Lego plans to ditch oil in its bricks for pricier renewable plastic as profits surge
CNN
Toymaker Lego said Wednesday itis on track to replace the fossil fuels used in making its signature bricks with more expensive renewable and recycled plastic, as sales and profits surged.
Toymaker Lego said Wednesday itis on track to replace the fossil fuels used in making its signature bricks with more expensive renewable and recycled plastic, as sales and profits surged. The Danish company reported that profit for the first half of the year jumped 26% to 8.1 billion Danish krone ($1.2 billion). Sales to consumers grew 14%, considerably outperforming the wider toy industry. In an interview with CNN, CEO Neils Christiansen pointed to the brand’s strength “throughout the world with all consumers.” “Our product portfolio resonates super well across ages and interests,” he added. Lego’s blockbuster results come even though toy sales globally have suffered as consumers cut back on non-essential spending. Hasbro (HAS) announced plans to cut 20% of its workforce late last year due to the sales slump. Lego, which sells billions of plastic bricks annually, has tested over 600 different materials to develop a new material that would completely replace its oil-based brick by 2030, but with limited success.
The US has completed its first sale of Venezuelan oil since the US attached Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro, earlier this month, according to an administration official.
President Donald Trump enacted a new 25% tariff on “certain advanced computing chips” on Wednesday, according to a White House fact sheet. That includes Nvidia’s H200 chip and AMD’s MI325X. However, chips imported to support building up the US technological supply chain would be exempt.
Verizon said some of its wireless services were down Wednesday, leaving many customers without access to voice and data services.
YouTube will now let parents limit the amount of time their teens can spend scrolling through its short-form video feature, Shorts, or block them all together.
Last month, Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson penned a first-person piece about her long year as “the federal government whisperer,” receiving tips from hundreds of federal workers. On Wednesday, the FBI searched her home, a source familiar with the situation told CNN.
Price hikes picked up speed for US-based businesses toward the end of last year, a potential signal that inflation has yet to peak and prices could soon rise faster for consumers.
Trump is threatening to take “strong action” against Iran just after capturing the leader of Venezuela. His administration is criminally investigating the chair of the Federal Reserve and is taking a scorched-earth approach on affordability by threatening key profit drivers for banks and institutional investors.
Perhaps no data point better encapsulates the American economy right now than this nugget from Delta’s quarterly earnings:
China recorded the world’s biggest ever trade surplus in 2025, as well as a 20% jump from 2024, capping off a year in which the world’s largest manufacturer defied US trade pressure by ramping up exports to other global markets.
Saks Global, the parent company of luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue, filed for bankruptcy protection late Tuesday, according to court documents filed in US Bankruptcy Court in Houston, Texas.
China on Wednesday reported a strong export run in 2025 with a record surplus of nearly $1.2 trillion, as producers braced for three more years of a Trump administration set on slowing the production powerhouse by shifting US orders to other markets.
Microsoft says it will ask to pay higher electricity bills in areas where it’s building data centers, in an effort to prevent electricity prices for local residents from rising in those areas. The move is part of a broader plan to address rising prices and other concerns sparked by the tech industry’s massive buildout of artificial intelligence infrastructure across the United States.
US consumer prices rose 2.7% annually in December, closing out a year that saw slight progress on inflation but continued affordability concerns for many Americans.