Rep. Nancy Mace, the South Carolina Republican who in recent weeks has floated a run for governor, on Monday night accused her former fiance and three other men of having drugged and raped her and other women, and of filming and taking lewd photographs of women and underage girls without their consent.

In a stunningly graphic speech on the House floor that had little precedent, Mace said the men, whom she named and displayed photographs of on a placard where lawmakers more typically display charts and graphs on policy issues, were involved in the “premeditated, calculated exploitation of innocent women and girls in my district.”

“You’ve booked yourself a one-way ticket to hell,” she said, referring to the men directly at one point in a speech that lasted close to an hour. “It is nonstop. There are no connections. So I and all of your victims can watch you rot into eternity.”

On the floor of the House, Mace was protected by the speech and debate clause, even as she accused the men of repeatedly assaulting incapacitated women and filming it. The clause provides lawmakers immunity from criminal prosecutions or civil suits, such as for slander, when they are acting “within the legislative sphere.” Mace offered no evidence to support the accusations, although she said she had plenty of such material.

She refused to answer any follow-up questions from reporters outside the Capitol on Monday night and did not respond to a separate request to provide corroboration. The New York Times has not independently verified any of the allegations.

In a statement not long after Mace finished speaking, Patrick Bryant, the former fiance whom she accused by name, denied her account.

New strain of bird flu sickens dairy worker

A dairy worker in Nevada was infected with a new type of bird flu that’s different from the version that has been spreading in U.S. herds since last year, federal health officials said Monday.

The illness was considered mild. The person’s main symptom was eye redness and irritation, similar to most bird flu cases associated with dairy cows. The person wasn’t hospitalized and has recovered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The newer strain had been seen before in more than a dozen people exposed to poultry, but this is the first time an infection was traced to a cow. The Nevada dairy worker was exposed at a farm in Churchill County, in the west central part of the state, state health officials said.

CDC officials said there is no evidence the virus has spread from this person to any other people. The agency continues to say the virus poses a low risk to the general public.

Gabbard nomination due for Senate vote

Tulsi Gabbard moved a step closer to being the next director of national intelligence Monday after the U.S. Senate advanced her nomination to a final vote planned for later this week.

The Senate could hold its final vote on confirming Gabbard as soon as Wednesday following Monday’s 52-46 procedural vote to end debate on her nomination, which fell along party lines.

Created following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence oversees and coordinates the work of 18 intelligence agencies.

A former Democratic congresswoman, Gabbard is one of President Donald Trump’s most contentious nominees, given her past comments sympathetic to Edward Snowden and Russia and a meeting with Syria’s now-deposed leader.

Trial begins in Rushdie stabbing attack

Salman Rushdie was so stunned when a masked man started to stab him on a stage in western New York that the author didn’t even try to fight back, a prosecutor said Monday during opening statements in the suspect’s attempted murder trial.

Rushdie, 77, is expected to testify during the trial of Hadi Matar, bringing the two face-to-face for the first time since the attack that left Rushdie seriously wounded and blind in one eye.

On the day of the attack in August 2022, the Booker Prize-winning novelist was seated in an armchair on stage at the Chautauqua Institution Amphitheater, about to present a lecture on keeping writers safe.

District Attorney Jason Schmidt told jurors Monday that the attack was swift and sudden. He said Matar bounded up a staircase to the stage and ran about 30 feet toward Rushdie. As the stabbing began, Rushdie and fellow speaker Henry Reese were so stunned that they initially remained seated.

2 Venezuelan planes retrieve deportees

Two Venezuelan planes flew to the United States on Monday and returned home with deported Venezuelans, signaling a possible improvement in relations between longtime diplomatic adversaries and a victory for President Donald Trump in his efforts to get more countries to take their people back.

The U.S. and Venezuelan governments separately confirmed the flights by Venezuelan airline Conviasa without saying how many were aboard or disclosing their routes. The Venezuelan statement took issue with an “ill-intentioned” and “false” narrative around the presence of members of the Tren de Aragua gang in the United States.

Deportation flights from the U.S. to Venezuela were halted for years but restarted for a short time under the Biden administration in October 2023 when a jet transported about 130 migrants home.

Study: Influencers favored Trump

Americans who followed news influencers during the presidential campaign were more likely to hear positive reports about Donald Trump than they were about Kamala Harris, a study has revealed.

Influencers reviewed by the Pew Research Center talked about Trump and Harris on social media about equally, but there were more posts about Trump and they tended to be more favorable.

Pew said roughly 20% of Americans regularly get news from influencers — podcasters, commentators and the like — and about two-thirds said it helps them better understand things. Pew analyzed more than 150,000 posts from about 500 influencers, defined as those who regularly comment on current events and have at least 100,000 followers on some combination of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X or YouTube.

3 convicted in deadly drugging at N.Y. clubs

Three men were convicted of murder Monday in a conspiracy to rob men leaving New York City LGBTQ nightclubs and bars late at night, plying them with potent and dangerous drugs and ultimately draining their bank accounts once they were incapacitated.

The 2022 deaths of Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, and John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant, were the result of “drug-facilitated thefts” and homicides, according to the medical examiner’s office. Ramirez died in a taxi of an overdose while Umberger was found dead a month later in a townhouse.

Lab tests showed both men had substances including fentanyl, cocaine and lidocaine in their systems when they died. Their families suspected foul play after discovering money missing from the men’s bank accounts.

Singer’s private jet in fatal airport collision

One person was killed and others were injured when a private jet owned by Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil collided with another jet Monday afternoon at the Scottsdale Airport in Arizona, authorities said.

Neil’s jet was landing at the airport when it veered off the runway and collided with another parked plane, Neil’s representative Worrick Robinson, IV, said in a statement. There were two pilots and two passengers on Neil’s plane, but he was not among them.

“Mr. Neil’s thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved, and he is grateful for the critical aid of all first responders assisting today,” Robinson said.

The arriving jet veered off the runway and collided with the Gulfstream 200 jet that was parked, according to Kelli Kuester, aviation planning and outreach coordinator at the Scottsdale Airport. It appeared that the primary landing gear of the arriving jet failed, resulting in the collision, she said.

— News service reports