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Nick Sandmann, who at the time was a Covington Catholic student, appears in a screengrab taken from a video filed as an exhibit in federal court. A federal appellate panel in a 2-1 decision Wednesday denied former Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann’s bid to revive libel claims against mainstream media outlets over their coverage of his 2019 encounter with Native American activist Nathan Phillips in Washington, D.C. at the March for Life. In July 2022, Senior U.S. District Judge William O. Bertelsman, a Jimmy Carter appointee sitting in the Eastern District of Kentucky, granted summary judgment and threw out Sandmann’s...

U.S. District Eastern Kentucky Court Judge William Bertelsman on Wednesday threw out five media libel lawsuits brought forth by former Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann. In January 2019, Sandmann was at the center of a viral video that showed him face-to-face with Native American man Nathan Phillips as Phillips banged a drum and sang a traditional song. Sandmann was 16 years old at the time and wore a red "Make America Great Again" cap. Several mainstream media outlets portrayed the video as racially charged with Sandmann antagonizing Phillips by standing in front of him and smiling. However, additional...

<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...

A Kentucky court rejects the argument from Covington High School students that the comedian is subject to jurisdiction there because local people were asked to shame fellow citizens. On Thursday, comedian Kathy Griffin slipped one of the many lawsuits that followed for her minor role on Twitter, where she demanded names and shame upon the Covington High School students. U.S. District Court Judge William Bertelsman holds that Griffin's attempted doxing doesn't constitute acts committed in Kentucky and thus she's not subject to the jurisdiction of this federal court. In dismissing the suit, the judge adds that allowing Griffin to be...

As predicted, today Judge Bertelsman entered an order allowing the Nickolas Sandmann case against NBCUniversal to proceed to discovery...