Austin, TX
Judge to approve auctions liquidating Infowars to help pay Sandy Hook families
AUSTIN, Texas — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars media platform and its assets will be sold off piece by piece in auctions this fall to help pay the more than $1 billion he owes relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, under an order expected to be approved by a federal judge.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston said during a court hearing Tuesday that he will approve the auctions that start in November. But he said he first must change a previous order to clarify that the trustee overseeing Jones’ personal bankruptcy case controls all the assets of Infowars parent company Free Speech Systems, which is owned 100% by Jones.
Despite the pending loss of his company, Jones vows to continue his talk shows through other means, possibly including a new website and his personal social media accounts. He also has suggested that Infowars’ assets could be bought by his supporters, allowing him to continue hosting his show as an employee under the Infowars brand in their home city of Austin, Texas.
“It’s very cut and dry that the assets of Free Speech Systems, the website, the equipment, the shopping cart, all that, can be sold,” Jones said on a recent show. “And they know full well that there are a bunch of patriot buyers, and then the operation can ease on.”
Jones and his company both filed for bankruptcy protection in 2022 — the same year Sandy Hook families won nearly $1.5 billion in defamation and emotional distress lawsuits against Jones for his repeatedly calling the 2012 school shooting a hoax staged by “crisis actors” to get more gun control legislation passed. Twenty first graders and six educators were killed in the Newtown, Connecticut shooting.
During two civil trials in Texas and Connecticut, parents and children of many of the victims testified that they were traumatized by Jones’ hoax conspiracies and his followers’ actions. They said they were harassed and threatened by Jones’ believers, some of whom confronted the grieving families in person, saying the shooting never happened and their children never existed. One parent said someone threatened to dig up his dead son’s grave.
Jones is appealing the civil jury verdicts, citing free speech rights and questioning whether the families proved any connection between his comments, and the people who harassed and threatened the relatives. He has since acknowledged that the shooting did happen.
In June, Lopez converted Jones’ personal bankruptcy reorganization case into a liquidation, meaning many of his assets will be sold off to pay creditors except for his main home and other exempt property. The same day, Lopez also dismissed Free Speech Systems’ bankruptcy case after Jones and the families could not reach agreement on a final plan.
The sell-off order Lopez intends to approve would put Infowars’ intellectual property up for auction on Nov. 13, including its trademarks, copyrighted material, social media accounts and websites. Jones’ personal social media sites, including his account on the social platform X, which has 2.8 million followers, would not be included.
However, the trustee overseeing Jones’ bankruptcy case, Christopher Murray, said Tuesday that he may soon seek court permission to also liquidate Jones’ personal social media accounts and his other intellectual property — which Jones’ attorneys have opposed. That issue could develop into another court fight in the bankruptcy case. Murray also is expected to sell many of Jones’ personal assets.
The Sandy Hook families who won the Connecticut lawsuit want Jones to lose his personal social media accounts. Their lawyers further contend that the families should get a chunk of all of Jones’ future earnings to help pay off his more than $1 billion debt.
Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families in the Connecticut lawsuit, said the judge’s signing of the auction order will be “a significant step forward” in the family’s efforts to make Jones pay for his hoax lies.
“Alex Jones will no longer own or control the company he built,” Mattei said in a statement Tuesday. “This brings the families closer to their goal of holding him accountable for the harm he has caused.”
The rest of Infowars’ assets, including computers, video cameras and other studio equipment, would be sold at a different auction on Dec. 10.
Jones has made millions of dollars over the years selling dietary supplements, apparel, survival gear, books and other items he promotes on his shows, which air on the internet and dozens of radio stations. It’s unclear how much money would be raised by selling Infowars and Jones’ assets, and how much money the Sandy Hook families would get.
Jones has about $9 million in personal assets, according to court filings. Free Speech Systems has about $6 million in cash on hand and about $1.2 million worth of inventory, according to previous court testimony.
Lawyers, financial experts and others who worked on Jones’ bankruptcy cases — who have racked up millions of dollars in fees and expenses — are expected to be paid first.
A remaining legal dispute in the bankruptcy case is whether Free Speech Systems owes more than $50 million to another Jones-owned company, PQPR Holdings Limited. Free Speech Systems buys dietary supplements from PQPR to sell on the Infowars website. PQPR said it wasn’t paid for many of the supplements and filed liens. Sandy Hook lawyers allege the debt is bogus.
If the debt is found to be valid, that could reduce any amount the Sandy Hook families ultimately get from the liquidations.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Society Sons of the American Revolution unveiled a new monument at the Texas State Cemetery on Saturday, dedicated to Texas Revolutionary War soldiers.
“We must educate every generation about why it is that America grew from a tenuous 13 colonies into the most powerful country in the history of the world,” said Governor Abbott. “This monument here is an enduring testament to the heroes who fought for the freedom that is unique to America.”
The monument was dedicated to 69 soldiers who fought in the American Revolutionary War and later settled in Texas, according to a press release.
Among those that were honored, Abbott recognized:
- José Santiago Seguín, grandfather of Texas Revolutionary hero Juan Seguín.
- Peter Sides, who fought in the 2nd Battalion of the North Carolina Regiment of the Colonial Army, and was later killed in the 1813 Battle of Medina, fighting for Mexican independence against Spain.
- Antonio Gil Y’Barbo, the founder of Nacogdoches.
- William Sparks, who fought as a mounted rifleman in the American Revolution and later settled in Texas. He had two sons and two grandsons who fought in the Texas Revolution.
“This year marks the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, which not only gave freedom to the British colonies of North America, but inspired movements for freedom and liberty all over the world,” said TSSAR President Mel Oller. “Texans played a role in the war too, and it’s important to recognize them, and the sacrifices they made for our freedom.”
At the monument unveiling, Abbott was also inducted into the Sons of the American Revolution and received its Silver Good Citizenship Medal.
AUSTIN, Texas — Inside a green wooden box mounted to a steel fence, a treasure trove of trinkets awaits. Just a few miles north is another goodie box, this time covered in leopard print and inside a craft studio. Farther east, a simple white trinket box sits mounted on a wooden pole, decorated with stars and a crow saying, “Thanks for visiting!”
These boxes, filled to the brim with stickers, keychains, jewelry, collectibles and more, are known as trinket trade boxes. Austin has seen a sudden surge in these boxes over the last few months, and despite their varying locations, one sentiment ties them all together: trinket trading is a fun way to bring a bit of joy to the community.
“Little things that bring people joy is so important right now, which I think a lot of us can agree with, and I’ve seen all sorts of people use the box so far,” said Anna Arocha, whose trinket box is in The Triangle neighborhood downtown. “Little kids and all the way up to people in their 50s and 60s, I’ve seen stop by.”
Trinket trading operates on a simple system of take something, leave something. People can swap a toy car for a lanyard, a bracelet for a Sonny Angel, or a Pokémon card for a rubber duck.
“There was somebody who was just walking by with their kid in the stroller, and there was a finger puppet inside of the box, and I saw her swap something out and walk away with the little finger puppet,” Arocha said. “And it was just such a cute moment to see a mom and a kid enjoy something like that.”
Arocha put her crafting skills to work and made her green wooden box in just one day using craft wood and a wine crate last month. Amy Elms opted for a small, white junction box to ensure it could withstand harsh Texas weather. Ani’s Day & Night on East Riverside, which has a large outdoor space for picnic tables and food trucks, gave Elms permission to place her trinket box on their property in January.
Ally Chavez used her own property, Create! Studio ATX on West Anderson Lane, for her leopard-print box that opened in March.
“There wasn’t a ton up here in the north area, so we just kind of wanted to put it together and put it up for the studio just as a way to connect with the community in a way that no one has to spend money,” Chavez said.
Since their debuts, all three trinket boxes have garnered thousands of interactions on social media. When Arocha posted about the opening of her box in March, she racked up 100,000 views on TikTok. But with the excited comments came a bit of negative attention, and her cameras caught a thief trying to take all the trinkets. Arocha now locks the box at night.
“If somebody wants to do that, so be it,” Arocha said. “We can start over, and if the joy that it brings outweighs that every time, I think it’s worth doing.”
Arocha, Elms and Chavez’s boxes are now registered on a website called Worldwide Sidewalk Joy, alongside all the others in Austin and across the globe, as trinket trading grows to become a kind of new, modern geocaching.
“Honestly, it’s been I think even better than I expected so far,” Elms said. “I’ve had people… visiting Austin from out of town, and they’re making it a stop during their visit. I’ve also had multiple people reach out to me to ask how they can start their own trinket trade box, too, which I really love.”
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Forbes on Friday released its annual list of ‘New Ivies,’ and the University of Texas at Austin made it. This is not UT’s first time on the list; it was included in 2024 and 2025.
It’s important to note the Forbes designation does not make UT an Ivy League School. Schools currently designated as Ivy League are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.
Forbes argued its list was created because a growing number of employers have said they are less likely to hire an Ivy League grad today compared to five years ago. The list is curated by surveying over 100 C-Suite and hiring executives, as well as using data from the 2024 National Center for Education Statistics to gauge if a school fulfilled the criteria to be on the list.
One respondent said instead of prestige, employers are looking for graduates who have “complex emotional intelligence, radical adaptability and visionary creativity to orchestrate AI tools rather than compete with them.”
Forbes said colleges had to meet three criteria to be considered, which included:
- Size: Private schools must enroll at least 3,000 students, and public colleges must have at least 4,000 students enrolled.
- Selectivity: All but one private college had an admission rate of less than 15%; public college admission rates were 50% or less.
- Testing Requirements: At least half the entrants must have submitted either the SAT or the ACT scores
Forbes argued testing requirements indicated academic rigor, as a result. Schools such as the University of California and California State schools were not considered.
When it came to UT meeting the requirements for the list, UT had an undergrad enrollment of 44,663 students with a 27% acceptance rate. When it came to test scores, it had a median SAT score of 1390 and a median ACT score of 31.
For a full list of the public and private schools included in the Forbes 2026 New Ivies list, click here.
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