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Robert Lewandowski to leave Barcelona with his ‘mission complete’ | Football News
Veteran Polish striker helped Barca to three La Liga titles, including this season’s trophy, and the Copa del Rey in 2025.
Published On 16 May 2026
Barcelona striker Robert Lewandowski says he is leaving the club this summer at the end of his contract.
The veteran Polish forward, 37, scored 119 goals for Barcelona in 191 games across all competitions since joining from Bayern Munich in 2022.
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list of 4 itemsend of listLewandowski helped Barca to three La Liga titles, including this season’s trophy, and the Copa del Rey in 2025.
“After four years full of challenges and hard work, it’s time to move on,” said Lewandowski in a post on Instagram on Saturday.
“I leave with the feeling that the mission is complete. Four seasons, three championships.”
The forward joined when Barca were at a low ebb and struggling financially, helping restore them to the Spanish throne and also compete for the Champions League.
“Barca is back where it belongs,” continued Lewandowski.
“I will never forget the love I received from the fans from my very first days. Catalonia is my place on Earth.”
Lewandowski will play for the last time at Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium on Sunday against Real Betis.
Media reports have said Lewandowski has received offers from Saudi Arabia, Italy and the United States.
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Female NASCAR driver cries during shocking in-car meltdown, parks truck during race and rage-quits the series
Natalie Decker parked her truck during Friday’s race at Dover after just 81 laps after NASCAR black-flagged her for being too slow.
That, of course, isn’t the whole story. Not even close.
Decker essentially rage-quit during the race, suffering one of the most stunning in-car meltdowns I have ever heard. And folks, I’ve heard A LOT over the radio in all my years covering NASCAR. Frankly, until yesterday, I thought I’d heard it all.
But this? This goes straight to the top. NASCAR fans quickly unearthed the audio after Decker exited the race, and it’s something we’ll be talking about for a long time.
Natalie Decker talks with her crew during qualifying for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts United Rentals 300 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla., on Feb. 14, 2026. (Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire)
“You guys, I’m trying to hold my s— together, but I don’t want to keep doing this,” a crying Decker begins after being told to come down pit road for a pass-through penalty.
“There’s just so many s—– things that I could say right now, and I’m just trying to keep it together, about the f—ing director of the series.”
Here’s the full audio:
NASCAR probably needs to step in here
Goodness gracious. Again, I have never heard anything like it out of a NASCAR driver. Never. Credit to her crew chief, spotter and team owner for handling it like adults. I would’ve been going ballistic.
“Let’s remember what’s on our truck, and just bring it to the garage, right?” said team owner Josh Reaume, referring, clearly, to the sponsors.
“I feel like a f—ing failure if I do that,” she responded. “There’s so many things I want to say and I’m probably going to get f—ing suspended, you have no idea.”
Natalie Decker walks the grid during practice for the NASCAR Xfinity Series BetMGM 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., on May 24, 2024. (David Jensen/Getty Images)
Finally, after telling us 13 times that we “have no idea,” Decker ends the day by parking her truck, quitting on her team and leaving the Truck Series entirely. And then, naturally, she quickly turns her attention to social media.
“I’m sorry Josh, I’m not going to come back to the Truck Series,” she continued. “I’m staying in the O’Reilly Series, this series f—ing sucks. The amount of hate I’m going to get online for this is just going to be insane. I’m not ready.”
NASCAR DRIVER KATHERINE LEGGE SLAMS ‘DEI HIRE’ SLIGHTS AFTER XFINITY SERIES CRASH
Friday night, Decker braved her social media and actually released a statement, via Instagram:
“I got a penalty at the drop of the green flag, I pulled out of line before the finish line, when serving that penalty I got another one for speeding on pit road,” she said. “I am not going to lie I am really disappointed in myself because after all those penalties mentally I never recovered. I know there is going to be a lot of hate around my last to weekends racing and nothing you can say is worse then how hard I am on myself right now.
“But I am going to push myself to get through this and control what I can control moving forward and show up to my next race with a smile on my face and fire in me to keep doing what I love.”
Natalie may want to run that bad boy through an editor next time, but that’s neither here nor there.
Natalie Decker sits on the pit wall before the NASCAR Xfinity Series BetMGM 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C., on May 25, 2024. (Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire)
Look, we write about Natalie Decker a lot around here. She’s an attractive female NASCAR driver who is very active on social media. That stuff plays well with an audience.
But this is just embarrassing. Let’s just call a spade a spade. This is such a bad look. It’s so bad, I’m not sure NASCAR should let her ever return. I’m serious. Do they really want drivers who melt down like that out on the track? That’s not a normal radio rant. Again, I’ve done this for a long time. I’ve heard it all.
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This one is different. This one sounds concerning. It’s not fair to the team, to the sponsors, to the other drivers on the track, and to the fans. Natalie Decker is a grown adult. She turns 30 next month. She’s a mother.
In no world should her boss be trying to talk her off a ledge over the radio during a race. That’s high school stuff. This is the real world.
“I’ll have a fresh bottle of water for you when you get out of the truck.”
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It’s a nice sentiment. I get it. But, now that the dust has settled, it’s time to take the kid gloves off and have a real conversation about what just happened.
And, for NASCAR, it’s probably time to think about never letting it happen again.
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Amid the fertiliser crisis, Africa has a chemical-free option: Agroecology | Agriculture
More than two months into the US-Israel war on Iran, it appears we are veering towards another global food crisis. The conflict is driving up the costs of fuel, fertilisers, plastics and transport, resulting in higher food prices for communities from Manila to Quito. And now food production is at risk, with upwards of 20 percent of global fertiliser exports unable to move through the Straight of Hormuz and shipments of natural gas and sulphur, vital to the production of fertilisers elsewhere, blocked.
International agencies are particularly concerned about the implications for Africa, where hundreds of millions face food shortages and where many countries are highly dependent on food imports. Now, some high-level officials at development banks are calling for urgent actions to secure more fertilisers for African countries in order to deal with the looming crisis.
We have been here before. During the global food crisis of 2008, the same development banks and many African governments pushed through a wave of programmes that handed vast areas of Africa’s lands to agribusiness companies and subsidised chemical fertilisers, for both small and big farmers.
Some of these large-scale projects failed spectacularly, leaving a trail of destruction that communities have yet to recover from. But so, too, did subsidised fertiliser schemes. In many cases, they were unable to significantly increase fertiliser use per farmer or reduce hunger, and left governments drowning in debt. Malawi, for example, spent so much on subsidising fertilisers at the time that it had to cut its budget for public infrastructure and education.
The dilemma for these fertiliser programmes, time and again, is price. Fertilisers are not just expensive in Africa; they are more expensive than in most other places. The corporations and traders that control the fertiliser market make profit margins of 30-80 percent across the continent. When global prices rise, they jack their prices up even further and then keep them there as prices fall back elsewhere. Farmers, even at subsidised prices, struggle to meet their costs of production. To avoid debt, they have to use less fertiliser or none at all.
Africa’s high dependence on fertiliser imports makes the situation worse, depleting scarce foreign reserves to pay an overseas fertiliser cartel. And when global supply shocks hit, like today, African countries may be unable to even access any fertiliser from the international market.
Efforts to boost production on the continent bring their own challenges. Billionaire Aliko Dangote runs Africa’s largest urea fertiliser factory in his home country, Nigeria. It ships most of its urea to the United States and Brazil, and what it sells on the domestic market, or in other African countries, reflects the prices it can get internationally. In early March, just one week after the US and Israel began their assault on Iran, Dangote’s company hiked its urea prices by 40 percent.
Building more fertiliser factories in Africa will also mean more toxic pollution for local communities. People living near the phosphate factories of the Groupe Chimique Tunisien in Gabes, Tunisia, have been fighting for years to shut it down because of how the pollution is damaging people’s health, land, and waters. And the impacts are not just local. Chemical fertilisers are one of the leading contributors to climate change, responsible for more global greenhouse gas emissions than air travel.
We must look at this moment in an entirely different way. Rather than boosting African fertiliser production to replace what’s blocked in the Gulf, governments across the region should urgently redirect subsidies and policy initiatives to support agroecology.
The fact is that, for much of Africa, local foods are produced without chemical inputs. Farmers don’t use them for traditional crops like cassava in West Africa, sorghum in the Sahel, or banana around the Great Lakes. They are often reserved instead for cash crops, for export.
Furthermore, across West and North Africa, farmers’ organisations are advancing agroecological methods that avoid chemical fertilisers. Groups such as Beo-neere, the Convergence des Femmes Rurales pour la Souverainete Alimentaire, and the Nous Sommes la Solution movement support tens of thousands of farmers across several countries. In Tunisia, the Network for Agroecological Transition and the Tunisian Association of Permaculture promote fertiliser-free food systems, including the “Nourriture Citoyenne” (citizen food) label for produce grown without chemical inputs.
Evidence shows that agroecology can increase food production on farms, strengthen farmer livelihoods and provide multiple ecosystem benefits. A series of studies conducted in the 2000s of 208 agricultural projects across 52 countries, involving 9 million farmers, found yield increases of 50-100 percent for various food staples, including cassava, sweet potato, millet, maize and sorghum, when environmentally sensitive agricultural techniques were applied.
In Senegal, researchers found that farmers using agroecology had 17 percent higher yields and 36 percent higher incomes than their conventional counterparts; in Brazil, these numbers were respectively 49 and 177 percent. Yet, for agroecology to reach its full potential, the economic cycle that keeps farmers tied to monocropping and export markets at the expense of feeding their own communities must be broken.
Agroecology is the most appropriate way forward to bring sustainability back into our food systems. It’s also perfectly in line with the determined call coming from 60 governments gathered in Colombia last month to phase out fossil fuels in order to truly fight climate change.
What better argument do we need to prioritise local food systems and the empowerment they offer, instead of fossil fuel-based fertilisers that just reinforce corporate control and climate dystopia?
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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Brian Hooker sat on sailboat 24 hours after wife vanished, friend says
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FIRST ON FOX: Brian Hooker sat on his sailboat for 24 hours after she vanished while the couple were in the Bahamas, according to one of his friends.
After leaving shore at Hope Town in the Bahamas at around 7:30 p.m. on April 4, Brian Hooker told authorities that rough waters caused his wife to fall off their dinghy. Brian Hooker paddled to shore and arrived at Marsh Harbour around 4 a.m. on April 5, according to authorities.
The couple was headed back to their sailboat, their full-time home in retirement, when Lynette fell overboard. They frequently sail around the U.S. and Caribbean, according to their social media pages.
Blaine Stevenson, a friend of Brian Hooker’s, told Fox News Digital that after spending about three to four hours searching with rescue officials on April 5, Brian returned to his sailboat and stayed there for roughly 24 hours.
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Brian Hooker leaves Central Police Station in Freeport, The Bahamas, on April 13, 2026, after being released from custody. He was questioned about the disappearance of his wife, Lynette Hooker, who he says fell overboard from their dinghy earlier this month. (Matthew Symons for Fox News Digital)
“So the incident happened Saturday at 7:30 p.m. He came ashore at 4 a.m., the search and rescue took him out for three or four hours and brought him back to his boat. He sat on his boat for almost 24 hours until search and rescue brought him his dinghy back,” Stevenson said.
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“At no point did he really look at the situation and give anybody any more details than he had at the beginning when supposedly he was in shock,” Stevenson said.
Brian and Lynette Hooker have been married for around 25 years, family members said. (The Sailing Hookers/YouTube and Instagram)
Brian Hooker would go on to stay at the Conch Inn in Marsh Harbour on April 6, Stevenson said, where he stayed until he was arrested on April 8 by Bahamian authorities. He was released from jail on April 13 without being charged.
LYNETTE HOOKER MISSING IN BAHAMAS: TIMELINE OF MICHIGAN WOMAN’S DISAPPEARANCE, HUSBAND’S ARREST
Stevenson also said he’s shocked Brian Hooker didn’t make more of an effort to find his wife.
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U.S. Coast Guard investigators search the boat Soulmate docked at their station in Fort Pierce, Fla., on May 13, 2026. The vessel belongs to Brian Hooker and his missing wife Lynette Hooker and was brought back to the U.S. from The Bahamas by the Coast Guard. (Obtained by Fox News Digital)
“Even if he accepts the fact that his wife is gone — does he not want closure? Does he not want redemption?” Stevenson said.
Sometime between May 8 and 10, Brian and Lynette Hooker’s sailboat, Soulmate, was seized, a source familiar with the investigation told Fox News Digital. Soulmate was seized 40 nautical miles off the coast of Melbourne, Florida, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
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In a news release, the Coast Guard said the seizure was part of a “complex surveillance and interdiction operation.” The sailboat was taken to Coast Guard Station Fort Pierce, where it is being processed for potential evidence, the source said.
“The vessel Soulmate is currently in the custody of CGIS as part of an active criminal investigation,” the Coast Guard said.
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Brian Hooker boards a plane to Nassau from Grand Bahama Freeport Airport in The Bahamas on Tuesday, April 14, 2026, accompanied by his lawyer, Terell A. Butler. (Matthew Symons for Fox News Digital)
Brian Hooker’s Michigan-based attorney previously asked Americans to give him the benefit of the doubt in an interview with ABC News.
“I would ask those watching to treat him the way you would want to be treated, to give him the benefit of the doubt, and to consider that not all of us, nor you, considering your own relationships, the way you speak to one another, we all handle things in different ways,” Crystal Marie Hauser said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Hauser for comment.
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TV networks have more leverage over the NFL and streamers than the league realizes
DOJ probes NFL over streaming deals as antitrust exemption draws scrutiny
The Justice Department is probing the NFL’s exclusive streaming deals amidst fan frustration over fragmented and paid access. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr questions if the league should retain its special antitrust exemption, initially established by the 1961 Sports Broadcasting Act. Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley suggests Congress examine the NFL’s monopoly structure, highlighting their $25 billion annual revenue and rising fan costs.
The prevailing narrative around the NFL’s media rights is that the league will pressure its television partners to pay significantly higher fees before the 2029-30 opt-out period begins (2030-31 for ESPN), or risk losing their packages to streaming platforms.
However, we are not convinced the NFL has as much leverage as it has led industry insiders and the public to believe. And, no, it’s not because of scrutiny from the U.S. Justice Department.
Netflix and NFL signage advertises the NFL’s two Christmas Day marquee games streaming live on Netflix in New Orleans, Louisiana, on Dec. 1, 2024. (Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty Images)
To be sure, the current broadcast partners — ESPN/ABC, Fox, CBS and NBC — cannot compete financially with the tech companies circling the league. Alphabet, which owns Google and YouTube, carries a market cap of roughly $4.78 trillion. Amazon sits at $2.84 trillion. In a pure bidding war, traditional networks would almost certainly lose. But that scenario assumes the streamers actually want the same packages the networks currently hold.
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So far, the evidence suggests otherwise.
Netflix and YouTube have both expressed interest in adding NFL inventory, but consider the types of games they have pursued.
Netflix expanded its NFL package from two games to five this season, adding a Week 1 international game, a Thanksgiving Eve matchup and a Week 18 game alongside its Christmas Day doubleheader. That limited expansion aligns with what Netflix executives have publicly said about their strategy.
“We’re not bidding on whole seasons of sports, including the NFL,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos told FOX Business host Maria Bartiromo this week.
Perhaps Netflix eventually adds a few more showcase windows, especially if the league opens more inventory to the market in 2029. But even then, the company appears focused on event programming rather than a full weekly schedule. There are also not many marquee standalone windows left for Netflix to pursue. Thanksgiving Eve already feels like a stretch.
Streaming service EverPass Media announced it will become the exclusive commercial provider for NFL Sunday Ticket starting with the 2026 season. (Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty Images)
YouTube tells a similar story. Despite months of speculation that it would secure additional NFL rights, the platform will not carry any games this season. And while YouTube will likely remain interested in future opportunities, its focus also appears to be on premium events rather than weekly packages.
Its business model helps explain why. The core YouTube platform is free. Airing last season’s Chiefs-Chargers game from Brazil at no cost made sense as a promotional event. Carrying an entire NFL season for free would not.
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YouTube TV is not an ideal destination either. At roughly $85 per month, placing NFL games behind that paywall would significantly reduce the league’s reach.
Apple, despite a market cap of approximately $4.41 trillion, has shown little meaningful interest in NFL rights. That could always change, but there is currently little indication that the company is preparing a major push.
Bar patrons watch the YouTube TV telecast of the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Los Angeles Chargers in Buffalo, N.Y., on Sept. 5, 2025. (Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty Images)
Amazon is the exception. Since taking over Thursday Night Football in 2022, Amazon has demonstrated a willingness to carry a weekly NFL package. The question is how much larger an investment it wants to make.
Industry consensus has long held that Amazon and other tech companies are unlikely to pursue Fox’s and CBS’s Sunday afternoon regional packages because of the enormous logistical demands involved. Those packages require numerous production crews operating simultaneously across the country every week.
Likewise, Amazon is not expected to challenge ESPN for Monday Night Football, especially after the NFL acquired an equity stake in ESPN. If anything, ESPN, which already pays the league more annually than any other partner ($2.7 billion), could ultimately end up with additional games split between ESPN and NFL Network.
That leaves NBC.
NBC’s aggressive NBA deal has fueled industry speculation that the network could eventually lose Sunday Night Football. But if that happens, the obvious question becomes: to whom?
In theory, Amazon could make a run at Sunday Night Football. Beyond that possibility, however, it is difficult to envision streamers taking over the NFL’s weekly television structure within the next decade unless their strategies change dramatically.
With that in mind, the broadcast networks may ultimately be better off holding firm to their existing agreements through the opt-out period, rather than dramatically increasing rights fees out of fear.
The more likely outcome is that tech companies gain a larger presence around tentpole events, particularly the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is the type of property Netflix, YouTube and Amazon would almost certainly pursue aggressively.
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That does not mean the traditional networks would be unaffected. Beginning this season, NBC, CBS and Fox already have to share Super Bowl rotation duties with ESPN/ABC. Additional partners would further dilute exclusivity.
Still, the NFL and the broadcast networks remain highly dependent on one another.
As powerful as the NFL is, the streaming giants do not appear interested in abandoning their current strategies to bid aggressively for weekly NFL packages.
Until that changes, relying on traditional television remains in the league’s best financial interest.
And that gives the TV networks tremendous leverage.
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Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton win battle to stop 29-storey block being built by Thames | Planning policy
Celebrities including Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger have defeated plans to build a 29-storey tower on the banks of the River Thames.
Jagger, along with fellow rockstar Eric Clapton, actor Felicity Kendal and comic Harry Hill, fought the developer Rockwell Property for two years over its plan to erect a 100-metre tower next to Battersea Bridge. If the tower had been built on the south bank of the Thames in south-west London, it would have rivalled the heights of the famous chimneys on Battersea power station.
Jagger, 82, who has lived on the north bank since the early 1960s, as have bandmates Brian Jones and Keith Richards, said the tower made “no sense” and was “totally wrong on every level”.
Jagger told the Chelsea Citizen in March that he had “lived in this area for a long time and I care about what happens to it. If this goes ahead, it could lead to more tall buildings being built … changing this wonderful stretch of the Thames riverside forever”.
Clapton, 81, warned that if the plans were approved it would be a “free-for-all for other developers to build towers along the river”. He added: “These developers don’t give a damn what anyone thinks. They are just in it for the money.”
Rockwell Property initially proposed building a 34-storey tower with 142 flats, which was later reduced to 110 flats, including 54 affordable homes, along with underground parking and a mix of commercial spaces. The developer argued the project tackled “an urgent need for new, high-quality housing” in London.
Wandsworth council rejected the plans, citing the project’s “excessive height and scale,” adding that it “would represent an unacceptable and incongruous transformative change within the location that would significantly harm the spatial character of the same location”. It also said the tower would spoil the skyline and “devastate” neighbours’ lives. The Greater London Authority backed the council’s decision.
Rockwell appealed, but got no satisfaction, as a planning inspector backed objectors and the council this week by ruling the tower would have an “adverse effects on the character and appearance of the local area” and “be overbearing”.
After an eight-day public hearing, planning inspector Joanna Gilbert said: “The proposal would cause harm to townscape character in several identified views from different directions and differing distances.
“[It] would be taller and bulkier than other existing buildings, rendering it highly noticeable. The proposal would cause a dramatic change to the skyline in views along this part of the [Thames] embankment. Overall, this change would be detrimental.”
The inspector added: “The proposal is not exemplary, extraordinary, remarkable or distinctive, just tall. It would not adorn the London skyline and would not form part of a ribbon cluster of tall buildings, but would appear alien and isolated in its very height in this location, harming spatial character.”
Rockwell said in a statement: “We are obviously disappointed with the decision as we firmly believe in this regeneration project. We wanted to see it delivered and made a number of changes to the scheme following feedback from the public.”
The developer added: “We did not compromise on quality, using the world-renowned architects, Farrells, so it is disappointing the inspector did not share our view that this would be a great addition to London’s skyline.”
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Israel’s Image Crisis: Becoming Too Big to Spin? | TV Shows
As criticism of Israel mounts over its wars on Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, along with the escalating settler violence in the occupied West Bank, the country is ramping up its PR offensive.
From a carefully managed appearance of Benjamin Netanyahu on CBS’s 60 Minutes to a major expansion of Israel’s Hasbara operation, the push includes pouring money into digital campaigns and media messaging.
The goal is to reverse the collapse of public support for Israel, especially in the US, but no amount of spin can make audiences unsee what they have watched in real time.
Contributors:
Miriyam Aouragh – Professor of digital anthropology, University of Westminster
Matt Lieb – Host, Bad Hasbara podcast
Emily Schrader – Journalist, ILTV News
Oren Ziv – Reporter, Local Call
On our radar
Israeli officials have dismissed a recent New York Times report on sexual violence against Palestinians as “blood libel”.
But while the government denounces the allegations, many of the claims in the report have been openly discussed in the Israeli media.
Nicholas Muirhead reports.
Zaragoza Data Farms
The generative AI boom is prompting a global race to build vast, energy-hungry data centres. In Spain’s Aragon region, authorities have welcomed tech giants and the jobs, investment and digital transformation they claim to bring.
But behind the glossy narrative lies a different reality – one in which enormous facilities consume natural resources and exploit legal loopholes, often at the expense of the communities that live alongside them.
Featuring:
Alonso Llorente – Journalist, Arainfo
Pablo Jimenez Arandia – Investigative reporter
Mar Vaquero – Vice president, Aragon Minister of Economy, Employment & Industry
Published On 16 May 2026
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