NEW YORK (AP) — You know who else loves the falling price of gasoline? The gas station owners.

That’s because when the wholesale price of gasoline falls quickly, the difference between that price and the price at the pump gets wider, boosting profits for stations. The steeper the drop, the better. And with motorists paying well under $3 a gallon for the first time in four years, profits at the filling stations are rising.

Over the past five years, gas stations have charged an average of 17.1 cents a gallon over the price they pay at the wholesale level. According to the Oil Price Information Service, that difference has stretched this year to 21.7 cents a gallon, the highest ever.

But that’s certainly not all profit. The National Association of Convenience Stores says when you factor in credit card fees and other operation costs, net profit for gasoline sales averages three cents a gallon.

The owner of a station on New York’s Long Island says when prices fall, people don’t do as much shopping around for the cheapest price as they do when prices are rising. Kevin Beyer says they’re feeling “a relief at the pump” — and that as a result, “people are more friendly.”

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Wichita store clerk’s observation to a would-be robber sent the man running out of the business empty-handed.

The Wichita Eagle reports a man carrying a gun and with a scarf over his face walked into the store around 10:15 p.m. Thursday.

Police Lt. James Espinoza says the man demanded money, telling the clerk he had six children and needed the funds for them.

Espinoza says the clerk responded by telling the man he shouldn’t have had so many kids, and the suspect ran out of the store.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is joining the debate over the Senate’s torture report by saying it is difficult to rule out the use of extreme measures to extract information if millions of lives were threatened.

Scalia tells a Swiss radio network that American and European liberals who say such tactics may never be used are being self-righteous.

The 78-year-old justice says he doesn’t “think it’s so clear at all,” especially if interrogators were trying to find a ticking nuclear bomb.

Scalia says nothing in the Constitution appears to prohibit harsh treatment of suspected terrorists.

The interview took place at the court on Wednesday, the day after the release of the Senate report detailing the CIA’s harsh interrogation of suspected terrorists. Radio Television Suisse aired the interview on Friday.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Jurors have returned to court to decide whether to recommend the death penalty or life without parole for a man convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing an 8-year-old Topeka girl.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the penalty phase of Billy Frank Davis Jr.’s capital murder trial got underway Friday in Shawnee County District Court. Jurors deliberated 17 hours before finding the 31-year-old Davis guilty Thursday of 10 counts, including capital murder. The body of Ahliyah Nachelle Irvin was found in a dryer in March 2012 after she disappeared from an apartment.

Prosecution witness Joy Thomas testified Friday that the girl suffered the worst injuries that she had seen in 30 years of conducting sexual assault examinations. Jurors will hear Monday from a defense witness from Atlanta.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) received word that Kansas National Guardsmen will no longer be deployed by the Department of Defense (DoD) to support Ebola response operations in West Africa. During a meeting Thursday with General Frank Grass, Chief of the National Guard Bureau, in Sen. Moran’s Capitol Hill office, the senator raised questions about the deployment of the 891st Engineer Battalion and General Grass indicated that the deployment had been cancelled.

“As a result of the decline in Ebola cases in West Africa, the Department of Defense has cancelled the deployment of the Iola-based 891st Engineer Battalion in the Kansas National Guard,” Sen. Moran said. “It is a pretty nice Christmas present for the families of the 891st Engineer Battalion to know that their loved ones will no longer be deployed to West Africa in March. Guardsmen live by the motto ‘Always Ready, Always There’ and the National Guard celebrated 378 years of service to our country this week – Kansans stand ready for their next call of service.”

The decision to cancel the deployment of the Kansas National Guard was made because the total Army and National Guard requirements have dropped and there is enough capacity to support the current operations on the ground.

Following the DoD’s selection of the 891st Engineer Battalion for deployment authority to West Africa in November 2014, Sen. Moran expressed concerns about diminished customary benefits because of the non-combat nature of the deployment. Sen. Moran immediately called on DoD Secretary Chuck Hagel to direct an exception to make certain National Guardsmen and their families are receiving the same benefits as Active Duty service men and women. The DoD immediately resolved the matter and utilized a different deployment authority that would provide customary benefits to soldiers and their families prior to deployment.

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — Several civic and business leaders in Leavenworth are asking Army officials to spare the community from thousands of potential job cuts.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the military is considering where to make reductions required by law. Federal officials must cut the Army from 490,000 to 450,000 people by 2020. A commission has already announced a potential loss of 2,500 personnel at Fort Leavenworth.

An official with the Mid-America Regional Council warns an extra 2,500 jobs could be lost in the Kansas City metro region because of a reduction at Fort Leavenworth. The director of the Governor’s Military Council says tax revenue could decline in Leavenworth by $1.7 million annually.

Brig. Gen. Roger Cloutier stressed that nothing has been decided yet and that officials’ comments would be taken back to senior leadership.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A man convicted of killing a woman over a dispute about an inheritance will be resentenced.

The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday upheld the first-degree murder conviction of Olin Coones for the 2008 killing of 45-year-old Kathleen Hadley-Schroll of Wyandotte County. But the court vacated his sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 50 years and ordered that he be resentenced.

Prosecutors said Coones killed Hadley Schroll, who had been his father’s caretaker, because he was angry that his father left her some of his estate. Coones was acquitted of killing Hadley-Schroll’s husband, who was also found dead in their home.

The new sentence was ordered because a judge, and not a jury, imposed the sentence, which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in June 2013.

JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says the Ray Rice domestic violence case showed that the National Football League was “behind the curve” in setting policies about athlete behavior. He says new policies now in effect will send a message that there is no place for such behavior.

He says in an interview Friday with Colin Cowherd on ESPN radio that “an old boys’ network” at the NFL that had created “blind spots.”

He says: “You don’t want to be winging it when something like this happens; you want to have clear policies in place.”

He says the Rice case raised awareness about domestic violence and showed men need to change their behavior and “it has to start young.”

Obama was promoting sign-ups for his health care law, which has a Monday deadline.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas obesity specialist who co-authored the “Atkins Diabetes Revolution” has been sentenced to three years and five months in federal prison for tax evasion.

The U.S. attorney’s office said Friday that 62-year-old Mary Vernon of Lawrence also was ordered Thursday to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution. Vernon was convicted earlier of five counts of tax evasion.

The “Atkins Diabetes Revolution” was published in 2004, a year after the death of weight loss expert Dr. Robert Atkins. Prosecutors said she earned nearly $800,000 for services to Atkins’ companies from 2003 to 2008.

Vernon also practiced medicine in Lawrence and Shawnee, and served as a medical director for nursing homes. Later, she directed a southwest Kansas emergency room.

Prosecutors said she evaded incomes taxes from 2004 to 2008.