Water main break has LCC classes on hold

Classes have been canceled today at Leeward Community College’s Pearl City campus because of a water main break, the school announced.

The campus will be closed for repair and cleanup related to the broken main, and nonessential personnel are asked not to come to campus, a school alert sent to students Sunday said.

Space station may be visible this evening

The International Space Station will make a bright pass over Honolulu this evening if the weather cooperates.

The space station will rise in the southwest about 7:23 p.m.

That will place it squarely between Saturn, in the constellation Scorpius, and Venus, low in the west. To the left of Saturn, above the tail of Scorpius, is Mars.

The space station will move to the right until it passes between the bright star Vega, near the top of the sky, and the bright star Arcturus, also known as Hokulea. That will be about 7:25 p.m.

Then it will drop toward the northeast, blinking out at about 7:27 p.m. somewhere near the constellation Cassiopeia, which looks like a bent letter M.

The space station, 249 miles up and orbiting at 17,150 mph, is visible before sunrise and after sunset when it is illuminated by the sun against the darker sky.

There are currently three people aboard: U.S. astronaut and molecular biologist Kate Rubins, Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin, and Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi.

Stronger tradewinds forecast this week

Tradewinds will strengthen today, creating breezy and possibly gusty conditions in the islands for most of the week, the National Weather Service said.

Meanwhile, forecasters were monitoring another tropical depression that formed in the Eastern Pacific over the weekend, but that cyclone was expected to break up in a couple of days.

A front to the north of the state will dissipate today, allowing tradewinds to increase over the islands and bring in some moisture and showers, mostly along windward slopes.

The breezy conditions and windward and mauka showers will stick around through at least Friday before a possible increase in rainfall over the weekend, the weather service said.

In the Eastern Pacific, Tropical Depression 18-E had maximum sustained winds of 35 mph on Sunday evening. The cyclone was about 790 miles west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California and moving north-northwest.

Slight strengthening was possible and the depression could become Tropical Storm Roslyn today, but wind shear was expected to cause a “spin down” of the system, and the cyclone was predicted to become a post-tropical remnant low within three days, the weather service said.

Models showed the cyclone would turn to the north-northeast today.

UH-Hilo picks pharmacy dean

Carolyn Ma, interim dean of the Daniel K. Inouye School of Pharmacy at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, has been named to fill the position permanently.

The UH Board of Regents approved her appointment at its meeting on Maui on Sept. 22.

Ma has served as interim dean since founding Dean John Pezzuto left UH-Hilo in August 2015. UH-Hilo Chancellor Donald Straney said he asked UH President David Lassner to appoint Ma as permanent dean because “important work will be required” to prepare for an accreditation visit in March as well as to “continue ongoing efforts to enhance recruitment.”

Born and raised on Oahu, Ma earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Santa Clara in California, and her doctor of pharmacy degree from the University of California-San Francisco. She was awarded a residency in clinical pharmacy practice at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital’s Department of Pharmacy in Philadelphia.

She went on to become an advanced oncology resident in the Department of Pharmacy and Drug Information at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

With an extensive background in clinical pharmacy practice, pharmacy and hospital administration, Ma is a registered pharmacist with licenses in Hawaii, Nevada and California and remains board-certified in oncology pharmacy.