EAGLE RIVER — After serving a 14-year sentence for murder, no one would have expected Sarah Jane Coffman to go anywhere near the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center once she was released.

But every Saturday she makes the 10-mile drive with a viola in tow for orchestra practice at the prison just north of Anchorage.

Coffman, a founding member of the women’s string orchestra at the prison in 2003, will debut as a citizen member when the two annual holiday concerts are held Saturday. Acclaimed cellist Zuill Bailey will also perform with the women.

ANCHORAGE — A federal study that examined the impacts of large-scale mining in Bristol Bay and could affect permitting for the proposed Pebble Mine is going to get more scrutiny, officials said Friday.

The Environmental Protection Agency released the peer review of its draft watershed assessment, which included some panelists’ concerns, including lack of clarity in the document’s objective, missing data and incomplete information.

SEWARD  — Marine mammal specialists from across the country have descended on an Alaska aquarium to help care for a baby beluga whale that became separated from its mother shortly after its birth.

The male calf is under 24-hour care at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward, being fed by a stomach tube while learning how to suckle from a bottle.

“He’s currently doing very well, swimming on his own and he has been from the first time he got here, learning to take food from a bottle, which has been challenging,” said Tara Riemer Jones, the center’s president and CEO.

ANCHORAGE — Five wounded warriors with a self-described total of four good legs among them are gaining ground in their assault on Alaska’s formidable Mount McKinley, North America’s tallest peak.

The five soldiers — four are retired — range in age from 31 to 64. All but one lost limbs in American conflicts stretching from Vietnam to Afghanistan.

After nine days on the 20,320-foot mountain in the Alaska Range, the expedition was resting at 14,200 feet Thursday and was being warned by guides the climb only gets more difficult.