NEW YORK (AP) — Bingo, Care Bears, the Pokémon Trading Card Game and the humble playground slide have all made it into the National Toy Hall of Fame, taking their place alongside classics like Mr. Potato Head and G.I. Joe.
The winners emerged Thursday from a field of 12 finalists that included Bop It!, mahjong, Monster High dolls, Polly Pocket, Tickle Me Elmo, Yahtzee and the board games Sorry! (Sorry, Sorry!) and Mouse Trap.
Experts at The Strong National Museum of Play, home to the National Toy Hall of Fame, note that bingo, which “descends from an Italian lottery played around 1530,” is now played virtually worldwide.
“While bingo is now often associated with an older audience, it has become increasingly popular with young adults. Recently, public bingo games have gone beyond fundraising and have become popular in bars and nightclubs,” curator Mirek Stolee said in a statement.
The effort to get the Care Bears into the Hall was helped by earning nearly 1 million followers on social media, while Pokémon trading cards were buoyed by anime enthusiasts and manga readers.
The Hall said the slide helps children develop motor skills and encourages exploration. “People of all ages remember fondly the simple, satisfying, and energizing experience of racing down a slide,” said Jeremy Saucier, vice president for collections.
While anyone can nominate a toy, the ones that make it into the Hall must be considered icons, have engaged multiple generations, fostered creativity, or profoundly changed play or toy design.
The four 2026 winners will join the 90 toys already enshrined in the National Toy Hall of Fame, a list that includes Cabbage Patch Kids, Dungeons & Dragons, Hot Wheels and Frisbee.
An empty playground with a slide appears in the Brooklyn borough of New York on Nov. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Kennedy) Photo taken with a smartphone.
Pokémon Trading Cards are displayed in the Brooklyn borough of New York on Nov. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Kennedy) Photo taken with a smartphone.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump met at the White House on Thursday with a Russian envoy who was on the premises for an event with first lady Melania Trump and suggested that some kind of grand deal about European security was in the works, but said he did not meet with visiting Ukrainian officials who also were on hand.
Trump, who has long boasted he could quickly broker an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, has lately blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for refusing to make concessions to end the conflict. During the closing weeks of the midterm election campaign, Trump struck a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to remove sanctions from Russian diesel exports.
Trump told reporters he met with Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev but declined to give details. The meeting took place as Trump’s own envoys held talks with other Ukrainian and European officials at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
“There’s going to be an agreement, it’s going to be a big agreement and it’s going to involve more than Ukraine,” Trump said, adding that it might include all of Europe.
One of the U.S. envoys in Brussels, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, said on social media that Thursday’s talks with Ukraine, NATO and European allies were productive and focused on security guarantees for Ukraine and a broader security structure for Europe. The United States is holding three-way talks next week in Abu Dhabi with Ukraine and Russia, the first trilateral peace discussions since February.
“We are working intensively with all parties to find practical solutions that can bring this war to an end and establish the foundations for lasting peace,” Kushner wrote.
Dmitriev was at the White House for an event recognizing the recent six-day truce between Russia and Ukraine in the besieged Ukrainian city of Oleshky. The local ceasefire in the war-divided region of Kherson in southern Ukraine was in effect from Oct. 27 to Nov. 1 and amounted to the most significant truce since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Dmitriev thanked the first lady for her “distinguished humanitarian role” in securing the temporary ceasefire. Dmitriev said Putin personally gave instructions as part of the operation and sent his thanks to Melania Trump for her work.
The head of the parliamentary faction of Zelenskyy’s party, Davyd Arakhamia, and Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, also spoke at the event.
Trump did not say why he didn’t meet with the Ukrainian officials, and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Arakhamia told the first lady she did an “amazing job" and encouraged her to keep helping the Ukrainian people, who have endured more than four years of war after Putin sent his troops across the border and invaded the country in February 2022.
“Definitely we would like to ask you to keep going and to find new missions and to de-escalate more as much as possible,” Arakhamia said.
The first lady has worked with both countries since last year to reunite families separated by the war. So far, she has helped nearly three dozen children return to their relatives.
She said Thursday that she hoped the Oleshky ceasefire could become more enduring and more widespread.
“Let Oleshky be the modest spark that grows into a lasting flame of peace,” she said.
Zelenskyy, in a speech in Spain last week, said the operation in Oleshky proved “something very simple. When Putin wants the fighting to stop, it stops. And there was real silence, no attacks some days, and we saved hundreds of lives.”
The ceasefire is the latest example of how Melania Trump has become more involved in foreign affairs than some of her recent predecessors, who typically travel abroad to spread U.S. goodwill and largely avoid involvement with warring countries, though there have been some exceptions.
In 2022, months after Russia invaded Ukraine, first lady Jill Biden traveled to western Ukraine to visit with Zelenskyy's wife in a town far away from the front lines. Under tight security, first lady Laura Bush made several visits to war-torn Afghanistan.
In an announcement that came as a surprise, the White House said on Oct. 23 that the first lady had brokered the ceasefire to help with the delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid and to allow civilians to evacuate from a place she described as being “on the brink of disaster.”
An estimated 2,000 people remained in Oleshky when the temporary truce took hold. They were offered the choice of evacuating to territory controlled by Ukraine or Russia, or remaining in the city with replenished food and medical supplies.
Supplies were delivered during the six-day window while hundreds of Oleshky residents crossed into Ukrainian-held territory in a major evacuation operation.
Melania Trump said Thursday that nearly 800 people had been evacuated from Oleshky, and she described how she initiated talks with officials in both countries after learning about the situation at an event she held on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session in September. She said she and her top adviser, Marc Beckman, worked directly with Russian and Ukrainian leadership to define the terms of the ceasefire.
Food and medical supplies had been scarce for months in Oleshky, once a city of about 24,000 residents that sits on the Dnipro River separating Ukrainian forces from the city’s Russian occupiers. There is no electricity, heat or running water.
Oleshky was captured by Moscow’s forces on the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Its buildings were shelled and burned, and its infrastructure damaged. In June 2023, floodwaters inundated the city after the Kakhovka Dam collapsed from an explosion that an Associated Press investigation found was likely caused by the Russian military. Hundreds of residents were killed.
Those left in the city along Ukraine’s southeastern front face death from hunger or disease as another harsh winter looms. Ukraine has appealed repeatedly for a local ceasefire to organize evacuations. Russia, as the occupying power, is obligated by international law to ensure civilians under its control have what they need to survive.
The first lady presented Putin and Zelenskyy's representatives with large white envelopes and asked them to deliver her personal letter to each leader. Dmitriev presented her with a painting from an 11-year-old girl, while Zelenskyy sent her a Ukrainian award recognizing her role in the ceasefire.
Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
First lady Melania Trump, from right, hands letters written for the presidents of Ukraine and Russia to Davyd Arakhamia, head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Servant of the People party and Russian Presidential Envoy Kirill Dmitriev, during a meeting with the first lady and Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Russian Presidential Envoy Kirill Dmitriev speaks during a meeting with first lady Melania Trump and Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Russian Presidential Envoy Kirill Dmitriev speaks alongside first lady Melania Trump during a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Russian Presidential Envoy Kirill Dmitriev, left, presents first lady Melania Trump with a gift during a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
First lady Melania Trump arrives to speak during a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
First lady Melania Trump attends a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Davyd Arakhamia, head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Servant of the People party, speaks alongside first lady Melania Trump during a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, left, presents first lady Melania Trump with a state award during a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
First lady Melania Trump speaks during a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, left, presents first lady Melania Trump with a state award during a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
