Khalil Islam, center, is booked as the third suspect in the slaying of Malcolm X, in New York, March 3, 1965. Islam, previously known as Thomas 15X Johnson, one of two men convicted in the assassination of Malcolm X, is set to be cleared after more than half a century, with prosecutors now saying authorities withheld evidence in the civil rights leader’s killing, according to a news report Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021. | AP

A nearly two-year-long re-investigation found that authorities withheld evidence favorable to the defense in the trial of Muhammad Aziz, now 83, and the late Khalil Islam, said their attorneys, the Innocence Project and civil rights lawyer David Shanies.

NEW YORK — Two of the three men convicted in the assassination of Malcolm X are set to be cleared Thursday after insisting on their innocence since the 1965 killing of one of the United States’ most formidable fighters for civil rights, their lawyers and Manhattan’s top prosecutor said Wednesday.

A nearly two-year-long re-investigation found that authorities withheld evidence favorable to the defense in the trial of Muhammad Aziz, now 83, and the late Khalil Islam, said their attorneys, the Innocence Project and civil rights lawyer David Shanies.

Aziz called his conviction “the result of a process that was corrupt to its core — one that is all too familiar” even today.

“I do not need a court, prosecutors or a piece of paper to tell me I am innocent,” he said in a statement. But he said he was glad his family, friends and lawyers would get to see “the truth we have all known, officially recognized.”

He urged the criminal justice system to “take responsibility for the immeasurable harm it caused me.”

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. tweeted that his office would join the men’s attorneys in asking a judge Thursday to toss out the convictions.

“These men did not get the justice that they deserved,” Vance told The New York Times, which first reported on the developments. Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck called the case “one of the most blatant miscarriages of justice that I have ever seen.”

One of the civil rights era’s most controversial and compelling figures, Malcolm X rose to fame as the Nation of Islam’s chief spokesperson, proclaiming the Black Muslim organization’s message at the time: racial separatism as a road to self-actualization. He famously urged Black people to claim civil rights “by any means necessary” and referred to white people as “blue-eyed devils,” and he later denounced racism.

About a year before his death, he split from the Nation of Islam and later made a pilgrimage to Mecca, returning with a new view of the potential for racial unity. Some in the Nation of Islam saw him as a traitor.

At age 39, he was gunned down as he began a speech in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965.

Aziz, Islam and a third man, Mujahid Abdul Halim — also known as Talmadge Hayer and Thomas Hagan — were convicted of murder in March 1966 and sentenced to life in prison.

Hagan said he was one of three gunmen who shot Malcolm X, but he testified that neither Aziz nor Islam was involved. The two, then known as Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson, maintained throughout that they were innocent and offered alibis at their 1966 trial. No physical evidence linked them to the crime.

“Thomas 15 Johnson and Norman 3X Butler had nothing to do with this crime whatsoever,” Hagan said in a sworn statement in 1977.

Hagan was paroled in 2010. A message was left Wednesday at a phone number he had when paroled.

He identified two other men as gunmen, but no one else was ever arrested.

According to The New York Times, the re-investigation found the FBI had documents that pointed to other suspects, and a still-living witness supported Aziz’s alibi — that he was at home with a leg injury at the time of the shooting.

The witness, whom authorities had never interviewed before and was identified only by the initials “J.M.,” said he spoke to Aziz on the latter’s home phone the day of the killing, the newspaper said.

Also, the review found that prosecutors knew about but didn’t disclose that undercover officers were in the ballroom when the gunfire erupted, and police knew that someone had called the Daily News of New York earlier that day saying that Malcolm X would be killed.

The New York Police Department and the FBI said Wednesday that they had cooperated fully with the re-investigation, and they declined to comment further.

Aziz was released in 1985. Islam was released two years later and died in 2009. Both continued to press to clear their names.

“I did not kill Malcolm X,” Aziz said at a news conference in 1998, after the Nation of Islam tapped him to run the mosque where the slain leader had preached.

A decade later, Islam told a gathering at a Harlem bookstore: “I need to be exonerated. I had to walk 22 years in prison.”

And after their release, he and Aziz lived under the cloud of being Malcolm X’s supposed assassins.

“Exonerating these men is a righteous and well-deserved affirmation of their true character,” Shanies said in a statement. Deborah Francois, a counsel in his office, called the convictions “the product of gross official misconduct and a criminal justice system weighed against people of color.”

The Manhattan district attorney’s office publicly acknowledged it was considering reopening the case after Netflix aired the documentary series “Who Killed Malcolm X?” last year. The series explored a theory by scholars that the two men were innocent and that some of the real killers had escaped.

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Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak and Karen Matthews contributed to this report.

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Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, takes an elevator as the House of Representatives prepares to vote on a resolution to formally rebuke him for tweeting an animated video that depicted him striking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., with a sword, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021. In addition to the official censure, House Democrats want to oust him from his seats on the House Oversight Committee and the Natural Resources Committee. | AP

Gosar, of Arizona, tweeted an animated video that depicted him killing Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword.

WASHINGTON — The House voted Wednesday to censure Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona for posting an animated video that depicted him killing Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword, an extraordinary rebuke that highlighted the political strains testing Washington and the country.

Calling the video a clear threat to a lawmaker’s life, Democrats argued Gosar’s conduct would not be tolerated in any other workplace — and shouldn’t be in Congress.

The vote to censure Gosar and also remove him from his House committee assignments was approved by a vote of 223-207, almost entirely along party lines, with Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois the only Republicans voting in favor.

Gosar showed no emotion as he stood in the well of the House after the vote, flanked by roughly a dozen Republicans as Speaker Nancy Pelosi read the censure resolution and announced his committee penalty. He shook hands, hugged and patted other members of the GOP conference on the back before leaving the chamber.

Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called the vote an “abuse of power” by Democrats to distract from national problems. He said of the censure, a “new standard will continue to be applied in the future,” a signal of potential ramifications for Democratic members should Republicans retake a majority.

But Democrats said there was nothing political about it.

“These actions demand a response. We cannot have members joking about murdering each other,” said Pelosi. “This is both an endangerment of our elected officials and an insult to the institution.”

Ocasio-Cortez herself said in an impassioned speech, “When we incite violence with depictions against our colleagues, that trickles down to violence in this country. And that is where we must draw the line.”

Unrepentant during tense floor debate, Gosar rejected what he called the “mischaracterization” that the cartoon was “dangerous or threatening. It was not.”

“I do not espouse violence toward anyone. I never have. It was not my purpose to make anyone upset,” Gosar said.

He compared himself to Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first Treasury secretary, celebrated in recent years in a Broadway musical, whose censure vote in the House was defeated: “If I must join Alexander Hamilton, the first person attempted to be censured by this House, so be it, it is done.”

The decision to censure Gosar, one of the strongest punishments the House can dole out, was just the fourth in nearly 40 years — and just the latest example of the raw tensions that have roiled Congress since the 2020 election and the violent Capitol insurrection that followed.

Democrats spoke not only of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection, but also the violent attacks that have escalated on both parties, including the 2017 shooting of Republican lawmakers practicing for a congressional baseball game and the 2011 shooting of former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords as she met with constituents at an event outside a Tucson grocery store.

Republicans largely dismissed Gosar’s video as nothing more than a cartoon, a routine form of political expression and hardly the most important issue facing Congress.

Yet threats against lawmakers are higher than ever, the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police told the Associated Press in an interview earlier this year.

The censure of Gosar was born out of Democratic frustration. Over the past week, as outrage over the video grew, House GOP leaders declined to publicly rebuke Gosar, who has a lengthy history of incendiary remarks. Instead, they largely ignored his actions and urged their members to vote against the resolution censuring him.

Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida said, “I would just suggest we have better things to do on the floor of the House of Representatives than be the hall monitors for Twitter.”

The resolution will remove Gosar from two committees: Natural Resources and the Oversight and Reform panel, on which Ocasio-Cortez also serves, limiting his ability to shape legislation and deliver for constituents. It states that depictions of violence can foment actual violence and jeopardize the safety of elected officials, citing the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as an example.

Gosar is the 24th House member to be censured. Though it carries no practical effect, except to provide a historic footnote that marks a lawmaker’s career, it is the strongest punishment the House can issue short of expulsion, which requires a two-thirds vote.

Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel, the former chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, was the last to receive the rebuke in 2010 for financial misconduct.

It would also be second time this year the House has initiated the removal of a GOP lawmaker from an assigned committee, the first being Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

Gosar, a six-term congressman, posted the video over a week ago with a note saying, “Any anime fans out there?” The roughly 90-second video was an altered version of a Japanese anime clip, interspersed with shots of Border Patrol officers and migrants at the southern U.S. border.

During one roughly 10-second section, animated characters whose faces had been replaced with Gosar, Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., were shown fighting other animated characters. Gosar’s character is seen striking another one made to look like Ocasio-Cortez in the neck with a sword. The video also shows him attacking President Joe Biden.

Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., whose receipt of repeated death threats has required her to spend thousands on security, said Gosar has not apologized to her. She singled out McCarthy for not condemning Gosar.

“What is so hard about saying this is wrong?” Ocasio-Cortez said. “This is not about me. This is not about Representative Gosar. But this is about what we are willing to accept.”

This is not the first brush with controversy for Gosar, who was first elected in 2010’s tea party wave. He has been repeatedly criticized by his own siblings, six of whom appeared in campaign ads supporting his Democratic opponent in 2018.

Earlier this year Gosar looked to form an America First Caucus with other hardline Republican House members that aimed to promote “Anglo-Saxon political traditions” while warning that mass immigration was putting the “unique identity” of the U.S. at risk. He’s made appearances at fringe right-wing events, including a gathering in Florida last February hosted by Nick Fuentes, an internet personality who has promoted white supremacist beliefs.

He has also portrayed a woman shot by Capitol police during the attack on the Capitol as a martyr, claiming she was “executed.” And he falsely suggested that a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was instigated by “the left” and backed by billionaire George Soros, a major funder of liberal causes who has become the focus of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

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Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.

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Bears coach Matt Nagy (right, with Chiefs head coach Andy Reid in 2017) gave his players the bye week off for mental and physical rest. | Orlin Wagner/AP Photos

While his mentor is 19-3 after the bye, Nagy is 0-3 in three seasons with the Bears. “I do know from where I came from, he has a pretty good record,” Nagy said. “I tried to follow that early on in my career, and it did not work.”

Following Andy Reid’s coaching template has been problematic for Matt Nagy in four seasons with the Bears.

He couldn’t turn Mitch Trubisky into even Alex Smith, let alone Patrick Mahomes. By Reid’s fourth season, the Chiefs were well on their way toward becoming perennial playoff contenders. With Nagy’s hand-picked offensive igniters still growing — quarterback Justin Fields, running back David Montgomery and tight end Cole Kmet — the Bears (3-6) are 31st in the NFL in total yards, 32nd in yards per play and tied for 29th in scoring.

Whether it’s right or wrong, Sunday’s post-bye game against the Ravens at Soldier Field has put the spotlight on another area where Nagy has come up short of his mentor. Reid is a sparkling 19-3 (.863) in the game following the bye in 22 seasons with the Eagles (13-1) and Chiefs (6-2).

There are many factors involved in post-bye records — the time of the season, the quality of your team, the quality of your opponent, home or road, etc. But Reid’s record is so extraordinary, and well above his overall ledger (227-134-1, .628), that his post-bye success is seen as an indicator of good coaching — his efficient use of the bye week to re-set and prepare for the next opponent. Reid also is 6-1 in the playoff openers with a bye to prepare.

Nagy, though, is 0-3 after the bye in three seasons with the Bears. Even his first Bears team that finished 12-4 in 2018 lost to the Dolphins 31-28 in overtime at Hard Rock Stadium as 7 1/2-point favorites in Week 6. In 2019, the Bears lost to the Saints 36-25 at Soldier Field as four-point favorites. Last year they lost to the Packers 41-25 at Lambeau Field as 7 1/2-point underdogs in Week 12. The Bears, in fact, have lost their first two games after the bye in each of Nagy’s first three seasons — 0-6.

So capturing Reid’s magic touch has proven elusive.

“We’ve been a little different each bye week — whether it’s certain amount of days off for the coaches and the players,” Nagy said. “I do know from where I came from, he [Reid] has a pretty good record. I tried to follow that early on in my career, and it did not work.

“Not that you have to change. I think some of it too is based off where you’re at as a team. And this is the route we went this year. I think the guys feel better mentally. But there’s nothing specific [where] I think, ‘We have to do it this way all four years.'”

This year’s post-bye game will be a challenge, even at home. The Ravens (6-3) are six-point favorites and also coming off extra rest after losing to the Dolphins 22-10 on Thursday Night Football in Week 10.

Mid-season is considered good timing for the bye week. Nagy gave his players the full week off with an emphasis on physical and mental rest. Justin Fields went to Florida, where he worked out but did little else involving football (“I got to rest my body a little bit, so I feel good,” he said.).

The bye week also gave linebacker Khalil Mack, safety Eddie Jackson and defensive end Akiem Hicks an extra week of rest. Mack has missed the last two games with a sprained foot. Jackson has missed all but two snaps of the last two games with a hamstring injury. Hicks was limited to 35-of-72 snaps against the Steelers because of an ankle injury.

All three did not practice Wednesday, so the week off wasn’t like a magic balm. But it always helps. The Bears will know Sunday just how much.

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Young Dolph performs at The Parking Lot Concert in Atlanta on Sunday, Aug. 23, 2020. Officials say rapper Young Dolph has been fatally shot at a cookie shop in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, and a search is underway for the shooter. | AP

Police tweeted that no suspect information was available in the shooting, which took place at Makeda’s Cookie’s near Memphis International Airport.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Rapper Young Dolph was shot and killed Wednesday at a cookie shop in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, and a search is underway for the shooter, officials said.

Police tweeted that no suspect information was available in the shooting, which took place at Makeda’s Cookie’s near Memphis International Airport.

“The tragic shooting death of rap artist Young Dolph serves as another reminder of the pain that violent crime brings with it,” Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said in a statement. “My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.”

The Daily Memphian newspaper reported that Young Dolph’s cousin, Mareno Myers, said the rapper had been in town since Monday visiting an aunt who has cancer and was also giving out Thanksgiving turkeys.

“He was inside (Makeda’s), and somebody just rolled up on him and took his life,” Myers said.

Just last week, the cookie shop posted a video on Instagram of the rapper promoting the store’s cookies, saying he returns to the store whenever he is in Memphis.

The 36-year-old rapper was born in Chicago as Adolph Thornton Jr., and moved to Memphis when he was 2, according to The Commercial Appeal.

He released numerous mixtapes, starting with 2008’s “Paper Route Campaign,” and multiple studio albums, including his 2016 debut “King of Memphis.” He also collaborated on other mixtapes and albums with fellow rappers Key Glock, Megan Thee Stallion, T.I., Gucci Mane, 2 Chainz and others.

Young Dolph had three albums reach the top 10 on the Billboard 200, with 2020’s “Rich Slave” peaking at No. 4.

In his music, Young Dolph rapped about being a drug dealer and life on the streets in Memphis. He recently performed at a concert at the University of Memphis and he has performed during the halftime of a Memphis Grizzlies game. He was admired in Memphis as a torchbearer to the city’s rap legends, Three 6 Mafia.

Young Dolph had survived previous shootings. He was shot multiple times in September 2017 after a fight outside a Los Angeles hotel. In February of that year, his SUV was shot at in Charlotte, North Carolina, more than 100 times — the incident was the inspiration for the song “100 Shots.” He said he survived because he had bulletproof panels in his vehicle, The Commercial Appeal reported.

Memphis officials, athletes and numerous members of the music industry posted their condolences on social media.

“R.I.P. to my friend Dolph this broke my heart,” rapper Gucci Mane posted on Twitter.

Record producer Omen also posted a message on Twitter, saying “we losing too many black men to poor health, racism, jail, etc. already. we gotta find a way to heal and not add to that with our own violence. prayers for young dolph family and friends. RIP.”

In a post on his Twitter account Oct. 20, Young Dolph said a doctor told him he needed some time to himself.

“I never knew what anxiety meant until My doctor just explained to me that I have it this morning,” another tweet posted that day said.

In an August tweet, he said: “Still can’t believe i got to where im at in life. still feel unreal.”

___

Associated Press writer Joshua Housing contributed to this report from Munster, Indiana.

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Khalil Islam, center, is booked as the third suspect in the slaying of Malcolm X, in New York, March 3, 1965. Islam, previously known as Thomas 15X Johnson, one of two men convicted in the assassination of Malcolm X, is set to be cleared after more than half a century, with prosecutors now saying authorities withheld evidence in the civil rights leader’s killing, according to a news report Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021. | AP

A nearly two-year-long re-investigation found that authorities withheld evidence favorable to the defense in the trial of Muhammad Aziz, now 83, and the late Khalil Islam, said their attorneys, the Innocence Project and civil rights lawyer David Shanies.

NEW YORK — Two of the three men convicted in the assassination of Malcolm X are set to be cleared Thursday after insisting on their innocence since the 1965 killing of one of the United States’ most formidable fighters for civil rights, their lawyers and Manhattan’s top prosecutor said Wednesday.

A nearly two-year-long re-investigation found that authorities withheld evidence favorable to the defense in the trial of Muhammad Aziz, now 83, and the late Khalil Islam, said their attorneys, the Innocence Project and civil rights lawyer David Shanies.

Aziz called his conviction “the result of a process that was corrupt to its core — one that is all too familiar” even today.

“I do not need a court, prosecutors or a piece of paper to tell me I am innocent,” he said in a statement. But he said he was glad his family, friends and lawyers would get to see “the truth we have all known, officially recognized.”

He urged the criminal justice system to “take responsibility for the immeasurable harm it caused me.”

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. tweeted that his office would join the men’s attorneys in asking a judge Thursday to toss out the convictions.

“These men did not get the justice that they deserved,” Vance told The New York Times, which first reported on the developments. Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck called the case “one of the most blatant miscarriages of justice that I have ever seen.”

One of the civil rights era’s most controversial and compelling figures, Malcolm X rose to fame as the Nation of Islam’s chief spokesperson, proclaiming the Black Muslim organization’s message at the time: racial separatism as a road to self-actualization. He famously urged Black people to claim civil rights “by any means necessary” and referred to white people as “blue-eyed devils,” and he later denounced racism.

About a year before his death, he split from the Nation of Islam and later made a pilgrimage to Mecca, returning with a new view of the potential for racial unity. Some in the Nation of Islam saw him as a traitor.

At age 39, he was gunned down as he began a speech in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965.

Aziz, Islam and a third man, Mujahid Abdul Halim — also known as Talmadge Hayer and Thomas Hagan — were convicted of murder in March 1966 and sentenced to life in prison.

Hagan said he was one of three gunmen who shot Malcolm X, but he testified that neither Aziz nor Islam was involved. The two, then known as Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson, maintained throughout that they were innocent and offered alibis at their 1966 trial. No physical evidence linked them to the crime.

“Thomas 15 Johnson and Norman 3X Butler had nothing to do with this crime whatsoever,” Hagan said in a sworn statement in 1977.

Hagan was paroled in 2010. A message was left Wednesday at a phone number he had when paroled.

He identified two other men as gunmen, but no one else was ever arrested.

According to The New York Times, the re-investigation found the FBI had documents that pointed to other suspects, and a still-living witness supported Aziz’s alibi — that he was at home with a leg injury at the time of the shooting.

The witness, whom authorities had never interviewed before and was identified only by the initials “J.M.,” said he spoke to Aziz on the latter’s home phone the day of the killing, the newspaper said.

Also, the review found that prosecutors knew about but didn’t disclose that undercover officers were in the ballroom when the gunfire erupted, and police knew that someone had called the Daily News of New York earlier that day saying that Malcolm X would be killed.

The New York Police Department and the FBI said Wednesday that they had cooperated fully with the re-investigation, and they declined to comment further.

Aziz was released in 1985. Islam was released two years later and died in 2009. Both continued to press to clear their names.

“I did not kill Malcolm X,” Aziz said at a news conference in 1998, after the Nation of Islam tapped him to run the mosque where the slain leader had preached.

A decade later, Islam told a gathering at a Harlem bookstore: “I need to be exonerated. I had to walk 22 years in prison.”

And after their release, he and Aziz lived under the cloud of being Malcolm X’s supposed assassins.

“Exonerating these men is a righteous and well-deserved affirmation of their true character,” Shanies said in a statement. Deborah Francois, a counsel in his office, called the convictions “the product of gross official misconduct and a criminal justice system weighed against people of color.”

The Manhattan district attorney’s office publicly acknowledged it was considering reopening the case after Netflix aired the documentary series “Who Killed Malcolm X?” last year. The series explored a theory by scholars that the two men were innocent and that some of the real killers had escaped.

___

Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak and Karen Matthews contributed to this report.

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Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, takes an elevator as the House of Representatives prepares to vote on a resolution to formally rebuke him for tweeting an animated video that depicted him striking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., with a sword, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021. In addition to the official censure, House Democrats want to oust him from his seats on the House Oversight Committee and the Natural Resources Committee. | AP

Gosar, of Arizona, tweeted an animated video that depicted him killing Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword.

WASHINGTON — The House voted Wednesday to censure Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona for posting of an animated video that depicted him killing Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword, an extraordinary rebuke that highlighted the political strains testing Washington and the country.

Calling the video a clear threat to a lawmaker’s life, Democrats argued Gosar’s conduct would not be tolerated in any other workplace — and shouldn’t be in Congress.

The vote to censure Gosar, and also strip him of his committee assignments, was approved by a vote of 223-207, almost entirely along party lines.

Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called the vote an “abuse of power” by Democrats to distract from national problems. He said of the censure, a “new standard will continue to be applied in the future,” a signal of potential ramifications for Democratic members in future Congresses.

But Democrats said there was nothing political about it.

“These actions demand a response. We cannot have members joking about murdering each other,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “This is both an endangerment of our elected officials and an insult to the institution.”

Ocasio-Cortez herself said in an emotional speech, “Our work here matters. Our example matters. There is meaning in our service. And as leaders, in this country, when we incite violence with depictions against our colleagues that trickles down to violence in this country. And that is where we must draw the line.”

Unrepentant, Gosar rejected what he called the “mischaracterization” that the cartoon was “dangerous or threatening. It was not.”

“I do not espouse violence toward anyone. I never have. It was not my purpose to make anyone upset,” Gosar said.

He compared himself to Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first Treasury secretary, celebrated in recent years in a Broadway musical, whose censure vote in the House was defeated: “If I must join Alexander Hamilton, the first person attempted to be censured by this House, so be it, it is done.”

The decision to censure Gosar, one of the strongest punishments the House can dole out, was just the fourth in nearly 40 years — and just the latest example of the raw tensions that have roiled Congress since the 2020 election and the violent Capitol insurrection that followed.

The decision to move forward with the effort was born out of Democratic frustration with the House GOP, which declined to publicly rebuke Gosar, who has a lengthy history of incendiary remarks.

Instead, GOP leaders have largely ignored his actions and urged their members to vote against the resolution censuring him. They also warned that the effort sets a precedent that could come back to haunt Democrats if they find themselves in the minority,

Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida said, “I would just suggest we have better things to do on the floor of the House of Representatives than be the hall monitors for Twitter.”

The resolution will remove Gosar from two committees: Natural Resources and the Oversight and Reform panel, on which Ocasio-Cortez also serves, limiting his ability to shape legislation and deliver for constituents. It states that depictions of violence can foment actual violence and jeopardize the safety of elected officials, citing the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as an example.

Gosar becomes the 24th House member to be censured. Though it carries no practical effect, except to provide a historic footnote that marks a lawmaker’s career, it is the strongest punishment the House can issue short of expulsion, which requires a two-thirds vote.

Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel, the former chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, was the last to receive the rebuke in 2010 for financial misconduct.

It would also be second time this year the House has initiated the removal of a GOP lawmaker from an assigned committee, the first being Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

Gosar, a six-term congressman, posted the video over a week ago with a note saying, “Any anime fans out there?” The roughly 90-second video was an altered version of a Japanese anime clip, interspersed with shots of Border Patrol officers and migrants at the southern U.S. border.

During one roughly 10-second section, animated characters whose faces had been replaced with Gosar, Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., were shown fighting other animated characters. Gosar’s character is seen striking another one made to look like Ocasio-Cortez in the neck with a sword. The video also shows him attacking President Joe Biden.

Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., whose receipt of repeated death threats has required her to spend thousands on security, said Gosar has not apologized to her. She singled out McCarthy for not condemning Gosar.

“What is so hard about saying this is wrong?” Ocasio-Cortez said on the House floor Wednesday. “This is not about me. This is not about Representative Gosar. But this is about what we are willing to accept.”

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., was one of the few Republicans saying he would vote to censure Gosar.

“We have to hold Members accountable who incite or glorify violence, who spread and perpetuate dangerous conspiracies. The failure to do so will take us one step closer to this fantasized violence becoming real,” Kinzinger tweeted.

This is not the first brush with controversy for Gosar, who was first elected in 2010’s tea party wave. He has been repeatedly criticized by his own siblings, six of whom appeared in campaign ads supporting his Democratic opponent in 2018.

Earlier this year Gosar looked to form an America First Caucus with other hardline Republican House members that aimed to promote “Anglo-Saxon political traditions” while warning that mass immigration was putting the “unique identity” of the U.S. at risk. He’s made appearances at fringe right-wing events, including a 2018 rally in London for a jailed British activist who repeatedly spread anti-Muslim views and a gathering in Florida last February hosted by Nick Fuentes, an internet personality who has promoted white supremacist beliefs.

He has also portrayed a woman shot by Capitol police during the attack on the Capitol as a martyr, claiming she was “executed.” And he falsely suggested that a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was instigated by “the left” and backed by billionaire George Soros, a major funder of liberal causes who has become the focus of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.

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These days, it might be hard to pinpoint one single thing that’s stressing you out. If you’re lucky enough to have found someone who is ready to ride out the tough times with you, why not tackle that stress together? If you’ve both been feeling a little tense and you want to relax together, we have compiled a list of the best spas, studios, and wellness centers to book a romantic couples massage in Chicago.

Massage Evolved

118 N Clinton St #205, Chicago IL 60661

Founded by Reiki master and clinical massage therapist Ruby Greenberg, Massage Evolved was named “one of Chicago’s top destinations for couple massage” in 2017 by Chicago Magazine. Options include Swedish, deep tissue, or Himalayan salt stone massage.

Be Well.

2251 W Irving Park Rd, Chicago IL 60618

This Asian wellness center on the north side offers therapeutic and romantic couples massages for 60 minutes and 90 minutes, and even includes dry and steam saunas for the relaxed, happy couple. Their name, “Be Well,” is a their “wish for you,” so make an appointment and be well!

Allyu Spa

600 W Chicago Ave, Chicago IL 60654

Located near River West, Allyu Spa— whose name is “the Quecha word for community”— offers a variety of services from which couples may choose, including couple massage therapy, hot stone massage, and an exfoliating sugar body polish with massage; additionally, Allyu has couples spa packages available.

Verde Holistic Wellness Studio

905 W 18th St, Chicago IL 60608

Licensed massage therapist Crystal Dorado started Verde in 2011, and the studio has been operating in Pilsen ever since. Though there are no specific couples massage packages at here, the studio offers a number of different types of massages, and interested couples can contact Verde directly about booking a couples service.

Hand & Stone Massage and Facial Spa

3210 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago IL 60657

1130 S Michigan Ave Suite B, Chicago IL 60605

This spa— with locations in Lakeview and South Loop— offers the best specialty massages for couples, including Swedish, hot stone, and Himalayan salt massages. Check out additional upgrades like the peppermint scalp massage or aromatherapy.

Couples Massage Chicago Featured Image by giuseppeblu from Pixabay

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Dominik Kubalik hasn’t produced as his typical pace so far this season. | Stacy Revere/Getty Images

Kubalik’s shot frequency, accuracy and danger have all decreased this season as he endures a nine-game goal drought.

SEATTLE — In five of his 15 games this season (entering Wednesday), Dominik Kubalik hasn’t recorded a shot on goal at even strength. In six of his 15 games, Kubalik has recorded one or fewer shots on goal in all situations.

“That’s not a good sign for a shooter,” the Blackhawks wing admitted Tuesday.

So what’s the solution?

“I’ve just got to find a way to be in those shooting positions,” Kubalik said. “[I need to] be around the net, [even] when it hurts there but you can have easy goals… [I need] this mindset that if I have a chance, the first thing I should be looking for is to shoot it.”

After scoring in each of the Hawks’ first two games this season, Kubalik entered Wednesday with only one goal since, stuck in a nine-game goal drought.

Only one of those three total games happened at even strength, too, and all of his even-strength shooting analytics are down. His attempts-per-60-minutes rate has decreased from 15.6 last season to 12.4 this season.

The attempts he does take are less dangerous: Only 48.8% have been scoring chances, versus 63.7% and 58.7% his first two seasons. And his shots are less accurate: Only 43.9% have made it on goal, versus 58.5% and 64.0% his first two seasons.

Interim coach Derek King sat down one-on-one with Kubalik on Saturday to show him videos of shifts where he played well, hoping to boost his confidence and pull his mind away from his scoring troubles.

“It helped me a lot to see some different things than shooting,” Kubalik said. “When I saw the videos, I felt like I was doing the right things, so that’s good — even away from the puck, which is my problem. [I’m] just getting my legs going, [trying to] be on the forecheck, be physical, [do] those things I just need to do automatically every shift. There are lots of positive things and just have to build off that.”

“He’s like, ‘Ah, I’ve got to score,'” King added. “[I told him] he’ll score because it’s like riding the bike. You know how to ride the bike. If you don’t ride for 10 years, you still know how. He knows how to score goals.”

Last Friday, Kubalik missed two golden chances in alone against Coyotes goalie Scott Wedgewood, hitting the crossbar on a high-glove early shot on the first chance and finding no room along the ice between Wedgewood’s pads on the second.

Kubalik has been stopped while trying to go five-hole often this season, and he joked about friend calling him after Friday to say, “It’s enough.”

“I can say you guys are not going to see the five-hole for a long time now,” he said Tuesday with a smile.

Part of that might be opposing goalies learning his tendencies better. That tends to happen when someone starts their career by scoring at a pace only Jonathan Toews and Artemi Panarin have matched in recent Hawks history.

Kubalik knows it’s his duty to overcome that, though. And with the Hawks sitting second-to-last in the NHL in even-strength goals entering Wednesday (with 20 in 15 games), the team would certainly benefit if he could.

“The good goal-scorers always find a way,” he said. “Everybody knows that [Alex] Ovechkin is going to shoot the one-timer on the power play. It still goes in. [It still] looks easy. I’ve just got to find a way to make it look easy, too.”

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Renee Rapp (from left), Alyah Chanelle Scott, Pauline Chalamet and Amrit Kaur star in “The Sex Lives of College Girls.” | HBO Max

Likable actors work beautifully together as the roommates learning the ways of love and money.

In the breezy and funny and surprisingly sweet HBO Max comedy-drama “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” we’re asked to believe four freshman students who were complete strangers get deeply entangled with each other’s lives in a matter of weeks simply because they’ve been assigned to room together.

This would be a stretch except for the fact that in real life, on college campuses across the country, thousands upon thousands of freshman students from different backgrounds who were complete strangers get deeply entangled with each other’s lives in a matter of weeks simply because they were assigned to room together.

Thanks to the spot-on observational skills of the prolific and wonderfully talented co-creators Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble and an enormously likable cast of gifted young actors (along with some reliable veterans in the parental roles), “The Sex Lives of College Girls” is so much more than that salacious title. Yes, there’s plenty of sex — sometimes hot, sometimes awkward, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes beautifully romantic — but this is really about the LIVES of college girls, and even with the staccato beat of well-timed one-liners and a few storylines that have been done to death, there’s something fresh and original and just plain entertaining about each of the six (out of 10) episodes I’ve seen.

“The Sex Lives of College Girls” is set in the fictional Essex College, a top-tier, private school in Vermont, and centers on the stories of four freshman college roommates:

Bela (Amrit Kaur), an Indian-American whose parents expect her to study molecular biology when she dreams of becoming a comedy writer-performer (she has a poster of Seth Meyers on the dorm wall) — and of making up for lost time when it comes to hookups.
Whitney (Alyah Chanelle), a young Black woman who is a soccer standout and the daughter of a U.S. senator. Against her better judgment, Whitney is having an affair with her married coach. (The quicker we’re finished with this particular subplot, the better. You can do SO much better, Whitney!)
Leighton (Renee Rapp), who comes from a white, upper-crust background and is at first blush mean and selfish but is harboring a bundle of insecurities and self-doubts, and a secret of her own: She’s gay, and she has her reasons for not coming out, even in 2021.
Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet), a white woman who comes from a small town in Arizona, depends on financial aid and a part-time job to pay for her schooling, and is worried she’ll never fit in.

Archetypes, to be sure, but not stereotypes. With each episode, “The Sex Lives of College Girls” provides new insights and sometimes surprising revelations about the core four, while we get valuable supporting contributions from Sherri Shepherd as Whitney’s senator mom, who seems more excited about an on-air invite from Jake Tapper than her daughter’s collegiate activities; Rob Huebel as Leighton’s WASPy Republican father; Gavin Leatherwood as Leighton’s gorgeous, upperclassman brother, who takes a shine to the inexperienced and shy Kimberly; Lauren Spencer, playing a wisecracking lifestyle influencer in a wheelchair, and Ilia Isorelys Paulino and Christopher Meyer as Kimberly’s co-workers at a coffee shop.

Mostly, though, this is a terrific vehicle for Kaur, Chanelle, Rapp and Chalamet to demonstrate their comedic and dramatic talents. They work beautifully together and have a natural rhythm, even when the dialogue seems almost too perfectly written. In a cast of standouts, Kaur is the superstar. I’d watch a series about Bela’s adventures not only through college but into the rest of her life. She’s that flawed, that funny, that clever, that captivating.

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