The logs went away when adding the following rule to the nlog.config file:

<rules>
    <logger name="Microsoft.*" final="true" /> <!-- <<<< this rule -->
    <logger name="*" minlevel="Info" writeTo="Console"/>
</rules>

The final="True" is to prevent matching any other rule for the loggers on the Microsoft.* namespaces and note that do not have any writeTo attribute.