Free Republic

<p>LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday threw out multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuits against five media companies brought by a Kentucky student involved in a 2019 widely viewed encounter with a Native American man at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.</p>

A federal judge in Kentucky on Thursday temporarily blocked a statewide school mask mandate put in place amid increased transmission of the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus. The ruling comes a little over a week after Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) signed an executive order requiring all teachers, staff, students and visitors in Kentucky schools to wear face coverings while indoors. In an eight-page ruling, U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman, a Carter appointee, said Beshear’s order appeared to lack validity after the state legislature earlier this year overrode Beshear's veto to pass a measure limiting his public health...

(CN) — Defamation and harassment claims brought by students at Kentucky’s Covington Catholic High School against CNN, the Washington Post and NBC were dismissed by a federal judge Wednesday after he found that none of the twelve plaintiffs had been defamed or unlawfully threatened. The suit stems from a confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial in January of 2019 during the annual March for Life, and followed on the heels of CNN’s settlement with fellow student Nicholas Sandmann. Sandmann’s tense encounter with Native American activist Nathan Phillips at the march went viral, sparking widespread ire on social media from commenters who...