Nordstrom Rack will open two new Southern California stores next year.

The discount outlet said on Wednesday that it will open new stores in Marina del Rey in the spring of next year and in Torrance later that summer. The locations join 69 Nordstrom Rack locations already operating in the state.

“We’re excited to grow our footprint in the Los Angeles market and introduce new customers to the Nordstrom experience,” Gemma Lionello, president of Nordstrom Rack, said in a news release.

Nordstrom Rack is an outlet version of the upscale retailer Nordstrom, offering merchandise from top brands at a discount.

Bargain retailers have expanded in California recently, benefiting from increasingly cost-conscious customers, who are motivated to spend less by economic anxiety and inflation.

Discount outlets such as Ross, T.J. Maxx and Dollar General have capitalized on the tough economic times and experienced accelerated growth. Ross reported record sales in 2025, up 8% from the year prior.

Bargain retail stores have acquired a larger supply of discounted products by buying unsold merchandise from struggling high-end stores. Customers who feel destabilized financially by tariffs and global conflict have used the stores to try to find lower prices.

The new Nordstrom Rack storefronts will be in Marina Marketplace in Marina del Rey and Rolling Hills Plaza in Torrance.

“The Los Angeles retail market continues to see growth from retailers like Nordstrom looking for anchor space in vibrant areas,” Scott Burns, senior managing director for the company that manages Marina Marketplace, said in a news release.

The bargain outlet boom comes as department stores and malls struggle. Nordstrom, the upscale retailer, closed a Santa Monica location in July. Macy’s shuttered two California locations this year and will reduce its footprint by 30% in 2027.

Shopping malls across Southern California have also struggled to bring sales back as immigration raids continue to scare customers away.

A widespread cyberattack targeting the learning platform Canvas is disrupting thousands of schools across the country, including in Colorado. It’s hitting students at one of the worst possible times: finals week.

Cybercriminal group ShinyHunters claimed credit for the attack, breaching systems tied to Instructure, the company that runs Canvas. Canvas is used by 41% of higher education institutions across the country to deliver courses. Millions of K-12 students rely on the platform as well.

In Colorado, more than 20 schools, including Colorado School of Mines, Metropolitan State University of Denver, the University of Denver, the University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado State University, and the University of Northern Colorado, have been affected by the cybersecurity attack.

The group is attempting to extort the company, threatening to release massive amounts of student data if demands are not met.

For students like Flannery Headley, a political science major at MSU Denver, the disruption is more than an inconvenience — it’s a major source of stress.

“The moment I tried to click on something, it gave me this maintenance down page,” she said. “I started Googling things, and I saw this whole thing about the hack.”

Headley says she was working on assignments when Canvas suddenly stopped functioning.

MSU sent out guidance telling students not to log into Canvas and to wait for updates from professors.

Like many students, Headley is now left in limbo, unsure how finals will be submitted or graded.

“This final I’ve spent the last week working on might not matter,” she said. “At least one of my grades is hinging on another final, whether I’m going to pass or fail.”

The attackers claim to have stolen large amounts of data, including names, student ID numbers, email addresses, and academic records.

Experts say the real risk may not just be disruption, but what happens next.

“The worst they could do is release it,” said MSU Denver computer science professor Steve Beaty. “There’s been minor leaks and breaches and these sorts of things from time to time, but nothing on the scale of this.”

Beatty says the group claims to have terabytes of student data, which could include personally identifiable information protected under federal privacy laws. If released, that information could be used for scams, identity theft, or further cyberattacks.

Canvas is a cloud-based system used by thousands of institutions, meaning a single attack can have massive ripple effects.

“They took the entire Canvas infrastructure down,” Beatty said. “That affects about 9,000 schools, tens of thousands of people in Colorado alone.”

Right now, schools are scrambling to find workarounds, from email submissions to alternative testing methods.

There is no current timeline for resolution. The hacker group has set a May 12 deadline for the company to respond before potentially releasing the data.

Until then, students like Headley are left waiting, hoping their work doesn’t disappear.

“I’m going to keep working on my finals,” she said, “but I’m not sure what that’s going to look like.”

In 2007, Frank DeLuz III donated a plot of land with sweeping views overlooking Hilo Bay to the Hawaii Island Portuguese Chamber of Commerce for one specific purpose: to build a cultural and educational center to preserve and share Portuguese history and culture on the island.

Now, nearly 20 years later, that vision is finally coming to life with construction of the center expected to be completed by March 2027 and open shortly thereafter.

It has been a long, obstacle-ridden journey for the HIPCC, with delays being caused by everything from lava flows and storms to COVID-19 and high cost of materials. But Marlene Hapai, former HIPCC president, said it will be worth the wait.

“You just have to wait your turn, especially when you’re a nonprofit,” she said. “You have to just say, okay, just be patient, no problem.”

She said plans for the center — which is being built on the corner of Komohana and Ponahawai streets — were revised several times to accommodate financial constraints.

“Originally it was supposed to be about 3,500 (square) feet. Now it’s considerably smaller because of cost,” Hapai said. “But, hey, you go with what you can get so it’s quality not quantity, so we just make it really good.”

The center will feature a main hall, archive room, resource center, kitchenette and outdoor lanai space. It will serve as a venue for cultural events as well as hosting educational materials and exhibits, one of which Hapai is especially excited about.

“We are going to have a 30-panel exhibit gifted to us from Portugal on the explorations during the golden years of discovery of Portugal,” she said.

She saw the exhibit on temporary display years ago at the Portuguese Consulate in San Francisco, and after she inquired about it, the consulate agreed to donate it to the center once it is complete.

Hapai said she feels it is important to have more physical documentation about Portuguese history, culture and influence on Hawaii Island, which stretches back to 1878, when the first Portuguese families arrived in Hawaii.

Primarily from the Azores and Madeira, which were experiencing an economic depression at the time, they were drawn by opportunities to work on plantations. Hapai said they also brought other skills and cultural contributions.

“(They came) mainly for plantations, but many of them were very skilled carpenters and masons and other things,” she said. “And you know, the culture that was brought … what we have today, the foods, the music, the dance, the ukulele, many became well-established in businesses.”

She said the center has also strengthened the connection between Portugal and the Portuguese community in Hawaii. When the Azorean government got word of HIPCC’s plans, Hapai said it reached out and offered to have the center be designated as a “House of the Azores,” making it part of a network of cultural centers around the world.

At some point, Hapai said, HIPCC could leverage this partnership to provide courses at the center, potentially including a certificate in Portuguese studies and cooking classes, among other offerings.

Hapai is far from the only one committed to seeing the center become a reality. Throughout the past 20 years, the support of members of the community is what has kept the project alive.

When the initial plans for the building proved too expensive, Mountain View architect and former HIPPC board member Blaise Caldera offered to create a new one pro-bono. And, when HIPCC was on the verge of giving up and settling for a pavilion instead, resident Theresa Perreira Zendejas donated her house to the cause.

“She had been to a number of our events, and she said, ‘Marlene, I want to give you my home.’” Hapai recalled. “‘I’m in the fourth stage of cancer, I’m not going to be around much longer … I want to see the center built.’”

After that, with additional help from a $200,000 state grant, Hapai said they were able to move forward with starting work at the site, which began in January of this year. In total, she estimates the cost of the project to be close to $3 million, including in-kind service donations.

“So, we have the money, and now we’re just dealing with the weather,” Hapai said, referencing the recent Kona low storms. “It put us way behind.”

Yet she is hopeful work will continue soon.

“Everything is working out, we just had to be patient,” she said. “It’s not going to be as big as we originally had hoped, but I think we’re going to definitely have the quality that’s needed, and we have a lot of community members that have their heart and soul in this.”

Email Grace Inez Adams at grace.adams@hawaiitribune-herald.com.