BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Lamine Yamal will miss the rest of Barcelona’s season but should be healed from a leg injury in time to play for Spain at the World Cup, the club said on Thursday.
Barcelona said 18-year-old Yamal will miss the remaining six La Liga games for the leaders as he follows a “conservative treatment” process to heal a muscle injury in his left leg that he picked up on Wednesday while converting a penalty in a 1-0 win over Celta Vigo.
The club added in a statement that its doctors “foresee that (Yamal) will be available for the World Cup.”
Yamal is supposed to make his World Cup debut this summer. Spain's campaign starts against Cape Verde on June 15 in Atlanta.
“This injury sidelines me just when I most wanted to be on the field,” Yamal wrote in an Instagram post. “It hurts that I won't be fighting alongside my teammates. But I believe in them and know that they will give it their all in every game.”
Yamal has emerged as one of the world’s top players since making his Barcelona debut at a record-breaking 15 years old. He helped to lead Spain to the 2024 European Championship and is a major reason why Luis de la Fuente’s team is among the favorites this summer thanks to his dribbling, creativity and ability to both score and set up teammates.
Yamal went down after he scored the winner against Celta in the 40th minute and immediately looked to the bench to signal he was hurt. He dropped to the ground as his teammates arrived to celebrate, then appeared to grab the back of his left leg.
Yamal left the field on his own after being attended by doctors. He talked briefly with coach Hansi Flick on the sidelines before walking into the locker room tunnel by himself.
Barcelona leads Real Madrid by nine points with two more rounds before they meet at Camp Nou on May 10.
Barcelona will start its run-in without Yamal on Saturday when it visits Getafe. Flick could replace Yamal on the right side with winger Roony Bardghji or mix up his front line and play with an extra midfielder.
Yamal leads Barcelona in scoring (24) and assists (18) across all competitions.
“This is not over. This is just a pause,” Yamal wrote in his social media post. “I will come back stronger and more motivated than ever and next season will be even better.”
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal lies on the pitch in pain during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Celta Vigo in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
NEW YORK (AP) — HBO Max, “Harry Potter” and CNN may soon find themselves under a new roof: Paramount.
That's because shareholders of Warner Bros. Discovery on Thursday voted to sell the entire business to the company that owns CBS, along with blockbusters like “Top Gun." Based on a preliminary vote count, Warner shareholders agreed to the proposed $81 billion buyout — valued at nearly $111 billion including debt based on Warner’s current outstanding shares.
While the deal still faces regulatory review, the megamerger would vastly reshape Hollywood and the wider media landscape, further consolidating power in an industry already run by just a handful of major players. Paramount itself was acquired by Skydance just last year.
Here's what a Paramount-Warner combo could look like for streaming, movies, news and more.
Paramount Skydance would own both Paramount+ and, with the sale approved by shareholders Thursday, Warner's HBO Max. Company executives have said that they would combine these streamers into one platform.
What that combined service would look like (or be named) is unclear. But Paramount CEO David Ellison suggested that HBO could still have some level of independence, at least production-wise.
“Our view point is, HBO should stay HBO,” Ellison said during a conference call last month. “They built a phenomenal brand, they are a leader in this space and we just want them to continue doing more of it. But by bringing the platforms together, all of our content will be able to reach even a broader audience than we can do standalone.”
Warner and its HBO streaming platform have a powerful lineup that includes “The Pitt,” “Game of Thrones” and “Sex and the City." And beyond “Harry Potter,” Warner's library lists blockbuster films such as “Sinners,” “Barbie” and "Superman" (the company also owns DC Studios). Titles like “Top Gun," "Titanic,” “The Godfather" and “Yellowstone" fill Paramount's catalog.
In the U.S., according to streaming guide JustWatch, HBO Max controlled about 12% of on-demand subscriptions in the first quarter of this year — compared to 3% for Paramount+. Combining those two services would still fall slightly below Prime Video's 17% market share, and the 19% of the market commanded by Netflix. Disney owns about 27% of the market between Hulu and Disney+.
Beyond HBO Max, Paramount would also acquire Warner’s smaller Discovery+ streamer. And apart from Paramount+, Paramount owns Pluto TV and BET+, too.
Critics are skeptical of consumer benefits touted by Paramount. While company executives have continued to laud larger content libraries and the potential for Paramount to better compete with bigger rivals, a combination with Warner Bros. would mean fewer platform choices when it comes to streaming overall. Critics warn that could actually mean higher prices at a time when the price of almost all subscriptions continues to tick higher.
Paramount and Warner Bros. are two of Hollywood’s oldest studios. A merger would mean fewer companies control legacy film production.
Ellison has said the combined company to grow a slate to more than 30 movies a year, keeping Paramount and Warner Bros. as stand-alone operations. And in a star-studded CinemaCon appearance last week, he promised a 45-day exclusive window for films in theaters, pledging a “complete commitment” to the industry.
Still, others are wary about what further consolidation could mean for jobs and which projects are greenlit down the road. Regulatory filings have indicated that the new ownership will be looking for ways to cut costs — including layoffs and downsizing some overlapping operations. Paramount is taking on billions of dollars in debt to finance the deal.
Warner Bros. just had a banner year of both major blockbusters and critical successes. The studio racked up 30 Oscar nominations thanks to “Sinners,” “Weapons,” and “One Battle After Another” (which took home the top best picture slot). Paramount received zero. And in 2025, Warner Bros. movies — including “A Minecraft Movie,” “Superman” and “Sinners” — accounted for 21% of the domestic box office. Paramount’s market share was only 6%, driven largely by “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning."
The industry has already experienced a sizeable consolidation. Almost 10 years ago, Hollywood’s big six became the big five when Disney bought most of 20th Century Fox. And if the Warner sale goes through, a new “big four” era would be underway — with a bigger Paramount standing alongside Disney, Universal and Sony.
CNN would come under the same roof as Paramount-owned CBS. That would bring together two of America’s biggest names in television news, although whether CNN would continue to operate as a separate brand from CBS has yet to be confirmed.
Regardless, there is a lot of anxiety about Paramount taking control of CNN — a network that has long attracted ire from President Donald Trump and his allies. Critics point to Trump’s close relationship with the Ellison family, particularly billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison, who is putting up billions of dollars to back the bid by his son’s company.
Since coming under Skydance ownership less than a year ago, CBS has already seen significant shifts in editorial leadership. It's taken steps to appeal to more conservative viewers in its news operations, notably with the installation of Free Press founder Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News. If the company’s proposed Warner takeover is successful, many expect similar changes at CNN.
Some officials in the Trump administration have also made their opinions very clear about CNN's future ownership. In March, the White House attacked CNN for its coverage of the U.S. and Israel's war against Iran — and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters that "the sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”
Ellison has said that editorial independence “will absolutely be maintained” under Paramount ownership. “It’s maintained at CBS. It’ll be maintained at CNN,” Ellison told CNBC's “Squawk on the Street” in March, while noting that his company wants to speak to “the 70%” of viewers who he said identify as center-left or center-right.
The acting head of the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division has also said that its regulatory review will not be political. Still, critics are skeptical — particularly following Skydance's acquisition of Paramount in August. That merger was approved by the Federal Communications Commission just weeks after the company agreed to pay Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit over editing at CBS' “60 Minutes” program. The president has continued to publicly lash out at “60 Minutes” programming since.
CNN is just one of the cable operations that Warner is selling. And the proposed merger would make Paramount's TV footprint even bigger.
The company also owns Discovery, TNT, TBS, Food Network, Cartoon Network and Animal Planet, among other networks — all of which would come under Paramount ownership if the deal goes through. Meanwhile, Paramount already has its own sizeable broadcast lineup. Beyond CBS, that includes Nickelodeon, MTV, BET, Comedy Central, Showtime and more.
FILE - Vehicles enter Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles on Dec. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
