Brands barbie, fisher price and moi, that is mattel to find out how his company s fortunes are being revived. Wherever you are joining around the world, once again hello and welcome to the programme. It is a billion dollar industry driven by creativity and innovation with a global reach and a diverse market. The toy industry is forecast to reach $302 billion in sales by 2030 and that estimate is at the conservative end of the scale. But falling birth rates and some of the highest inflation rates we have seen in decades have created challenging conditions for manufacturers and retailers and signal more tough times to come. While the covid pandemic boosted sales of toys and games temporarily, big name companies reported sales have started to slip back once again. Let s look at some of those numbers. Local toy sales reached $108. 7 billion in 2023, a 2% drop compared to 2022 with toy companies calling it a normalisation process after that exceptional growth linked to the pandemic. But acr
News chief white house correspondent, peter alexander. Nbc news foreign correspondent, matt bradley in eastern ukraine, jonathan la mir, Politico White House bureau chief as well as host of Way Too Early here on msnbc. And he lane cooper, the New York Times pentagon correspondent. Both jonathan and helane are msnbc contributors. Peter, what more can you tell us about the president s decision to u. S. Moves troops already on standby to europe . Reporter thats exactly right. We have now learned that its a total of 3,000 u. S. Troops who will be moving, about a thousand of them already in europe will be going to romania, a native member nation. Another 2,000 presently here in the u. S. Will be going to germany and to poland, as well. This comes, according to a Senior Administration official at the president s direction, and following the recommendation of the defense secretary, Secretary Austin. I think youre going to hear this officially from john kirby, the Press Secretary at the pentag
Eastern europe. About 2,000 troops are going to poland and another 700 are going to rumania as well as other countries in the southEastern Flank of nato. The reason for this is because of the anxiety these allies are feeling in the midst of this massive russian troop buildup in ukraine. The president did hint at this last week. He said he would be moving those troops to Eastern Europe in the near term, but he did not say when that would be happening. We are told these deployments could be coming in the coming days. What were told is this is coming at a time when these allies are feeling very, very anxious about this russian aggression there, and this is a show of support for those allies. This is not a precursor to any kind of u. S. Troops on the ground in ukraine. This is just those troops going to Eastern Europe to shore up that flank and reassure them that the u. S. Is there in the event that russia does invade ukraine and tries to move even further west, jim. Ambassador, let me bri
Eastern europe. About 2,000 troops are going to poland and another 700 are going to rumania as well as other countries in the southEastern Flank of nato. The reason for this is because of the anxiety these allies are feeling in the midst of this massive russian troop buildup in ukraine. The president did hint at this last week. He said he would be moving those troops to Eastern Europe in the near term, but he did not say when that would be happening. We are told these deployments could be coming in the coming days. What were told is this is coming at a time when these allies are feeling very, very anxious about this russian aggression there, and this is a show of support for those allies. This is not a precursor to any kind of u. S. Troops on the ground in ukraine. This is just those troops going to Eastern Europe to shore up that flank and reassure them that the u. S. Is there in the event that russia does invade ukraine and tries to move even further west, jim. Ambassador, let me bri
News chief white house correspondent, peter alexander. Nbc news foreign correspondent, matt bradley in eastern ukraine, jonathan la mir, Politico White House bureau chief as well as host of Way Too Early here on msnbc. And he lane cooper, the New York Times pentagon correspondent. Both jonathan and helane are msnbc contributors. Peter, what more can you tell us about the president s decision to u. S. Moves troops already on standby to europe . Reporter thats exactly right. We have now learned that its a total of 3,000 u. S. Troops who will be moving, about a thousand of them already in europe will be going to romania, a native member nation. Another 2,000 presently here in the u. S. Will be going to germany and to poland, as well. This comes, according to a Senior Administration official at the president s direction, and following the recommendation of the defense secretary, Secretary Austin. I think youre going to hear this officially from john kirby, the Press Secretary at the pentag