Editor’s note: Nicole is taking some much-deserved time off around her birthday this week, so other TPM staffers will be filling in on Where Things Stand. She’ll be back on Tuesday Oct. 13.
‘So That No One Will Escape’
So-called “challenge coins” have become particularly popular souvenirs in the Trump era. Some have been distributed at the highest levels of government and inside facilities playing a key role in the deportation surge. Others are novelty items popular among both fans and foes of the current administration. And one being sold online as a token of an ICE division in Arizona features a particularly dark comment about “hunting” people.
The coin in question was listed for sale on eBay and is branded “U.S. ERO Yuma ICE.” Along with a snarling wolf-like creature, the coin, which is in the shape of a police badge, features two twisted mottoes.
“There is no hunting like the hunting of man,” it says.
On the other side, the coin has a small emblem with a horse’s head emblazoned over crossed swords and the phrase “NE QUIS EFFUGIAT,” which is Latin for “So that no one will escape.” That second ominous slogan also popped up in court documents that alleged a federal agent who used a prohibited chokehold on an immigrant in Massachusetts during a traffic stop was wearing a hat emblazoned with the motto.
While it is not clear that the “hunting of man” coin is an official government product, ERO is the abbreviation for “Enforcement Removal Operations,” which is an ICE division that, per the agency’s website, “manages all aspects of the immigration enforcement process, including the identification, arrest, detention and removal” of people who are in the country illegally. As a result, it has played a key role in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
The eBay seller who listed the coin described it as being from Yuma, Arizona, where ICE has had an ERO presence. While the seller did not respond to a request for comment from TPM, their eBay store page indicates they are a manufacturer based in China. Their other offerings include challenge coins associated with military units, local sheriff’s departments, and other federal law enforcement agencies.
Along with the other slogans and the snarling animal, the coin features desert imagery, a watchtower, and the words “SILENT,” “PATIENT,” and “RELENTLESS.”
Challenge coins have long been a tradition at various government agencies, particularly among military and law enforcement. During Trump’s second term, several top administration officials have apparently crafted and distributed their own challenge coins including former White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, FBI Director Kash Patel, who had an especially elaborate custom piece featuring the Punisher logo, and the president himself.
Within the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, challenge coins have been created and handed out by officials; private, not-for-profit employee associations within the agency; and more unofficial sources like unions, outside political groups, and merchandisers. The coins have become popular with collectors in addition to members of the government.
An ICE spokesperson provided a statement to TPM saying the coin was not “purchased with department funds or produced through official department channels.” The spokesperson did not answer a question about whether the agency had any concerns about the coin.
Back in April, we reported on a challenge coin that was distributed to staff inside of a federal building in Minnesota that served as a hub for the controversial “Metro Surge” operation that led to a surge of deportations and detentions around Minneapolis. At the time, a DHS spokesperson provided a statement indicating the department and its component agencies had processes for reviewing “branded merchandise” and for addressing “coins or patches that may not have been properly approved.”
Since doing that story, we have kept an eye on the robust online marketplace for ICE-themed challenge coins. New items consistently pop up. Like other law enforcement challenge coins, they often feature violent and offensive imagery. For example, one recent eBay listing for a coin branded “NYC ERO” was decorated with a depiction of the Statue of Liberty as a menacing skeleton. The ICE spokesperson also said that coin was not “purchased with department funds or produced through official department channels.”
The eBay seller offering the Liberty coin for sale indicated it had been crafted for federal agents. In a message to TPM, they said their coins “are either sourced directly from other agencies or directly from the manufacturer who has been charged with the distribution of the coins on behalf of the agency or a particular unit within the agency.”
“This one came directly from the manufacturer,” they added.
Whether these twisted tokens are coming from inside ICE or simply from the agency’s fans, they are a telling symbol of our current moment. They are evidence that, for some people in this country, the promise of Lady Liberty welcoming the huddled masses yearning to breathe free has been replaced with a vision of hunting down humans and a far more disturbing motto: No one will escape.
Designer Giorgia Lupi: In Defense of the Detour. “I fear that A.I. is undermining what makes us most human — the ability to translate lived experience and nuanced thoughts into a unique point of view…”
Hard to know quite what to make of this, or how much to make of it. But we’re getting what may be a preview of elements of a new era in the Middle East. According to a just released communiqué, Turkey and Pakistan will be sending troops to Saudi Arabia under the three countries’ new “Mecca Pact” to assist with fighting the Houthis in Yemen. The statement is very short on details. So it’s not clear whether this is a meaningful deployment of manpower and resources or something more nominal and symbolic. Nor is the timing of any deployment clear.
Stalin Boys is a short documentary about a Joseph Stalin-obsessed middle-schooler from a tiny Texas town who writes a play about the Soviet dictator and enlists his three friends to stage it for the Texas State History Fair. Free to watch online.
A few years ago, in a forest just outside of Oslo, 1000 trees were planted. In 2114, after a century of growth, the trees will be cut down and made into paper for an anthology of books. Meet the Future Library, an artwork by Katie Paterson.
Between now and then, one writer every year will contribute a text, with the writings held in trust, unpublished, until the year 2114. Tending the forest and ensuring its preservation for the one hundred year duration of the artwork finds a conceptual counterpoint in the invitation extended to each writer: to conceive and produce a work in the hopes of finding a receptive reader in an unknown future.
The first three writers to contribute texts are Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell, and Icelandic novelist Sjón. Atwood said of her participation:
How strange it is to think of my own voice — silent by then for a long time — suddenly being awakened, after a hundred years. What is the first thing that voice will say, as a not-yet-embodied hand draws it out of its container and opens it to the first page?
One of the Junior Fellows stuck his neck out and suggested that there might be some worthy oaks on the College lands. These colleges are endowed with pieces of land scattered across the country which are run by a college Forester. They called in the College Forester, who of course had not been near the college itself for some years, and asked him if there were any oaks for possible use.
He pulled his forelock and said, “Well sirs, we was wonderin’ when you’d be askin’.”
Upon further inquiry it was discovered that when the College was founded, a grove of oaks had been planted to replace the beams in the dining hall when they became beetly, because oak beams always become beetly in the end. This plan had been passed down from one Forester to the next for over five hundred years saying “You don’t cut them oaks. Them’s for the College Hall.”
Catherine Rampell and Jonathan Cohn give their takes on Donald Trump’s latest checks to Americans, including $500 payments to some ACA marketplace enrollees and $90 payments to certain Medicare recipients. They explain where the money is coming from, why the ACA payments may lack clear legal authority, and how diverting money from healthcare outreach could further undermine the Affordable Care Act.
Plus, Catherine and Jonathan discuss reports of a possible plague outbreak in Russia, what is known about the death of a laboratory worker, and why the Trump administration’s retreat from global health programs and international cooperation could leave the U.S. less prepared for the next major outbreak.
Like all good demagogues, Trump's appeal works when he's got someone to blame. But it's on his watch that we've got a war-related global food crisis brewing and mass layoffs in Ohio—where Trump just happened to hold a rally over the weekend. So, POTUS is focused on getting his family more money through a new bribery scheme while Republicans struggle to demonize Dems and throw away resources on Paxton. Plus: Bill and Tim share their new long shot picks (in South Carolina, Florida, and Kentucky), Thom Tillis is a coward and a weakling, online trolls claiming The Bulwark is trying to get Dems more hawkish on the war really ought to catch one of our podcasts, and Russia's got a worrisome plague outbreak.
As always: Watch, listen, hit the like button or leave a comment. We want to hear from you.
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Georgia police have issued an arrest warrant for singer David “Sky” Whatley Jr. for allegedly slapping an audience member. The soul singer has been charged with battery, and the incident was caught on camera. On September 6, 2026, Whatley was performing at the Legendary Awards Show & Concert at the Londzell Performing Arts Theatre in Tucker, Georgia, when the singer struck Shamika Boyd, who was in the front row. Boyd ended up with two black eyes and was hit so hard that composite material in her teeth fell off. Boy attended the concert to support her daughter, a DJ also performing that evening.
In an interview with 11 Alive, Boyd expressed that she’s unhappy with how DeKalb County has handled the investigation. This incident occurred a month ago, and police didn’t issue a warrant until September 28. As of Friday, October 2, no arrest has been made. Boyd stated, “I feel like my case is not as important like other people’s cases are.”
Boyd’s attorney, Shannin Render, spoke out, stating, “They’re just not doing their job. I’ve done this for about 10 years now, and when there’s an active warrant, you get picked up. Especially with something of such notoriety.” Render also added, “Unfortunately, Ms. Boyd let me know that they’re deciding not to go forward, and they’re going to let him turn himself in”.
It’s Still Unclear Why Whatley Slapped Boyd
Boyd is just as confused as we are. She told 11 Alive, “When he hit me, I was devastated because I’m thinking, ‘Why did he hit me? He had no reason to hit me.'” She elaborated, “That’s the part that I don’t understand when I did nothing to him. He was in no harm, no threat, or anything. After he flipped me off, he was like, ‘Eff you B, this is for the real men.”
It’s also unclear if Whatley is aware of the arrest warrant. Surely, he’s seen the video circulating since the incident occurred in early September. Another attorney, Atiya Vereen, weighed in, explaining, “If I went out and slapped somebody, blacked their eye, and chipped their tooth, I wouldn’t be charged with simple battery.” Vereen claims Whatley should be charged with aggravated battery since he caused “bodily injury.”
It’s been 34 years to the day since R.E.M. released Automatic for the People, their groundbreaking eighth studio album. Fascinatingly, the record—which frontman Michael Stipe called “pretty f**kin’ weird”—has an interesting connection to an ex Led Zeppelin member.
Back in March 1992, months before the record was released, Stipe sat down with Rolling Stone for an extensive interview. During the conversation, he hinted at what their next project would sound like. “Very mid-tempo, pretty f***king weird,” he said. “More acoustic, more organ-based, less drums.”
That music, the world would come to learn, was collected as Automatic for the People.
Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones did string arrangements for R.E.M.’s ‘Automatic for the People’
One reason Automatic for the People was such a groundbreaking project was the string arrangements. Many of which were done by Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. R.E.M.’s producer, Scott Litt, had reached out to Jones to see if he’d be interested, and it just so happened that he was.
“Doing the string arrangements for that album was a great experience, actually,” Jones told Uncut back in 2014. “They sent me the demos of their songs, and we went into a studio in Atlanta, with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. They were great songs, something you can really get your teeth into as an arranger – and I’ve been good friends with them ever since.”
‘Automatic for the People’ was just the start of a brand new chapter for R.E.M.
While it was their eighth record, Automatic for the People represented the beginning of a brand new era for R.E.M. Ahead of its release, he offered some thoughts to Rolling Stone on the band’s longevity. “Hopefully, we’re not going to put out Chicago XIV,” he said, referring to the band Chicago’s 1980 album.
“That would be my worst fear,” Stipe continued. “That we would turn into one of those dumb bands who go into their second decade and don’t know how bad they are and don’t know when to give it up.”
“I don’t think we’re at that point, he added. “I think the stuff we’re doing now challenges in energy and emotion and feeling anything we’ve ever done.”
The interviewer then noted that R.E.M. members Peter Buck and Bill Berry “reportedly made a pact to keep the band going until the year 2000 and then quit.” In response, Stipe quipped, “They decided they wanted to break up at the millennium. There is something poetic about it. I dig that idea. Hey, I can hang in with these guys for another decade.”
R.E.M. actually lasted another decade past that, splitting amicably in 2011.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4’s DMZ mode brings a brand-new extraction shooter experience to the franchise and players will need to wrap their heads around some new systems to prepare for the battle.
DMZ Mode Forwarding Operating Base Overview and Stations
Extraction shooters have grown in popularity over the last few years and there are now multiple high-quality games fully dedicated to the extraction gameplay loop. Although it’s a competitive landscape, Call of Duty plans to put its own spin on the genre with the upcoming DMZ mode in Modern Warfare 4.
The Forward Operating Base (FOB) is each player’s command center for the DMZ extraction shooter mode. Gamers will manage progression, prepare their gear, and plan the next deployment from the FOB.
As players complete Operations across Hajin, the FOB evolves with them, transforming from a foothold to a fully operational base with over a dozen different Stations. Here’s a look at the stations users can immediately access:
Operators: Manage and select your Active Duty Operator, check their status, and select one for deployment.
DMZ Orders: Where you review your current set of Missions downloaded to your Orders Tablet. Earn rewards for completing these structured objectives during deployments.
Stash/Loadout: Stow looted items you’ve extracted with in your Stash. Equip weapons and gear in your Loadout, ready for the next infil.
Firing Range: Test your equipped weapons at the FOB Firing Range against a variety of targets.
Deploy: A threshold of razor wire leads to a heavy-lift military transport waiting for your orders to deploy.
As players successfully complete deployments, they’ll be able to expand and upgrade their Forward Operation Base (FOB) with these additional stations:
3D Printer: Use Resources and 3D Printer Ingredients to craft a variety of gear. This is also used to upgrade various stations in the FOB.
Gunsmith: Loot weapons and return with them, then use DMZ Cash to purchase attachments, or build brand new weapons by extracting from Hajin with a Weapon Manual.
Vendor: Check the vendor’s wares and spend DMZ Cash on a selection of weapons and other helpful gear. The items on sale rotate from day to day, so buy something when you see it.
Bounty Leaderboard: Gain intel on the most dangerous PvP Bounty hunters and killers active across Hajin.
Boss Board: Need to track down a high-value target? Seek intel on Lieutenants, then drop into Hajin, search them out, and face down the exclusion zone’s most dangerous foes.
Dog Tag Case: Display your trophies from defeated Operators.
DMZ Progression: Ensure you’re leveling up in DMZ with this dedicated Progression Track, from 1-70. Unlock FOB stations and gain rewards every step of the way.
It should be very interesting to see how well the DMZ mode is received by the playerbase and if it manages to pull any of the existing extraction shooter audience away from games like ARC Raiders or Marathon when it arrives later this month.
Be sure to check back soon for lots more Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 news and updates as the game’s launch date approaches.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 releases October 23 for PC, Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, and Xbox Series consoles.
Magic: The Gathering is making a handful of big changes to booster packs in 2027 that will remove some less popular slots and give collectors a new God Pack distribution to chase down.
Magic: The Gathering Is Adding God Packs and Removing Less Popular Less Slots
Screenshot: Wizards of the Coast
Magic: The Gathering just announced some major incoming changes to Play and Collectors Boosters that are going to be arriving in 2027.
Starting with Nauctis: The Sunken Realm and continuing with each Magic Multiverse set going forward (with Universes Beyond sets expected in 2028), 1 in every 1,000 Booster Packs will contain 14 rare or mythic rare cards.
1 God Pack celebration card
10 Non-foil rare and/or mythic rare cards
2 Non-foil Booster Fun rare and/or mythic rare cards
2 Traditional foil Booster Fun rare and/or mythic rare cards
Additionally, God Packs in Collector Boosters ramp up the excitement even more, with a distribution of 1 in every 300 Collector Boosters.
3 Non-foil Booster Fun rare and/or mythic rare cards
The addition of God Packs is very exciting for collectors, but those aren’t the only changes coming to Play and Collectors boosters next year.
Wizards of the Coast is removing foil common and uncommon cards from Booster Packs, and we’re no longer guaranteeing a foil card in every pack. Feedback from players has consistently been that these have lost the luster they might have once had. If you do open a foil card in a Booster Pack, it will be a rare or mythic rare card.
Similarly, Collector Boosters will be removing two commons and one uncommon from the foil slots, and those three cards will not be replaced. The common and uncommon cards were the least-exciting parts of these opening experiences and were often passed over. The team is still keeping some number of foil common and uncommon cards in Collector Boosters, as they won’t be available in Booster Packs.
Be sure to check back soon for lots more Magic: The Gathering news and updates.
Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic Arena.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is again focusing his attention on junior officers and noncommissioned officers. In a speech delivered September 30 at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, he invoked a verse he has frequently cited, Isaiah 6:8—
And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying:
Whom shall I send,
And who will go for us?
Then I said: Here am I; send me.
Understandably, in these remarks he does not quote a rather more applicable previous verse:
Then said I:
Woe is me! For I am undone;
Because I am a man of unclean lips.
Isaiah volunteered for the solitary and dangerous task of reproaching a corrupt court that confused ritual with faith, filled with those who oppress the widow and the orphan, “grind the face of the poor,” and “declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not.” He was, according to the Talmud, eventually sawed in two by the evil king Manasseh. The eighth-century B.C.E. prophet was not joining a military of well more than 1 million men and women with competitive pay, excellent lifelong benefits, and the right to board an airplane ahead of an 80-year-old grandmother.
Hegseth is a ludicrous figure in many ways—the strutting sycophant who has promised a military with “no fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos”; the flaunter of push-ups that are performative but out of regs; the grown man stuck at the development level of an angry first lieutenant; the testosterone-obsessed infantry officer who, unlike most of his peers, never managed to earn a Ranger tab. Even so, we should take what he is saying seriously.
Following the Quantico speech, Hegseth spoke to cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy before the annual Air Force–Navy football game. In what is now his stump speech, he called them “the real one percent” of our society who have “a perspective that 99 percent of Americans do not have.” For 251 years, he said, America has required “the absolute best” to stand up and redeem the rest of us.
It is not only balderdash, but dangerous balderdash. With the greatest possible respect for the work of the all-volunteer military of the past 50 years—with acknowledgment of its hardship, suffering, and loss—the fact is that the armed forces of the United States have fought the country’s most important and difficult wars not with the one percent, but with all the rest of us: the doughboys and the GIs who cheerfully or reluctantly went when called, and who yearned to get the job done, go home, and resume civilian life.
George Washington’s Continentals were vital to winning American independence—but so, too, were the thousands of militiamen who harried British troops. The Civil War was won with mass armies; the American Expeditionary Force of World War I was filled by soldiers inducted through the Selective Service System, as were the armies of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. In American history, only our lesser wars were fought exclusively with volunteers, and many of those who fought them were recent immigrants looked down upon by those who got here before them.
In the fall of 1863, Abraham Lincoln contemplated conscription for the Union armies. In his cool appraisal, he noted:
At the beginning of the war, and ever since, a variety of motives pressing, some in one direction and some in the other, would be presented to the mind of each man physically fit for a soldier, upon the combined effect of which motives, he would, or would not, voluntarily enter the service. Among these motives would be patriotism, political bias, ambition, personal courage, love of adventure, want of employment, and convenience, or the opposites of some of these.
Just so. People enlist for all kinds of reasons, but not necessarily because they are morally, physically, or mentally the best.
Moreover, the brute fact is that the challenges faced by our professional forces have been different from and smaller than those confronted by America’s previous mass militaries of short-term volunteers and conscripts. Again, with respect and gratitude to today’s American soldiers, the Iraqis, Taliban, and Iranians were lesser opponents than the Wehrmacht, the Korean People’s Army, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, and the People’s Army of Vietnam.
Against its more recent enemies, the United States has brought to bear infinitely superior weapons, an array of allies, and usually greater numbers. It is a far cry from American sailors up against Japanese heavy cruisers and German U-boats; American soldiers staring down the barrel of the 88-millimeter gun on a King Tiger tank from a much-flimsier Sherman or watching bazooka rounds bounce off a T-34; or airmen jousting with Russian-piloted MiG-15s over the Yalu River.
What is even worse than biblical illiteracy and historical ignorance from this product of Princeton and Harvard Universities is a project about which he seems to be deadly serious: the cultural isolation of the military. His speeches subtly denigrate the general officer corps and focus on the most impressionable segment of the military, those old enough to have bought into the system but young enough to be naive about its merits.
What Hegseth is saying amounts to this: You are better than 99 percent of your fellow Americans. You are better physically and morally. You are crusaders, and they—particularly the media and the intellectuals—are not only uncomprehending of your merits but ready to subvert you. They are traitors. We want to select you from a specific slice of society: We want socially conservative young men and (very few) women from Liberty University and Hillsdale, not from liberal research universities and colleges. We want you to be isolated on bases from the rest of this corrupt society, which we despise, as should you.
It is profoundly dangerous stuff, the antithesis of what soldiers such as George C. Marshall or Dwight Eisenhower believed, that the soldier is a citizen first, that one cannot adequately defend this society without believing in its values and its essential goodness, that an air of contempt is incompatible with a life of self-abnegation.
A Hegsethian cult of military superiority over civilians is not only unwarranted, but actively dangerous. If allowed to fester, it will breed a military detached from America, poorly educated, and contemptuous of the press and all politicians save those of the Trumpian stripe. The force will be narrowly recruited, unrepresentative of a magnificently diverse country, insular, and obsessed with technical matters. It will resemble nothing so much as the Imperial German Army that led its country to disaster in World War I. That the secretary of defense, himself bearing a Crusader tattoo, begins this project by quoting a lonely man of faith is little short of blasphemy.
David Ramos / Getty
Members of Colla Joves Xiquets de Valls build a human tower during the 30th Concours de Castells competition in Tarragona, Spain, on October 4, 2026.Albert Gea / Reuters
Castellers de Vilafranca start to form a tower in Tarragona on October 4, 2026.Josep Lago / AFP / Getty
A child that will attempt to climb to the top of a human tower wears a helmet and safety glasses during the La Mercè festival on September 24, 2026, in Barcelona.Matthias Oesterle / ZUMA Press Wire / Reuters
Castellers build a human tower on October 3, 2026, the second day of the Tarragona human-tower competition.David Ramos / Getty
Castellers lean and support one another in Tarragona on October 3, 2026.David Ramos / Getty
Members of the Xics de Granollers prepare to build their tower in Tarragona on October 3, 2026.Matthias Oesterle / ZUMA Press Wire / Reuters
Members of local collas build their human towers during the La Mercè festival in Barcelona on September 24, 2026.Albert Gea / Reuters
Castellers de Vilafranca form their human tower in Tarragona on October 4, 2026.David Ramos / Getty
Members of Colla Vella dels Xiquets de Valls fall while attempting to build their tower on October 4, 2026, in Tarragona.David Ramos / Getty
Members of the colla Moixiganguers d'Igualada recover after falling while building their human tower in Tarragona on October 4, 2026.David Ramos / Getty
Members of Colla Joves Xiquets de Valls work on their human tower on October 4, 2026, in Tarragona.Emilio Morenatti / AP
Members of Castellers de Vilafranca react as their teammates complete their human tower in Tarragona on October 4, 2026.Emilio Morenatti / AP
Members of the Colla Vella form a human tower in Tarragona on October 4, 2026.Cheng Min / Xinhua / Getty
People build a human tower during the La Mercè festival in Barcelona on September 24, 2026.Emilio Morenatti / AP
Members of Colla Joves Xiquets de Valls fall during an attempt at the Human Tower Competition in Tarragona on October 4, 2026.Emilio Morenatti / AP
Members of Xiquets de Tarragona fall in Tarragona on October 4, 2026.Laia Solanellas / Europa Press / Getty
A tower is formed on the final day of the 30th castells competition in Tarragona.Josep Lago / AFP / Getty
Members of the Colla Vella team celebrate after forming their human tower in Tarragona on October 4, 2026.
Members of the Colla Joves Xiquets de Valls build a human tower during the 30th Concours de Castells competition in Tarragona, Spain, on October 4, 2026.
David Ramos / Getty
Members of Colla Joves Xiquets de Valls build a human tower during the 30th Concours de Castells competition in Tarragona, Spain, on October 4, 2026.Albert Gea / Reuters
Castellers de Vilafranca start to form a tower in Tarragona on October 4, 2026.Josep Lago / AFP / Getty
A child that will attempt to climb to the top of a human tower wears a helmet and safety glasses during the La Mercè festival on September 24, 2026, in Barcelona.Matthias Oesterle / ZUMA Press Wire / Reuters
Castellers build a human tower on October 3, 2026, the second day of the Tarragona human-tower competition.David Ramos / Getty
Castellers lean and support one another in Tarragona on October 3, 2026.David Ramos / Getty
Members of the Xics de Granollers prepare to build their tower in Tarragona on October 3, 2026.Matthias Oesterle / ZUMA Press Wire / Reuters
Members of local collas build their human towers during the La Mercè festival in Barcelona on September 24, 2026.Albert Gea / Reuters
Castellers de Vilafranca form their human tower in Tarragona on October 4, 2026.David Ramos / Getty
Members of Colla Vella dels Xiquets de Valls fall while attempting to build their tower on October 4, 2026, in Tarragona.David Ramos / Getty
Members of the colla Moixiganguers d'Igualada recover after falling while building their human tower in Tarragona on October 4, 2026.David Ramos / Getty
Members of Colla Joves Xiquets de Valls work on their human tower on October 4, 2026, in Tarragona.Emilio Morenatti / AP
Members of Castellers de Vilafranca react as their teammates complete their human tower in Tarragona on October 4, 2026.Emilio Morenatti / AP
Members of the Colla Vella form a human tower in Tarragona on October 4, 2026.Cheng Min / Xinhua / Getty
People build a human tower during the La Mercè festival in Barcelona on September 24, 2026.Emilio Morenatti / AP
Members of Colla Joves Xiquets de Valls fall during an attempt at the Human Tower Competition in Tarragona on October 4, 2026.Emilio Morenatti / AP
Members of Xiquets de Tarragona fall in Tarragona on October 4, 2026.Laia Solanellas / Europa Press / Getty
A tower is formed on the final day of the 30th castells competition in Tarragona.Josep Lago / AFP / Getty
Members of the Colla Vella team celebrate after forming their human tower in Tarragona on October 4, 2026.
Members of the Colla Joves Xiquets de Valls build a human tower during the 30th Concours de Castells competition in Tarragona, Spain, on October 4, 2026.
Scott’s decision to self-publish could be seen as a protest against her ex-husband’s company—or as a sign of how profoundly it’s altered the publishing landscape.
Under 1 million years old, “Elias 2-24b” is now the youngest exoplanet ever observed, and it may force researchers to reevaluate theories about how planets are formed.
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