This is your daily news rundown for Friday, May 8. In this edition:
- Canvas, used by millions of students, is back online after a global outage on Thursday
- Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen is resigning after scrutiny from Republicans
- Utah's drought response committee wants Gov. Cox to make an emergency drought declaration
Canvas is back online for millions after a cyberattack on Thursday
The Canvas learning management system is back online after a global outage on Thursday impacted millions of students.
A hacker group identified as Shiny Hunters claimed responsibility for the breach and had started threatening to leak records since Sunday.
Instructure, the Salt Lake County-based company that operates Canvas, said they took Canvas offline on Thursday to contain the breach and apply additional safeguards.
Instructure said they found no evidence that sensitive information like dates of birth, passwords, or financial information were involved.
Those using the platform now that it’s back up are urged to be wary of unexpected emails or messages referencing the incident, not click any suspicious links, and report unusual activity to their school or institution’s IT or security team.
Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen is resigning after scrutiny from Republicans
A Utah Supreme Court Justice has resigned after renewed allegations of a conflict of interest from Republicans.
The original complaint, made by Justice Diana Hagen’s ex-husband last year, claimed she was in a relationship with a lawyer involved in the state’s redistricting case.
After an investigation, the state’s judicial conduct commission dismissed that complaint, but state Republicans were unsatisfied and said last month they planned to launch an independent investigation.
In a letter to Gov. Spencer Cox, Justice Hagen said that while she understood public officials were held to a higher standard, her family and friends didn’t deserve to have personal details around her divorce subjected to public scrutiny.
Her resignation is effective immediately, and with it, an end to state Republicans’ demands for further investigation.
When is an emergency drought declaration coming for Utah?
Utah’s drought response committee is recommending that Governor Spencer Cox make an emergency drought declaration for all of Utah.
The state is facing low snowpack, stressed reservoirs, higher temperatures, and worsened wildfire risk. All of Utah is in at least moderate drought.
An emergency declaration frees up resources and funding to help mitigate drought’s impact. However, emergency declaration laws in Utah are only good for 30 days.
Governor Cox is likely to issue the drought declaration later this month.
