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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...

<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 federal judge in Kentuck has overturned Governor Andy Beshear’s ban on mass gatherings as it relates to in-person church services. The ruling clears the way for churchgoers to attend services on Sunday.

Pro-life teen Nick Sandmann’s defamation suit against the Washington Post got a new lease on life Monday thanks to US District Judge William Bertelsman partially reversing his prior ruling, which will allow the suit to move forward. Immediately following the January March for Life in Washington, D.C., the press erupted with claims that a video showed boys from the Kentucky religious school harassing Nathan Phillips, a Native American activist, outside the Lincoln Memorial. But additional extended video and firsthand accounts soon revealed that Phillips was the one who waded into the group waiting for its bus and decided to beat...

NEWSFLASH: Federal Judge William O. Bertelsman partially reversed his ruling to dismiss #nicksandmann's claims against the @washingtonpost . Nick's case may now proceed into discovery. The ruling bodes will for the NBC and CNN cases, as well.

A federal judge in Kentucky on Monday partially reopened Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann's $250 million defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post, which the same judge dismissed in July. The new ruling, by District Judge William O. Bertelsman, is based on an amended complaint filed by Sandmann's legal team. The decision permitted Sandmann to obtain documents from The Post during an upcoming discovery process, as his lawyers have sought to argue that the paper negligently covered Sandmann's interactions with a Native American man, Nathan Phillips, while the student wore a red "Make America Great Again" hat and stood...