- Coming up on "Austin InSight".

Camp Mystic has abandoned plans to reopen this summer.

We'll discuss the reaction from the camp community.

Plus we're sitting down with the CEO of satire media outlet, The Onion, about its takeover of the Austin-based Infowars.

"Austin InSight" starts now.

- [Announcer] Support for "Austin InSight" comes from Sally and James Gavin and also from Daniel L. Skret.

(bright upbeat music) (bright upbeat music continues) - Hi there, and thanks for joining us.

I'm Laura Laughead.

We begin with the major development on Camp Mystic.

The camp will not be reopening this summer and has withdrawn its application for a summer 2026 camp license with the Department of State Health Services.

More than 800 girls had already been signed up to return.

This follows a hearing filled with gut-wrenching testimony from the families of the little girls who died at the camp during the July 4th floods and one who narrowly escaped with her life.

- Tomorrow will mark 10 months since I hugged and held my 8-year-old daughter for the last time.

Cile is still out there somewhere in the ruin of that river, and our families are still pleading for answers and accountability.

- Why were not more adults instructed to evacuate the girls immediately?

Why was a working loudspeaker never used during an emergency?

Why didn't any camp director not call 911 until almost 7:30 in the morning?

As the camp directors and owners who I have known my entire life (sobs), almost my entire life, I am heartbroken that you have not only destroyed our lives, but that you've destroyed your own.

(sobs) - As floodwaters rose on July 4, campers and counselors in Twin One, my daughter's cabin begged to leave and cried for help.

It was 20 steps from my child's cabin to stairs to a safe second story.

But nobody told her to take those steps.

She's eight years old.

My daughter was forced from her cabin on a mattress thrown into a raging river.

Darkness, debris-filled water.

At eight, she fought for her life.

- During the hearing at the state capitol, a joint house and senate committee posed tough questions to the Eastland family who runs the camp about the lack of emergency planning before the disaster and whether the camp should reopen this summer.

25 campers, two counselors, along with the camp's executive director Dick Eastland, all died during the floods.

Edward Eastland, a co-director of the camp and Dick Eastland's son gave a tearful apology to the families of the campers and the counselors.

- I think about the night of the flood every moment of every day.

We tried our hardest that night, and it wasn't enough to save your daughters.

We were devastated alongside you.

I regret not communicating more with each of you earlier, and I'm so sorry.

Every morning, waking up is hard.

Every moment of every day is hard, and yet that pain feels like nothing compared to what you're going through.

- In a statement shared with the Austin American Statesman and other media outlets, Camp Mystic wrote the following, in part, quote, "This decision is intended to remove any doubt that Camp Mystic has heard the concerns expressed by grieving families, members of the Texas House and Senate investigating committees, and citizens across our state.

Respect for those voices requires that we step back now.

For more on Camp Mystic's decision and the hearing, we have Julianna Russ, who has covered the story for the Austin American Statesman.

Julianna, thank you so much for being with us today.

- Thank you for having me.

- So, Julianna, I think this decision came as a surprise to many, especially seeing as camp was set to begin later this month.

What are you hearing from the families most directly affected and the broader Camp Mystic community?

- Yes, Laura.

So, to your point, more than 850 girls had already signed up for Camp Mystic this summer, which speaks to the division that's being experienced within the Camp Mystic community.

It's particularly between Camp Mystic alumni and the Heaven's 27 families, families of the victims from last summer's flood.

In terms of the alumni, actually the Austin American-Statesman last week published an op-ed from an alum who was speaking about how she actually blamed state legislators and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick for a lot of the issues that led to the flooding being so disastrous last summer.

So, that was an interesting perspective to kind of read her words on that, and we're seeing some people agree that, you know, the lack of a flash flood warning system in that part of the state is a larger problem that Camp Mystic itself could not have prevented, which is similar to the argument Camp Mystic was making in trying to reopen.

But then again, we have families like that of Cile Steward who is the one remaining camper whose body has not been recovered, who actually issued a statement after the closure announcement saying that they felt that the Camp closure closure this summer was a calculated exit by the Eastland family, following so much backlash from the legislature.

So, there's a lot of division on this.

- And let's talk more about that.

So, for some context here to this decision, before this announcement, state health officials had already warned that the camp, that its license would not be renewed without major safety revisions.

And simultaneously, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick also called for mystic's license to be denied.

There's a lot going on here, but based on your reporting, how much did those things factor into this decision not to reopen?

- You know, no one was in the room when the Eastlands made this decision, but it doesn't come as a surprise to those who are paying attention, especially when it comes to these deficiencies that were found by the state health services two weeks ago.

That there were dozens of deficiencies, including in terms of emergency plans, camper safety guidelines, and even, like, what cabins were in what floodplains.

There were questions.

And so, I think when those deficiencies were identified and given back to the Eastland family, they were given a 45-day turnaround to correct some of these things and reapply.

But even with that reapplication, there was no guarantee that they would be permitted to reopen.

And camp, they had actually planned for their Cypress Lake campus to open May 30th.

So, the 45 day deadline, May 30th, all these things weren't making sense anyway.

So, I think their hands were tied in a lot of ways.

- And it's not even a year out since the flood.

And I know the Steward family, after that decision, has come out critical of that decision, saying that Camp Mystic was making this decision not out of respect to the families, but rather because their license was going to be revoked anyway.

So, the point was moot, but as for the hearing, a lot of ground was covered from a timeline of events to that devastating testimony.

We played that just a moment ago.

What moment or revelation, though, stood out to you as most significant?

- There were so many emotional moments throughout those hearings.

Obviously the minute-by-minute timeline was devastating.

Hearing from surviving campers about their harrowing experiences during the floods was just heart wrenching.

And obviously, hearing from the Heaven's 27 families themselves, that testimony was devastating.

But a moment that really stuck out to me was Tuesday when the Eastland family, kind of as a hail Mary, it seemed, noted that they would be willing to step back from their responsibilities to the camp, and if it meant that the camp could reopen in good faith and with people feeling better about it.

Legislators themselves sort of scoffed at that idea.

You know, at this point in the process you're gonna be making that suggestion to step away, this far along.

I thought, you know, amid all of the emotional testimony, that was a really telling sign of maybe how desperate the Eastlands were becoming to figure out a plan to proceed and keep the camp afloat.

- Well, because Camp Mystic is now facing multiple investigations and lawsuits from the families, what do you think that process looks like from here?

And how long could this take to play out?

- Absolutely, Laura.

We have no idea how long it will take for all of these civil lawsuits to play out.

There are almost all of the Heaven's 27 families have filed lawsuits at this point, whether jointly or independently, and sometimes seeking up more than a million in damages each.

So, there's no telling the financial impact this could have on the Eastland family and on Camp Mystic as a whole, as multiple of its ownership holdings are also named in these lawsuits.

Not to mention the Texas Rangers investigation into neglect, that's still ongoing as well.

So, we have no telling of how long this will take, and there is no words yet about Camp Mystic's plans to reopen in 2027, so that's still to be seen.

- Hmm.

It is such a devastating story at every turn with much, much yet to play out.

Julianna Russ with the Austin American-Statesman, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us.

- Thank you.

(bright upbeat music) - Now on the immigration enforcement power struggle between the city of Austin and the Governor of Texas, it's been a tense couple of weeks of back and forth, but the two entities have come to an agreement.

For more information on that we have our government reporter Sam Stark here with us, who's been following the story.

Sam, tell us more about the agreement and what was at stake here.

- Yeah, so just over a month ago, Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis revised the department's general orders, which are guidelines on how officers are expected to do their jobs.

The new general orders essentially gave APD officers discretion in contacting ICE if they encountered a federal administrative warrant.

The Trump Administration added 700,000 of those when he took office in 2025.

A few weeks after the police chief tweaked those general orders, Governor Abbott's office sent a letter to Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, demanding the policy be revised or risk losing millions of dollars in state funded public safety grants.

Now, some city leaders, including Watson, said the potential loss of public safety dollars was too great to ignore, and those new limits on ICE interactions were weakened.

While some city leaders expressed disappointment in this seating to state pressure, we spoke to Mayor Pro Tem Chito Vela, an immigration attorney, who said the new general orders, which changed the language from "May contact ICE" to "Should contact ICE" are substantially similar.

- "Should" is a strange legal word, and "should" when operationally feasible, I think there's a lot of discretion built into that language, especially at a time when the department is 300 officers down.

When is it gonna be operationally feasible to do that?

I think it'll be very rare when it is operationally feasible for a Austin police officer to stop what they're doing, patrolling the streets, looking after public safety and deal with a civil immigration matter that's completely unrelated to public safety.

- So, Mayor Pro Tem Vela said that he and other council members will be watching the new changes closely.

He said if it ends up having adverse consequences to Austin's immigration community, the city will consider adjusting the general orders again.

- Sam, thank you so much for this report.

- Sure.

(bright upbeat music) - Meanwhile, the saga of the bankruptcy of Austin-based conspiracy theory media platform Infowars has taken a new turn.

The extreme satire outlet The Onion has been seeking to take over Infowars from its founder Alex Jones, but last week a court put the takeover on hold.

However, that didn't stop comedian Tim Heidecker, the host and creative director, from making a surprise debut on a live stream.

- Alex and his gang of liars and scoundrels have been cast out into the street.

They have lost Infowars, infowars.com and their their various platforms now.

They have been cast out, ladies and gentlemen.

And make no mistake, we will be the new Infowars.

- This follows years of litigation over Jones' repeated and amplified lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting.

Jones claimed the assault rifle murders of 20 children were faked.

The children's families endured years of threats and harassment, and now they support a deal to take Infowars away from Jones.

Joining us now for more on this is Ben Collins, the CEO of the Onion.

Ben, thank you so much for being with us.

- Thank you for having me.

- So, Ben, the first question we have to ask is why are you doing this?

Why do you guys want to take over Infowars?

- Yeah, at first we did this as a bit.

You know, this was nine days after the election when we first bid on Infowars.

We wanted a nice bright spot to happen in American life for a moment.

We bid on it, we won, it got taken away from us for a bunch of stupid legal reasons that we still don't fully understand.

However, after a while we realized this was actually kind of a good idea.

There's a lot of, you know, Infowars graffiti all throughout the country that we could, I would say, misappropriate from here on out.

And look, Infowars is a great logo, and it's a good name.

Everything they did on Infowars is bad, but it's a good logo, so we can use it.

And the number-one thing is, otherwise, these families, these Sandy Hook families would never be paid a cent from Alex Jones for the Infowars properties.

He was just gonna drive the value into the ground, try to buy it back for a couple pennies.

We're gonna give them more than a few pennies hopefully.

And our goal is to buy this thing outright and pay these families up for all the horrific stuff that happened to them.

- And I wanna talk more specifically about the families in a second.

But first, what is then the plan for content here?

We're gonna assume, dare we say, more Onion-like satire or parody.

What can we expect?

- Yeah, we're gonna go after all of the stuff that you see on your Instagram account that has convinced you that you're one enema away from fixing your whole life or something.

You know, The Onion always goes after the dominant mode of media.

We went after Cable news with the Onion News Network.

We went after Buzzfeed with Click Hole.

Now we're gonna go after really the dominant mode of media is people trying to get you to buy some supplement to fix your whole life and get you really afraid about your neighbor and everybody around you to do it.

These people have gone unmade fun of for way too long, and we're gonna go after them in that way.

And then, eventually over time, hopefully those characters we build in those worlds and universes we build, you know, justify their own mockumentaries or series or road shows or whatever we wanna do with it.

But we just wanna create sort of like a mirror world for all the awful stuff that's happening.

- Well, and to note here, you have an extensive career yourself in journalism, which is very interesting.

And, you know, the essence of journalism is to make people in power a little uncomfortable.

And now switching gears for a moment, at the risk of maybe being, you know, too serious for a moment, they say justice delayed is justice denied.

And as you mentioned, certainly the Sandy Hook families, they have waited for so long for consequences to come to Alex Jones.

But the phrase "poetic justice" also comes to mind here with the Onion team taking over Infowars now.

What are your thoughts on that?

- Yeah, it's been eight years and three months since Alex Jones was originally sued by these families.

And, you know, almost five years now since this decision came down.

They are owed a lot of money, and they've not received anything yet.

It's important to us to not just give 'em that money, but I think, you know, over the last few weeks, we've proven what this means to them because Alex Jones has been shirtless ranting on TV about all of this nonsense and garbage to really sort of lay him bare, no pun intended, actually maybe pun intended in this situation.

For what he is, which is just, you know, he's a clown.

He's a guy who was able to use the fact that he is sort of enigmatic on local TV and use that in the worst way possible to, you know, rile up a group of people to go up to a town that just lost, you know, dozens of kids in the worst way imaginable.

You know, it shows off that not only is this guy dangerous, but he is just kind of, you know, he's not worth their time.

And I think the poetic justice part is we're getting at here.

We get them some money, we also get them some hope that that way of doing business where you make millions of dollars off the backs of dead kids like that, that it's just not worth it.

- Hmm.

Well, and, you know, in comments in a recent NPR article, Jones has threatened to sue The Onion.

He is quoted as saying, in part, "They want the name and logo to literally try to misrepresent and say they're me, and it's all hidden behind satire."

End quote.

I'm curious what's your reaction to that?

- Yeah, look, you know, he filed a brief to the Supreme Court, an appeal to the Supreme Court that was, you know, denied or shelved where he called The Onion his ideological enemy.

And if, you know, if you're the ideological enemy of The Onion, I think you know where you stand in American life.

Look, this is all very stupid, and we have no doubt he's going to try to continue to harangue people, but that's part of the deal.

You know, when you take on Alex Jones, the reason we were able to purchase this at all is 'cause no one else stepped up to the plate.

You know, it was going to be Alex Jones buying back his stuff for a couple bucks, or us, but taking on what we knew would be years of the same harassment he levied against these families.

But if anybody's up for it, it's us.

We have a thick skin.

He thinks that we have his skin, which is a weird new thing that he keeps saying about us.

But regardless, look, we're ready for whatever comes next, but we're excited to do this thing.

It's a big deal, and it does feel like a shift in American life away from cruelty, and that's what we're going for.

- And you mentioned what's next.

What are your next legal steps, and do you expect to win final approval on this?

- Yeah, we do expect to win final approval.

You know, we've appealed his appeal.

Basically we have a deal with the receiver of the estates of Infowars; Free Speech Systems is its parent company.

And the receiver is in charge of this thing.

The families have also backed this bid.

They really want this thing to work.

They've given us the sign off, 'cause we don't wanna do any jokes without their permission obviously.

So look, we have everybody sign up that we need except for this one last court appeal that he got an emergency motion to file an appeal last week.

We expect that to be lifted pretty soon, especially considering he, you know, took some stuff from the studio on the way out when he shut down last week.

So, first of all, we want that sign back, Alex.

And second of all, more importantly, you know, we expect to get that sign back and everything else pretty soon.

- Well, I'm sure, no matter what, supporters of Alex Jones are gonna decry this takeover, but definitely a very different response from a lot of people and especially the Sandy Hook parents and others who are not fans.

Well, Ben, thank you so much for this update, and to note, we have reached out to Infowars for a comment on this newest development but have not heard back.

(bright upbeat music) Java or Joe.

Whatever nickname you have for coffee, if you live here in Austin, you are apparently in the right place to get the best cup ever, at least according to Food and Wine Magazine, which recently named Austin the number one city for coffee in the US, beating out Seattle, Portland, and New York.

That's quite an accomplishment.

We have genuine experts standing by with more, but first we took a tour of the Austin PBS offices to ask the burning question.

What's your favorite local coffee place?

(chilled jazz music) - One of my favorites is a truck called Kyoko Coffee, and they do an amazing Ube latte.

- My favorite coffee shop is my own kitchen.

I'm the only one who seems to make it right.

- It's Palomino Coffee in East Austin.

- It's corporate coffee.

I like Starbucks - Bennu.

- I'll go with Fleet Coffee on Manod Road.

They're always a good go-to for me.

- Idlewild Coffee.

- Summer Moon is a pretty good neighborhood place for us.

- My favorite coffee shop has got to be right around the corner from Austin PBS, Kick Butt Coffee.

I don't drink coffee, but if I had to I'd just go everyone else is, which is Starbucks.

- I always love going to Bennu across the way.

My coffee order is super simple.

It's always gonna be, like, an iced latte or a black coffee.

- At Joel Mano; I think it's in the Pflugerville area.

- My favorite coffee shop is Figure Eight Coffee.

I like to get their cappuccinos, very simple, with oat milk.

- Medici.

I get an Iced Americano, black.

- It's probably not very popular but I have to have a Starbucks non-fat latte; a large one.

And that gets me driving.

- Streamway coffee; love their cortado.

- Okay, now I have to answer this question.

Okay, my favorite.

I love Fleet Coffee, I love Civil Goat but my favorite has to be Desnudo.

And speaking of Desnudo, for more coffee insights, we are joined by Juan and Sergio Trujillo, the co-owners of Desnudo Coffee.

Thank you so much both for being here.

- Thank you so much for having us.

- So, Desnudo is sometimes credited with elevating and transforming the local coffee scene with a unique and a thoughtful approach to sourcing and creating coffee drinks.

So, let's dive right in.

Why do you guys think that Austin made the list of the top coffee city in the United States?

- That's a great question, but I think it has to do with just how intentional people here are with choosing their coffee.

And I think that also leads to, like, a lot of creativity from all the coffee shops here.

Everywhere you go you'll find, like, really creative drinks, really delicious coffee.

I think it just makes total sense.

- It's really cool for us because, you know, New York is pretty snotty, like the Pacific Northwest they're pretty snotty, but we beat them out, and I think we have you guys largely in part to thank for that.

I know my favorite order at Desnudo is the matcha, the guava matcha.

Okay, so what's the official title again for the- - La Guayaba.

- La Guayaba.

Okay.

So, if you guys want my coffee order from Desnudo, there you go, free of charge.

But coffee, though, wasn't always your focus.

How did you guys end up in this business?

- Yeah, so we started as a pop-up, doing baked goods, but since we're from Colombia we wanted to bring something that was unique to us, and it was coffee.

So, actually my brother, he went into the mountains of Colombia and started learning about coffee and this beautiful world that we grew up with but we were never interested in.

And so, slowly I were learning more about how to make a better cup of coffee, and that was at Origin in Colombia.

- That is very cool and very intentional.

And I know that you guys looked at other places to locate.

So, coming from Colombia, why did you choose Austin of all places?

- We were like, I don't know, like, when at that point, but I did a list of, like, cities in the US where to start.

And the top five, he went and visited them all, and once he landed in Austin, he was like, "This is the city where we have to do Desnudo."

I don't know if you remember, like, what was that feeling like getting here?

- Yeah, I think lucky charm, I got to the airport and I found $20.

- Wow, okay.

That'll do it.

- That was a good start.

But then, the community here was very interested in where you source the, like, ingredients.

People would be talking to you in the line on, like, central market or any, like, grocery store.

So, I understood that there was a bigger community aspect here, and it was just so awesome.

- And there really is a growing community and appreciation and understanding of fine coffee.

Of course, there are always, though, the huge coffee chains like Starbucks and Dunkin', which are very popular.

You have your Starbucks and Dunkin loyalists for sure.

But what do you guys think is the most important difference between the big chains and a smaller maybe four location place like Desnudo?

Is it the flavor, the vibe, the community?

- I think it's a little bit of everything, but it all comes down to being intentional.

When you're, like, such big company, you're probably more driven by other indicators like financials and, like, how to be more efficient and things like that.

But when you are small, you know your customers, you become friends with them, you know, like, in these four years we have seen people get engaged, then get married, then get pregnant, then we get to meet the baby.

And it's such a fun thing that, you know, it's to create a business around community, around people and, like, around the city and seeing it change so much, as Austin has changed in this past four years has been just amazing for us to see and to live.

- And that comes across so plainly, and that is so cool, that intentionality in everything you do, but it also helps when you have a really good product, like just really good coffee that you can feel good about putting your money towards.

Like, I feel good about buying this because I know you're so intentional.

Well, Juan and Sergio Trujillo with Desnudo, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your amazing story with us.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

(bright upbeat music) - And that's our show.

You can catch up on all our stories on the Austin PBS YouTube channel, and you can find all episodes of "Austin InSight" for free in the PBS app.

Thanks again for watching.

We'll see you next time.

(bright upbeat music) (bright upbeat music continues) (bright upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] Support for Austin InSight comes from Sally and James Gavin, and also from Daniel L. Skret.