Today’s Big Story

The Toy Hall of Fame

My Little Pony, Transformers and Phase 10 honored

Do you remember My Little Pony? Well, those tiny candy-colored horses finally made it to the winner's circle. After years as an also-ran, the cute plastic ponies were enshrined in the National Toy Hall of Fame on Tuesday, along with Transformers action figures and the Phase 10 card game. Put another way, it was a good day for elder millennials and their sense of nostalgia.

According to NPR, the competition was stiff. The Hall of Fame recognizes both branded and generic items. Among this year's 12 finalists were Hess Toy Trucks, Pokémon Trading Card Game, the trampoline and your run-of-the-mill balloons.

“These are three very deserving toys that showcase the wide range of how people play,” Christopher Bensch, vice president for collections and chief curator, told CBS News. “But for My Little Pony in particular, this year is extra validating. The beloved toy was a finalist seven times before finally crossing the finish line!”

And if you didn’t know that there was such a thing—a hall of fame for the toys we loved as kids—the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, established the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1998 to recognize what Bensch called “the elite of the toy world.” The criteria for this kind of lifetime achievement award for toys, are longevity, recognizability, and “play value.” The judges include historians and educators who Bensch said look for toys that “encourage learning, creativity, discovery, socialization.” I would certainly put Transformers in that category.

But, personally, I’ve never heard of Phase 10. Apparently, it was introduced by inventor and entrepreneur Ken Johnson in 1982. Today, Mattel still sells 2 million decks of the card game every year in 30 countries and the cards are printed in more than 20 languages. That makes it one of the bestselling card games in the world, according to the Strong National Museum.

Republicans Deliver Trump a Trifecta

The G.O.P. is on the brink of taking control of both chambers of Congress

Republicans returned to Capitol Hill on Tuesday after elections that put them on the brink of taking control of both chambers of Congress to face critical questions about how they will wield their power—and how tight a grip President-elect Donald Trump will have on their new majority.

G.O.P. senators are set to make a monumental choice today, when, for the first time since 2007, they plan to elect a party leader not named Mitch McConnell. Three men have been quietly jockeying for months to replace McConnell (the longest-serving Senate party leader in history), but some of Trump’s allies have pressed him to block the man considered to be the front-runner: Senator John Thune of South Dakota.

And House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday that Republicans are “ready to deliver” Trump’s agenda after his election victory, insisting the G.O.P. won’t make the mistakes of last time and will be much better prepared for a second-term Trump White House. Standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, he said there would be no time wasted before work begins on Trump’s “America First” agenda of securing the southern border, projecting strength on the world stage and ending “wokeness and radical gender ideology.” He expects Republicans will lead a unified government, even though House control is still too early to call.

Is Toilet Paper Shrinking or Swelling?

The wild, nonsensical world of toilet paper math, explained

I’m never shopping for toilet paper with my mother again. On a recent visit home, we were at the supermarket and she asked me to go and pick some up for her. Only I got the Mega Rolls and I was supposed to get the Jumbo Mega Rolls. She went into some mathematical formula, but ultimately I was confused by the conversions. “How can one roll be the equivalent to three and a half,” I asked rhetorically.

But this is the current landscape of toilet paper. And I’m just relieved that I’m not the only one confused. As Vox points out, the most glaring issue plaguing the toilet paper industry is a lack of standardization. Double, triple, and mega rolls are imprecise descriptors that vary by brand; they are not measurement units. In fine print, toilet paper packaging will often admit that these sizes are relative to the “regular” roll—sometimes they mean their own brand’s regular size, but other times, it’s against a competitor’s one-ply regular. All this renders comparison shopping far more challenging than it is for the average household product.

Making matters worse, there are reports that despite all the big names, our rolls of TP are actually getting smaller due to shrinkflation. The Hustle was able to secure a factory-sealed four-pack of regular Charmin Ultra toilet paper produced in 1992. “I look at the fine print and gasp…170 sheets per roll! These days, a regular Charmin Ultra Soft roll, if you can find one, has 56 sheets. Even the roll they market as ‘Double’ doesn’t have 170 sheets—it has 154.”

A Bluesky Boom

The site has emerged as an option for people looking to change their social media service

Typically, after a presidential election in the U.S., search queries about leaving the country spike as supporters of the losing candidate consider what to do next. While physically moving out of the country may be a bit complicated, finding a new social media home is a much simpler task. And it appears that hundreds of thousands of people have decided to flee Elon Musk's X in the wake of the U.S. election results.

Among the largest beneficiaries of that desire is Bluesky—a rival service that has gained more than a million new users in the week since the election, a company spokeswoman, Emily Liu, told the New York Times on Tuesday. The majority of the new users live in the United States, Canada and Britain, she added.

Social media researcher Axel Bruns said the platform offered a welcome alternative to X, including a more effective system for blocking or suspending problematic accounts and policing harmful behavior. He told The Guardian, “It’s become a refuge for people who want to have the kind of social media experience that Twitter used to provide, but without all the far-right activism, the misinformation, the hate speech, the bots and everything else.”

News. Without Motives.

Join over 3.5 million Americans who start their day with 1440

Check out 1440—the fastest way to an impartial point-of-view. The team at 1440 scours over 100+ sources ranging from culture and science to sports and politics to create one email that gets you all caught up on the day’s events in 5 minutes. According to Gallup, 51% of Americans can’t think of a news source that reports the news objectively. It’s 100% free. It has everything you need to be aware of for the day. And most importantly, it simplifies your life.

You’ll survive.