign in 2013 and 2014. Two of the loans were paid back within days. Democrats speculated they might have been timed to inflate campaign-finance reports. They came as the Republican governor faced the prospect of losing to a well-financed Democratic challenger, Paul Davis. Brownback eventually won by a 50 percent to 46.1 percent margin.

Brownback’s office said the loans were in compliance with Kansas law and ethics regulations. A grand jury investigation ended with no criminal charges.

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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach still led Gov. Jeff Colyer in the Republican race for governor after provisional votes were counted Tuesday in the state’s most populous county.

Johnson County released its count Tuesday evening, which pushed Kobach over Colyer by just 345 votes out of more than 315,000 cast.

That’s a slight increase from earlier in the day, when the state’s second largest county, Sedgwick County, released its numbers and put Kobach ahead of the sitting governor by just 298 votes.

Kobach has been narrowly ahead since the Aug. 7 election.

Kansas County election workers have done a great job making sure our elections are fair. We’re holding a press conference at JCRP now. Watch live on my Facebook page. #ksleg #ksgov #TeamKobach pic.twitter.com/k0wlbe8Sdv

— Kris W. Kobach (@KrisKobach1787) August 14, 2018

“We expect this trend to continue and as this trend continues, I’m issuing a call to unity to all Republicans as we now gear up and start marching in the general election campaign,” Kobach said. “It’s absolutely essential that we march together. Whenever Republicans in Kansas are separated, Republicans in Kansas lose.”

Colyer was expected to issue remarks in Topeka later Tuesday evening.

His attorneys sent a letter to the Johnson County Board of Canvassers an hour before the board met arguing that it should include more than 150 ballots that were discarded because the signature did not match the voter’s registration.

Provisional ballots are cast when a voter’s eligibility is questioned. Those votes are now being counted by the state’s 105 counties in a process that’s expected to stretch out over the week and into Monday.

But under state law, the candidates must decide by Friday whether to seek a recount.

If either candidate wants a recount, he must request one by Friday evening, under a Kansas law specific to statewide races. State law has no provision for an automatic recount, no matter how close the race.

Kelly Arnold, the chairman of the state’s Republican Party, said he expects the campaigns will wait until Friday’s deadline to decide whether to ask for a recount, especially if the race ends up extremely close within 200 votes or so.

“That’s not a bad thing,” Arnold said. “If you are a candidate and you have been campaigning for a year and a half and raising money from donors and your volunteers put their blood, sweat and tears into a campaign, you want to make sure everything is done accurately. I have faith in the system that we have here in Kansas.”

Kobach had a 206-vote lead on Monday, when the 105 counties began reviewing nearly 9,000 provisional ballots to determine how many of them were cast in the Republican primary and how many will be counted. They have until next Monday, Aug. 20, to finish that process and certify the local results.

More than two-thirds of the counties reviewed provisional ballots on the first day of counting this week.

Fourteen smaller counties began canvassing Tuesday. Two others will begin Wednesday, and six counties will start Thursday, including Shawnee and Wyandotte counties. Rooks County in northwest Kansas has scheduled its canvassing for Friday, and six counties have set it for Aug. 20.

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KANSAS CITY (AP) — A 32-year-old man who fought with and threatened security officers outside a federal office building in Kansas City has been sentenced to 15 years without parole.

James Everett Jr., of Kansas City, Kansas, was sentenced Tuesday for threatening a federal law enforcement officer, resisting a federal law enforcement officer and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Prosecutors said in March 2016, Everett was yelling and threatening a judge when he approached the Richard Bolling Federal Building in downtown Kansas City.

Four officers from the Federal Protective Service confronted Everett in front of the entrance. He threatened to blow the officers brains out, began fighting, bit one officer’s finger and spit on another. Two Kansas City police officers helped to subdue Everett.

A loaded handgun was later found in Everett’s car.

GALENA, Kan. (AP) — No criminal charges will be filed against the driver who struck and killed two German cyclists on May 8, in Kansas while they rode on the historic Route 66 during a cross-country trip.

Cherokee County Attorney Jacob Conard wrote in a letter released Monday that there’s no evidence the 23-year-old driver from Shawnee, Kansas, was under the influence of drugs or alcohol or operating her minivan in a “reckless or dangerous manner” before she struck the two from behind in May.

Seventy-four-year-old Harry Jung and 71-year-old Heinz Gerd Buchel died at the scene, just north of the Oklahoma state line.

But Conrad noted that the burden of proof is lower in civil proceedings, and urged the Kansas Highway Patrol to retain reports in case the families sue.

SALINE COUNTY — One person died in an accident just after 2p.m. Tuesday in Saline County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2011 Hyundai Sonata driven by Michelle R. LaPierre, 29, Salina,  was eastbound on Crawford just east of Holmes Road in the westbound lane.

The driver made an evasive maneuver steering the vehicle to the south. It left the roadway, struck a culvert and overturned.

LaPierre was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Carlson-Geisendorf Funeral Home. She was not wearing a seat belt, according to the KHP.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas man who is fighting deportation to his native Bangladesh will be able to present his case to an immigration judge.

Attorneys for Syed Jamal, of Lawrence, announced Tuesday that the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled last week that he should be allowed to present his case to a judge in Kansas City, Missouri.

Jamal and his supporters have been fighting his deportation since Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him in January in front of his family’s home in Lawrence. He was on a plane back to Bangladesh when attorneys secured a court order to remove him from the plane in Hawaii and bring him back to the U.S.

His attorneys say the decision means Jamal is able to seek any relief available under the law.

No date for the hearing was announced.

Jamal, a Bihari ethnic minority, arrived legally in the U.S. in 1987 to attend the University of Kansas but overstayed his visa while pursuing a doctorate. He has taught chemistry at area colleges and did research at hospitals. For the past five years, the Department of Homeland Security allowed Jamal to remain in the U.S. on orders of supervision, meaning he had to report on a regular basis to ICE offices, where he was issued temporary work authorization cards.

As recently as January, his work card enabled Jamal to secure a teaching position at Park University in Parkville, Missouri. He also has been an adjunct instructor at Rockhurst University and Kansas City Kansas Community College. He was on parental advisory boards at his children’s schools and last year made an unsuccessful run for a seat on the Lawrence school board.

WICHITA, KAN. – A Kansas pharmacist was indicted today on charges of unlawfully dispensing prescription opioids, according to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister.

Ebube Otuonye, 45, Bel Aire, Kan., pharmacist and owner of Neighborhood Pharmacy at 2251 E. 21st North in Wichita, Kan., is charged with one count of conspiracy unlawfully to dispense prescription drugs, one count of unlawfully dispensing prescription drugs, and two counts of health care fraud.

The indictment alleges Otuonye unlawfully distributed 21,681 tablets of Oxycodone, 48,683 tablets of Methadone, 18,049 tablets of Hydromorphone and 7,890 tablets of Alprazolam. The prescriptions, written by Wichita physician Steven R. Henson, were issued outside the usual course of professional medical practice and without a legitimate medical purpose, the indictment alleges. Henson is set for trial Oct. 2 on charges of unlawfully prescribing prescription drugs.

Today’s indictment alleges Otuonye filled large numbers of prescriptions in return for cash payments. He filled prescriptions for multiple patients presenting at one time or back-to-back and patients from the same family with identical prescriptions. The large quantities should have put him on notice as a pharmacist of the potential danger to customers of abuse or overdose. The indictment alleges Otuonye filled prescriptions that one of his fellow pharmacists refused to fill. It also alleges Otuonye posted a sign at the pharmacy telling customers that they had to have three non-narcotic prescriptions filled in order to have their narcotic prescriptions filled.

The indictment alleges Otuonye defrauded Medicare and Medicaid by submitting claims for illegally filling prescriptions.

The indictment seeks to forfeit more than $122,000 in proceeds from the crimes, as well as Utuonye’s retail pharmacy license and his DEA registration number.

If convicted, Otuonye faces penalties of up to 20 years in federal prison and fines up to $1 million on the drug charges and up to 10 years and a fine up to $250,000 on the health care fraud charges.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – An Indiana woman whose husband and three children died when a duck boat sank last month in Missouri says she hopes to save lives by backing an effort to ban the amphibious tourist boats.

Tia Coleman spoke through tears during a Tuesday news conference at her Indianapolis home, saying that the house no longer felt like a home without her family.

Seventeen people died when the boat sank during a July 19 storm near Branson, Missouri, including 40-year-old Glenn Coleman, 9-year-old Reece, 7-year-old Evan and 1-year-old Arya. Five other Coleman relatives also died.

Tia Coleman urged people to sign an online petition calling on federal officials to ban the boats.

Two lawsuits have been filed on behalf of other Coleman relatives against the boat’s owners and operators.

FORD COUNTY —  The National Weather Service issued a flood warning for portions of southwest Kansas late Monday and many roads are flooded.

Two people had to abandon a vehicle on Saddle Road in southwest Ford County Tuesday, according to Fire Chief Rob Boyd.

The driver and a passenger were not from Ford County and did not require transport for treatment, according to Boyd. 

That area of Ford County received from 5-7 inches of rain. As the water recedes, officials hope to pull the vehicle from the water late Tuesday, according to Boyd.