WASHINGTON — Nominated to head the CIA, John Brennan told a protest-disrupted Senate confirmation hearing Thursday the United States employs drone strikes only as a deterrent against imminent terrorist threats, not as punishment for previous actions, firmly defending the controversial attacks that have killed three Americans and an unknown number of foreigners.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said of the idea that the U.S. uses the strikes by unmanned aircraft as retaliation in the broad fight against terrorism.

Win Gruening, left, and his brother, Clark, look over copies of old newspapers with pictures of their grandfather, Ernest Gruening, at the State Historic Library in the State Office Building on Wednesday. Local historian John Venables held a ceremony recognizing Gruening’s major contributions as the “Father of Alaska Statehood” and as a champion of Alaska Native civil rights. Gruening was the longest serving Alaska Territorial governor, serving from 1939 to 1953. In 1959, he was elected to be one of the first two U.S. Senators after Alaska joined the Union.

The Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears girl’s basketball team took the first all-city series of the season, topping valley neighbor Thunder Mountain 54-37 on Friday and 60-39 on Saturday in their home gym.

“We learned that we still have a lot to approve on,” Thunder Mountain coach Tanya Nizich said. “A lot of just the basics that we will have to tackle every day in practice. It was a tough, physical series. I think both teams like the little extra physical games, I think it fires both teams up pretty good.”

We have walked down the long, dark road that leads to default.

You don’t want to go there.

As major actors in the resolution of the New York City fiscal crisis of 1975, we looked at the consequences of default; along with millions of other New Yorkers we fought hard to avoid it, and together we succeeded.