This is your daily news rundown for Thursday, Nov. 12. In this edition:
- Users across the country are dealing with a Microsoft Outlook outage
- A historic railcar in Ogden is getting a $200,000 restoration
- Utah is part of a nationwide settlement with a rent-to-own finance company
- Utah's Watershed Restoration Initiative restored over 128,000 acres in one year
A Microsoft Outlook outage is affecting users across North America
Struggling to access your Microsoft Outlook mailbox today? So are people across the country.
The company announced on social media it was looking into the issue at about 11 a.m.
Microsoft determined it was caused by a number of servers being unexpectedly unavailable, which put elevated load on the remaining infrastructure.
There is no estimated time for when Outlook will return to operational service.
There were also some connection issues for accessing Microsoft Teams this morning, which the company said have been resolved, though some users are still reporting problems.
A 104-year-old railcar in Ogden is getting a facelift
The Utah State Railroad Museum is getting $200,000 to restore a historic open-air railcar.
The 104-year-old car used to take patrons to the Saltair resort on the Great Salt Lake’s south shore.
Now, it sits with cracked wood and peeling paint on a section of unused rail line by the Weber County Fairgrounds.
With grant funding, though, the railroad museum will be able to restore it and put it on display at Union Station.
Utah reaches a $183 million nationwide settlement with a Draper-based rent-to-own company
Utah is part of a nationwide, multi-million-dollar settlement with a Draper-based rent-to-own finance company.
Acima Digital and its parent company, Acima Holdings, are a subsidiary of Rent-A-Center.
Acima allegedly misled consumers on costs and agreement lengths, then made it difficult to end those agreements without penalties.
The company agreed to the $183 million dollar settlement with 43 states. Most of that will go to lease forgiveness, with the rest to consumer restitution and the states involved.
This initiative restored over 128,000 of Utah’s habitats in one year
Utah’s Watershed Restoration Initiative restored over 128,000 acres of the state’s habitats in one year.
The initiative involved mixing and spreading seed, removing trees that could encourage wildfire spread, and conducting prescribed burns.
Part of the area restored from July 2025 to June 2026 was 10,000 acres burned by wildfires.
