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House Republicans didnt exactly have a banner year in 2023. They made history for all the wrong reasons. Last January, they presided over the most protracted election for speaker in a century, and nine months later, for good measure, lawmakers ejected their leader, Kevin McCarthy, for the first time ever. Last month, the House expelled one of its own, George Santos, for only the sixth time.

The rest of the year wasnt any more productive. Thanks in part to Republican discord, the House passed fewer bills that became laws than any other year in decades. And for the few important measures that did pass, GOP leaders had to rely on Democrats to bail them out.

Republican lawmakers have responded by quitting in droves. After the House spent much of October fighting over whom to elect as speaker, November saw more retirement announcements than any single month in more than a decade. Some members arent even waiting for their term to end. McCarthy resigned last week, depriving the party that fired him of both his experience and, more crucially, his vote. Representative Bill Johnson of Ohio, a Republican, and Brian Higgins of New York, a Democrat, are each leaving for new jobs in the next several weeks. (Santos would have stuck around, but his colleagues had other ideas.)

Read: George Santos was finally too much for Republicans

A roughly equal number of members from each party plan to forgo reelection this year. But the most powerful departing lawmakers are Republicans: The chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Representative Kay Granger of Texas, is leaving after a quarter century in Congress, and the head of the Financial Services Committee, Representative Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, will end his 20-year House career next year.

Still, some Republicans are leaving after just a few years in Congress, including Representatives Victoria Spartz of Indiana and Debbie Lesko of Arizona, both former state legislators. For them, serving in Congress simply isnt all its cracked up to benot when your party cant seem to figure out how to govern. People dont engage with each other, Lesko told me. They just make speeches.

Here are the stories of four Republicans who are calling it quits at different stages of their career: McHenry, a onetime rabble-rouser who became a party insider; Brad Wenstrup, an Army podiatrist whose House tenure spanned from the Tea Party to Donald Trump; Spartz, a conservative with an impulsive streak; and Lesko, a Trump loyalist who never quite found her way in Washington. Taken together, their departures reflect the rising frustrations within a Republican Party that has floundered in the year since it assumed power in the Housea year in which it has spent more time fighting than governing.

Debbie Lesko

On October 17, after House Republicans had just tanked their third choice for speaker, Representative Debbie Lesko finally decided shed had enough: She wouldnt be seeking reelection. The 65-year-old grandmother of five had been planning to stay for one more term, but the ouster of Kevin McCarthy and the weeks of chaos that followed changed her mind. It kind of put me over the top, Lesko told me.

Lesko had higher hopes for Congress back in 2018, when she won a special election to represent a safely Republican seat north of Phoenix. Perhaps I was naive, she conceded. Lesko prioritized border security during her first campaign and managed to get one border-related bill signed into law while Trump was president and Republicans controlled the House in 2018, but her legislative goals have fallen short since then. In the Arizona state legislature, she had served in the leadership and chaired two powerful committees. I was used to getting things done in a bipartisan fashion, Lesko said. The House proved to be far more difficult terrain. As a Trump ally, Lesko found few willing Democratic partners after the GOP lost control first of the House majority in 2018 and then of the presidency in 2020.

In Arizona, Lesko said, lawmakers actually debated bills and amendments on the floor of the House and Senate; in Washington, by contrast, members just deliver speeches written for them by their young staff. We dont listen to each other, Lesko lamented. We just go in and read a statement. She bemoaned the lack of civility and the hurling of personal insults between members in both parties. (When I asked if Trump had contributed to the incivility, she said, I would prefer he not attack people personally, but he does a great job.)

Lesko told me she enjoyed most the days she spent interacting with constituents back home, but over six years, they could not make up for the family time she gave up on cross-country flights and on fundraising. If I felt we were getting a whole lot accomplished, I would sacrifice it, she said. Instead, Republicans spent a week in January 2023 fighting over their speaker and then did it all over again in October. That certainly didnt make me feel like I wanted to stay, she told me.

Patrick McHenry

Representative Patrick McHenry introduced himself to much of America last year as a very frustrated man. The North Carolina Republican opened his unlikely stint as House speaker pro tempore with a memorable slam of the gavela brief eruption of anger aimed at the rump group of Republicans who had dethroned his ally, Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Read: We put sharp knives in the hands of children

When McHenry arrived in Congress nearly two decades ago, he might have counted as one of the renegades. He was a brash 29-year-old who liked nothing more than to pick fights with Democrats on cable news. After his first term, however, McHenry began to shift his strategy and redraw his image. He wanted to become a serious legislator, capable of using influence in Congress to affect public policy. I realized that my actions were not enabling my goal, so I changed how I operated, he told me. He became less of a partisan brawler and more of an inside player, studying the institution and how leaders in both parties wielded power. My early years in Congress were like graduate school, McHenry said.

McHenry is leaving with a reputation as a widely respected if not-quite-elder statesman (hes only 48). He serves as the chair of the Financial Services Committee and acted as one of the GOPs top negotiators of perhaps the most significant bill to come out of Congress last year, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which prevented a debt default and ordered modest budget cuts. McHenry is retiring in part because he has to give up the committee gavel he so enjoys; Republican term limits allow most members to hold top committee posts for up to six years.

He also passed up a bid for a more permanent promotion. At one point in October, some of the same Democrats who had chafed at McHenrys bombast as a young lawmaker were open to the idea of him serving as speaker. McHenry told me hed wanted to be speaker earlier in his career, but not anymore. He refused entreaties to seek election as speaker or even to use his temporary position to try to pass legislation. It would have been to the institutions detriment and, frankly, even to mine, he told me. So I decided the best course of action is to want for nothing during that time period, and that meant resisting the opportunity to use power.

When McHenry announced his retirement from the House two months later, he insisted that he was departing with none of the bitterness people might assume he carried. I truly feel this institution is on the verge of the next great turn, he said in his statement. When I asked him what gave him hope, he tried to put a positive spin on the dysfunction and disenchantment that have plagued Congress for years. The operations of the House have been under severe pressure for a while, McHenry said. We have an institution that is struggling to perform in the current political environment. He then made a prediction: Therell be significant changes that will happen in the coming congresses to make the place work.

He wont be around to see them. The GOPs term limits for committee leaders is n often-underappreciated reason for turnover in the partys House ranks, but McHenry declined to seek a waiver so he could stay atop the Financial Services Committee. Im going to honor our rules, he said. He hasnt decided what comes next: This chapter is closing, and Ive got another chapter ahead of me.

Brad Wenstrup

This much is clear: Representative Brad Wenstrup is not leaving the House out of frustration with Washington gridlock. I reject the notion that this has been a do-nothing House of Representatives, he told me. Wenstrup proceeded to read from a list that he said ran to 20 pages of bills that the narrow Republican majority had advanced through the lower chamber of Congress over the past year. Most of these measures are gathering dust in the Democratic-controlled Senate, but the fact that a onetime outsider like Wenstrup would be defending an embattled institution so fervently is itself something of a revelation.

Wenstrup won election to the House a decade ago as a Tea Partybacked insurgent, having defeated an incumbent Republican in a surprising 2012 primary challenge from the right. Hell leave next year as a leadership loyalist, positioned in the ideological center of a GOP conference that has grown decidedly more conservative in the past decade. He voted for the debt-ceiling deal in June, despite having criticized his first Republican opponent during their campaign for backing a similar bipartisan agreement. Am I a conservative? Yes, he said. Did I try to advance common sense? Yes. Did I try to establish myself as a statesman? Yes.

Read: We used to be called moderate. We are not moderate.

Wenstrup has become an institutionalist in other ways too. His biggest complainta common one among small-government conservativesis that federal agencies have taken too much power from Congress, evading proper oversight and interpreting laws beyond the intent of the legislators who wrote them. We have to bring back Schoolhouse Rock, Wenstrup said, recalling the cartoon that taught a generation of Americans a somewhat-idealized version of legislative sausage-making. A bill on Capitol Hill gets signed by the president. Thats the law. Agencies dont get to change it.

An Iraq War veteran who served as a combat surgeon, Wenstrup, 65, started his family later than most and has two young children in Ohio. He told me he had decided that this term would be his last in the House before any of the speaker tumult of the past year: I decided that I wanted to make sure that I raised my kids, not someone else.

Victoria Spartz

Good luck trying to predict Representative Victoria Spartzs next move. The Indiana conservative is leaving Congress next year after just two termsassuming she sticks with her plan.

That hasnt always been the case during Spartzs short tenure in the House. She is fiercely protective of her options, and she has made her name by going her own way. At one point this fall, she threatened to resign her seat if Congress did not create a commission to tackle the federal debt. I cannot save this Republic alone, she said at the time. (Congress has created no such commission, but Spartz isnt leaving quite yet.)

Spartz, 45, is the only Ukrainian-born member of Congress, and she assumed a prominent role in the GOP after Russias invasion in 2022. Her nuanced position on the conflict has defied easy characterization. While cheering for Ukraines victory, she sharply criticized its prime minister, Volodymyr Zelensky, at a time when much of the West was rallying to his side. Spartz has accused Zelensky of playing politics and theater and demanded an investigation of one of his top aides. When members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee traveled to Ukraine on an official visit without hershe doesnt serve on the panelSpartz paid her own way and crashed the trip. She supports more U.S. aid to Ukraine, but not without conditions, and she believes that the funding must be more targeted toward heavy military equipment rather than humanitarian assistance. Ukraine must win this war, she told me, but wars are won with weapons, and we need to be much faster, much tougher, and better.

Spartz again proved to be a wild card during the Houses recurring struggles over picking a speaker. During the 15 rounds of balloting last January, she supported Kevin McCarthy on the first three turns, then voted present eight times before returning to McCarthy for the final four rounds. In October, she voted with McCarthys critics to bring up a resolution to oust him as speaker, but on the climactic vote, she stuck with McCarthy. Kevin wasnt a bad guy. He just didnt like to govern, Spartz said.

Midway through Spartzs first term, Politico reported on high staff turnover in her congressional office, quoting former aides who described Spartz as a quick-tempered boss who frequently yelled at and belittled her underlings. Spartz made no effort to deny the accounts, telling Politico that her style was not for everyone. After winning a second term that fall, however, Spartz quickly announced that she would not seek office in 2024forgoing both a third bid for the House and open statewide races for governor and Senate in Indiana.

Her departure, she insisted to me, represents a break from politics, and not a retirement. Sometimes its good to take some time off, Spartz said. She denied that any of the drama of the past two yearsthe war in Ukraine, the speaker fights, criticism of her managementcontributed to her decision to leave. Her children are now teenagers, Spartz said, and she wants to spend more time with them.

Still, Spartz doesnt quite seem at peace with her plans. Given her past shifts, I asked if she still might change her mind and run again. She wouldnt, she said, but with a caveat: Unless I get real upset!

Given the volatility of the past year in Congress, thats a threat it would be wise not to ignore.

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BST Hyde Park’s final day cancelled as Jeff Lynne’s ELO pulls out of headline slot

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BST Hyde Park's final day cancelled as Jeff Lynne's ELO pulls out of headline slot

BST Hyde Park festival has cancelled its final night after Jeff Lynne’s Electric Light Orchestra pulled out of the headline slot.

Lynne, 77, was due to play alongside his band on Sunday but has been forced to withdraw from the event following a “systemic infection”.

The London show was supposed to be a “final goodbye” from ELO following their farewell US tour.

Organisers said on Saturday that Lynne was “heartbroken” at being unable to perform.

A statement read: “Jeff has been battling a systemic infection and is currently in the care of a team of doctors who have advised him that performing is simply not possible at this time nor will he be able to reschedule.

“The legacy of the band and his longtime fans are foremost in Jeff’s mind today – and while he is so sorry that he cannot perform, he knows that he must focus on his health and rehabilitation at this time.”

They later confirmed the whole of Sunday’s event would be cancelled.

“Ticket holders will be refunded and contacted directly by their ticket agent with further details,” another statement said.

Stevie Wonder played the festival on Saturday – now its final event of 2025.

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US rock band The Doobie Brothers and blues rock singer Steve Winwood were among those who had been due to perform to before ELO’s headline performance.

The cancellation comes after the band, best known for their hit Mr Blue Sky, pulled out of a performance due to take place at Manchester’s Co-Op Live Arena on Thursday.

ELO was formed in Birmingham in 1970 by Lynne, multi-instrumentalist Roy Wood and drummer Bev Bevan.

They first split in 1986, before frontman Lynne resurrected the band in 2014.

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2025 MLB Home Run Derby: The field is set! Who is the slugger to beat?

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2025 MLB Home Run Derby: The field is set! Who is the slugger to beat?

The 2025 MLB All-Star Home Run Derby is fast approaching — and the field is set.

Braves hometown hero Ronald Acuna Jr. became the first player to commit to the event, which will be held at Truist Park in Atlanta on July 14 (8 p.m. ET on ESPN). He was followed by MLB home run leader Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners, James Wood of the Washington Nationals, Byron Buxton of the Minnesota Twins, Oneil Cruz of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Junior Caminero of the Tampa Bay Rays, Brent Rooker of the Athletics and Jazz Chisholm Jr. of the New York Yankees.

On Friday, however, Acuna was replaced by teammate Matt Olson.

With all the entrants announced, let’s break down their chances at taking home this year’s Derby prize.

Full All-Star Game coverage: How to watch, schedule, rosters, more


2025 home runs: 17 | Longest: 434 feet

Why he could win: Olson is a late replacement for Acuna as the home team’s representative at this year’s Derby. Apart from being the Braves’ first baseman, however, Olson also was born in Atlanta and grew up a Braves fan, giving him some extra motivation. The left-handed slugger led the majors in home runs in 2023 — his 54 round-trippers that season also set a franchise record — and he remains among the best in the game when it comes to exit velo and hard-hit rate.

Why he might not: The home-field advantage can also be a detriment if a player gets too hyped up in the first round. See Julio Rodriguez in Seattle in 2023, when he had a monster first round, with 41 home runs, but then tired out in the second round.


2025 home runs: 36 | Longest: 440 feet

Why he could win: It’s the season of Cal! The Mariners’ catcher is having one of the greatest slugging first halves in MLB history, as he’s been crushing mistakes all season . His easy raw power might be tailor-made for the Derby — he ranks in the 87th percentile in average exit velocity and delivers the ball, on average, at the optimal home run launch angle of 23 degrees. His calm demeanor might also be perfect for the contest as he won’t get too amped up.

Why he might not: He’s a catcher — and one who has carried a heavy workload, playing in all but one game this season. This contest is as much about stamina as anything, and whether Raleigh can carry his power through three rounds would be a concern. No catcher has ever won the Derby, with only Ivan Rodriguez back in 2005 even reaching the finals.


2025 home runs: 24 | Longest: 451 feet

Why he could win: He’s big, he’s strong, he’s young, he’s awesome, he might or might not be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. This is the perfect opportunity for Wood to show his talent on the national stage, and he wouldn’t be the first young player to star in the Derby. He ranks in the 97th percentile in average exit velocity and 99th percentile in hard-hit rate, so he can still muscle the ball out in BP even if he slightly mishits it. His long arms might be viewed as a detriment, but remember the similarly tall Aaron Judge won in 2017.

Why he might not: His natural swing isn’t a pure uppercut — he has a pretty low average launch angle of just 6.2 degrees — so we’ll see how that plays in a rapid-fire session. In real games, his power is primarily to the opposite field, but in a Home Run Derby you can get more cheapies pulling the ball down the line.


2025 home runs: 20 | Longest: 479 feet

Why he could win: Buxton’s raw power remains as impressive as nearly any hitter in the game. He crushed a 479-foot home run earlier this season and has four others of at least 425 feet. Indeed, his “no doubter” percentage — home runs that would be out of all 30 parks based on distance — is 75%, the highest in the majors among players with more than a dozen home runs. His bat speed ranks in the 89th percentile. In other words, two tools that could translate to a BP lightning show.

Why he might not: Buxton is 31 and the Home Run Derby feels a little more like a younger man’s competition. Teoscar Hernandez did win last year at age 31, but before that, the last winner older than 29 was David Ortiz in 2010, and that was under much different rules than are used now.


2025 home runs: 16 | Longest: 463 feet

Why he could win: If you drew up a short list of players everyone wants to see in the Home Run Derby, Cruz would be near the top. He has the hardest-hit ball of the 2025 season, and the hardest ever tracked by Statcast, a 432-foot missile of a home run with an exit velocity of 122.9 mph. He also crushed a 463-foot home run in Anaheim that soared way beyond the trees in center field. With his elite bat speed — 100th percentile — Cruz has the ability to awe the crowd with a potentially all-time performance.

Why he might not: Like all first-time contestants, can he stay within himself and not get too caught up in the moment? He has a long swing, which will result in some huge blasts, but might not be the most efficient for a contest like this one, where the more swings a hitter can get in before the clock expires, the better.


2025 home runs: 23 | Longest: 425 feet

Why he could win: Although Caminero was one of the most hyped prospects entering 2024, everyone kind of forgot about him heading into this season since he didn’t immediately rip apart the majors as a rookie. In his first full season, however, he has showed off his big-time raw power — giving him a chance to become just the third player to reach 40 home runs in his age-21 season. He has perhaps the quickest bat in the majors, ranking in the 100th percentile in bat speed, and his top exit velocity ranks in the top 15. That could translate to a barrage of home runs.

Why he might not: In game action, Caminero does hit the ball on the ground quite often — in fact, he’s on pace to break Jim Rice’s record for double plays grounded into in a season. If he gets out of rhythm, that could lead to a lot of low line drives during the Derby instead of fly balls that clear the fences.


2025 home runs: 19 | Longest: 440 feet

Why he could win: The Athletics slugger has been one of the top power hitters in the majors for three seasons now and is on his way to a third straight 30-homer season. Rooker has plus bat speed and raw power, but his biggest strength is an optimal average launch angle (19 degrees in 2024, 15 degrees this season) that translates to home runs in game action. That natural swing could be picture perfect for the Home Run Derby. He also wasn’t shy about saying he wanted to participate — and maybe that bodes well for his chances.

Why he might not: Rooker might not have quite the same raw power as some of the other competitors, as he has just one home run longer than 425 feet in 2025. But that’s a little nitpicky, as 11 of his home runs have still gone 400-plus feet. He competed in the college home run derby in Omaha while at Mississippi State in 2016 and finished fourth.


2025 home runs: 17 | Longest: 442 feet

Why he could win: Chisholm might not be the most obvious name to participate, given his career high of 24 home runs, but he has belted 17 already in 2025 in his first 61 games after missing some time with an injury. He ranks among the MLB leaders in a couple of home run-related categories, ranking in the 96th percentile in expected slugging percentage and 98th percentile in barrel rate. His raw power might not match that of the other participants, but he’s a dead-pull hitter who has increased his launch angle this season, which might translate well to the Derby, even if he won’t be the guy hitting the longest home runs.

Why he might not: Most of the guys who have won this have been big, powerful sluggers. Chisholm is listed at 5-foot-11, 184 pounds, and you have to go back to Miguel Tejada in 2004 to find the last player under 6 foot to win.

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On Buxton bobblehead day, All-Star hits for cycle

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On Buxton bobblehead day, All-Star hits for cycle

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota Twins All-Star center fielder Byron Buxton admitted to feeling a little added pressure before Saturday’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was his bobblehead day, meaning the first 10,000 fans to walk through the gates at Target Field would receive a replica of Buxton doing his “Buck Truck” home run celebration.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous before the game started, just knowing it was bobblehead day,” Buxton said. “Obviously you want to come out and do something good.”

Buxton did more than something good. He became the first player to hit for the cycle at Target Field since the ballpark opened in 2010, helping ignite the Twins to a 12-4 win over the Pirates.

It was the 12th cycle in Twins history and the first since Jorge Polanco had one in 2019.

Buxton had three hits through three innings — a single in the first, a triple in the six-run second and a double in the third. After singling again in the fifth, he had one more opportunity in the bottom of the seventh.

Buxton, who will participate in next week’s Home Run Derby in Atlanta, crushed a 427-foot solo homer off Pirates reliever Andrew Heaney with two outs in the seventh to make it an 11-3 game and complete the cycle. That brought the Target Field crowd to its feet, with many fans celebrating with Buxton bobbleheads.

With his team holding a comfortable lead, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli almost took Buxton out of the game before his final at-bat, he admitted afterward. Thankfully for Baldelli — and Buxton — a few coaches reminded the skipper what was at stake.

“He was 4 for 4 at the time. But with everything going on during a game, sometimes I’ll be the one that might miss on a hitting streak or something that’s going on with a particular player,” Baldelli said. “But once they reminded me of that, he was going to stay in the game. He was going to get another at-bat, regardless of the score, and give him a chance to do something great.”

The homer was Buxton’s 21st of the season, tied for fifth most in the American League. With two runs driven in Saturday, Buxton now has 55 RBIs on the season — just one shy of his single-season high. He boasts an OPS of .921 and is 17 for 17 in stolen bases.

“It’s one of the greatest first halves I’ve ever witnessed,” Baldelli said.

Buxton was replaced in center field after the seventh inning, but not before getting a standing ovation curtain call from Twins fans. He also received a Gatorade bath courtesy of teammate Ty France, who was headed to the clubhouse before realizing that nobody had doused Buxton yet after the game.

“It’s special,” Buxton said. “To be able to come out on bobblehead day like this and have a day like this is something I won’t forget.”

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