Heather Bryant

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is holding a forum next week on the impacts of the federal health care law.

Murkowski says good health care should be more accessible for Alaskans but she says this law isn’t the answer for providing that.

Her office cites a report, by an insurance company, that found the law would impose more than $340 million in new taxes on Alaskans. Her office says the full impacts of the law are still being calculated.

A release announcing the event says a doctor, real estate agent and small business owner have been invited to speak about the “economic drawbacks” of the law on their work.

The forum is scheduled for Wednesday in Anchorage.

Gov. Sean Parnell is seeking spending restraint for next year’s state budget.

Parnell’s been preaching this since taking office. He recently met with his commissioners to let them know that when they write their budgets, they should do so in the context of the state constitution, Alaska’s economy and the global economy.

Parnell says the state is currently looking at a decline in revenue next year, due to factors including lower oil prices. If that situation holds, he says he will seek less spending.

Parnell’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2014 is due in December.

He is also continuing his call to get more oil in the trans-Alaska pipeline, saying declining production will eventually force “drastic changes” in state spending habits.

Environmental groups in five states are suing the federal government, claiming Environmental Protection Agency rules on chemical dispersants used in oil spills do not meet clean water requirements.

The lawsuit filed Monday in Washington, D.C., claims EPA has not published a schedule that identifies where dispersants can be used and how much can be used safely.

The groups say that during the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, more than 1.8 million gallons of dispersants were dumped into the Gulf of Mexico with little knowledge of the toxic effect.

EPA spokeswoman Hanady Kader says the agency just received the lawsuit and would have no immediate comment.

Three environmental groups also sued the EPA and the Coast Guard over dispersants in April, claiming the effect on endangered species was not known.

A Honolulu-based Coast Guard cutter is off the coast of Japan, pursuing prosecution of an unregistered fishing vessel suspected of catching 40 tons of fish with an illegal high seas driftnet.

Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Robert J. Papp, Jr. on Monday announced that the 378-foot cutter Rush had been assigned to Alaska waters but had followed the fishing vessel across the Pacific to enforce commercial fishing law.

During a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing in Kodiak, Alaska, Papp said he would “call this fishing piracy that is going on.” He said those aboard the fishing vessel “put eight miles of net out there and collect everything that flows through it.”

Papp said the vessel carried Chinese citizens and may be passed to China for prosecution.

A passenger on an Alaska Airlines flight looked out the window and saw what looked like a damaged area on the wing with a handwritten note saying, “We know about this.”

The incident July 28 drew comments on Twitter and other social media websites, but the Seattle-based airline says the plane is safe and there was nothing to worry about.

Spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said Tuesday it was an approved trim repair to the corner flap on the right wing.  A maintenance technician wrote to let the flight crew know.

Egan says, “The message was the result of someone’s good intentions” but the wing note “was not appropriate and did not follow company procedures.”

The message was immediately removed, and Alaska apologizes for any alarm it may have caused.

The U.S. and Alaska state flags will be lowered to half-staff to honor the victims of the Wisconsin shootings.

A white supremacist gunned down six people at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., on Sunday. Police killed the shooter.

President Obama ordered U.S. flags lowered until sunset Friday.

The governor’s office says in a release that state flags must also be lowered in accordance with the order.

The temple president and two police officers are being hailed for saving lives during the shootings at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin that killed six worshippers.

Officials say temple president Satwant Singh Kaleka stared down the gunman Sunday. They say he fought back and even tried to stab the man with a butter knife before taking two fatal gunshots to the leg. The fight gave women and children inside extra time to seek cover.

Oak Creek Police Lt. Brian Murphy was ambushed, shot nine times and left for dead. But he told his colleagues wounded worshipers needed their attention more. He remains in critical condition.

And when Officer Sam Lenda came under fire in the temple parking lot, he shot back, downing the gunman who refused to drop his weapon.