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Former NFL player Marcus Burley has filed for individual chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after his Saladworks franchise failed, the Charlotte Business Journal reported. Burley filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of North Carolina on Jan. 25. Burley’s filing states he has between $500,001 and $1 million in assets and at least $500,001 to $1 million in liabilities. He lists between one and 49 creditors. Liabilities included on a list of the top 20 creditors total $759,135. The two largest listed are Saladworks, which is owed $204,689, and a U.S. Small Business Administration Economic Injury Disaster Loan for $289,000. Burley, who played for the Seattle Seahawks and ended his career with the Houston Texans, talked with the Charlotte Business Journal in 2019 about his plan to bring Saladworks to Charlotte. He landed on a site for the customizable salad concept at 11318 N. Community House Road, in the Ballantyne Corners shopping center. Its opening coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. Burley previously filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2022 to try and save the business. That filing claimed estimated liabilities of $500,001 to $1 million and assets of between $0 and $50,000. It listed between one and 49 creditors.

An uptick in bankruptcy assistance among Generation X and Millennials signals a burgeoning debt crisis, overshadowing recent economic optimism, legal experts told Newsweek. In contrast to recently issued positive economic data showing a 29 percent surge in consumer confidence since November, LegalShield's December Consumer Stress Legal Index (CSLI) documents a relentless rise in financial duress, reaching a three-year peak as consumers seek legal help for bankruptcy and other legal assistance. The data, drawn from over 35 million legal service requests, is forecasting a dip in that consumer confidence, and exposes a groundswell of fiscal challenges. The trend, disproportionately impacting younger generations, points to a latent economic strain that macroeconomic figures may not fully capture, which hints at a potential credit reckoning on the horizon. It's reflected in broader economic data. U.S. household debt has seen an increase, rising 1.3 percent in the third quarter of last year to a record $17.29 trillion. The uptick was propelled by increases across mortgage, auto loan, credit card, and student loan balances, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones could exit chapter 11 bankruptcy by late March or early April, his lawyer said on Wednesday after a judge decided families whom he owes $1.5 billion for lying about the 2012 school shooting can vote on competing plans to resolve their claims, Reuters reported. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston allowed Jones to solicit votes on a proposal that would pay at least $55 million to the relatives of 20 students and six staff members killed in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Jones, who hosts a radio show, claimed for years that the massacre was a hoax, staged with actors as part of a government plot to seize Americans’ guns. He has since acknowledged the shooting occurred, but the families, who said Jones cashed in for years off his lies, sued him for defamation. Courts in Connecticut and Texas have ruled that Jones intentionally defamed them and have ordered Jones to pay $1.5 billion in damages. Judge Lopez on Wednesday also allowed the family members, whose defamation judgments make them the main creditors in Jones' bankruptcy, to solicit votes on their own plan, which would liquidate Jones' assets and pursue litigation against his associates. The families previously estimated that they would receive at least $85 million from Jones under their plan. Judge Lopez said at a court hearing that both proposals contained enough information for creditors to make an informed vote. Lopez set a Feb. 12 deadline for votes.