Kickstart: Rubik may be headed for the toy industry Hall of Fame

The Rubik's Cube was named to the the Toy Hall of Fame in 2014. Will its creator make it into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame too?

Erno Rubik is one of seven people being considered for induction into the hall for 2025, along with Isaac Larian, CEO and founder of MGA Entertainment, which owns the Little Tikes brand of toys. (Little Tikes founder Tom Murdough was named to the Hall of Fame in 2020.)

Others on the Hall of Fame finalist list are: Maxine Clark, founder and CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop; Sharon DiMinico, founder of Learning Express Toys; Michael Kohner, president of game maker Michael Kohner Corp.; Shirley Price, the president of Funrise; and Michael Wood, the founder of LeapFrog.

Rubik, a professor of design at the Academy of Applied Arts and Design in Budapest, developed the first version of the Rubik's Cube puzzle in 1974 and introduced it globally five years later. More than 500 million cubes have been sold worldwide since then.

The Toy Association names new Hall of Fame members every two years. Association members are voting for their picks throughout August. In September the group will tally the results and present it to the Toy Association Board of Directors. Board members will decide how many people to add to the Hall, with an induction ceremony set for February 2025.

Sometimes you run across a story that's just … wacky. Case in point: a state nearly shutting down a proposed manufacturing plant because of rumors that its parent company is controlled by China's communist party. Apparently, China wanted the property so it could spy on a nearby U.S. military base, according to the claims. The rumors even got the attention of the governor, who declared that "communist China is America's greatest adversary."

This is not fiction. The state is Arkansas, led by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Plastics News' Jim Johnson writes that Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin was ordered to look into the ownership of Ecotech International — a molder of consumer products such as pails and pet supplies from recycled plastics — when it planned to build a new plant in Fort Smith, near the Ebbing Air National Guard Base.

The property, Griffin stated, "is not owned by, controlled by or associated with a 'prohibited foreign-party-controlled business.'"

Ecotech's parent company is Olivet International Inc. of Mira Loma, Calif. It already has a plant in Fayetteville, Ark.

Check out the full story for more on this unexpected response to a planned expansion.

Indonesia has scrapped plans for an excise tax on plastics and instead will look at a more focused fee on packaging for sweetened beverages.

It's not clear why the country is stepping back from the tax — first hinted at in 2016 and set to begin in 2025 — but it may have to do with a lack of infrastructure for clean drinking water in much of the nation, which leaves residents reliant on bottled water, our sister paper Sustainable Plastics writes. The Indonesian Olefin, Aromatic and Plastic Industry Association criticized the proposal in 2023, saying it would financially burden consumers.