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U.S. — In what sources described as a "cruel" step to reduce waste of taxpayer funding at all levels, the Department of Government Efficiency has announced plans to force government offices to use only single-ply toilet paper. The department headed up by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy took a hardline stance against government inefficiency, setting its sights on eliminating wasteful spending wherever it is found, including millions of bathroom stalls in federal buildings nationwide. "Any government facility that believes it is worthy of two-play toilet paper must show cause," Ramaswamy said in a post on his X account. "The...

Environmentalism: So global-warming alarmists now want to limit our use of toilet paper. What's next, one-room shacks with bamboo fences? Don't laugh. That's also on their list of recommendations. Singer Sheryl Crow says she's spent most of her save-the-planet tour of campuses "trying to come up with easy ways for us all to become a part of the solution to global warming." Eureka! She's found a really practical idea. "I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting," Crow said.

Siegfried Hustedt is often overcome with dread when he is forced to use other people's toilets. The toilet paper he encounters in those bathrooms is almost inevitably colored or white, fluted or spotted. But for all the paper's pleasing appearance, appearance is all it is -- when used, the chintzy material often gets lumpy and decomposes into an unsavory pile of cellulose as "the embossment structure collapses under pressure." Even more dramatic is the excoriated red sore caused by overly rough foliage. Hustedt, 40, can't help but ask himself why so "many people choose to suffer to the last roll."...

LONDON (AFP) - United Nations (news - web sites) Secretary General Kofi Annan (news - web sites), under fire for his part in the controversial Iraqi oil-for-food programme, said in an interview with the Financial Times that he did not intend to resign. "I think resignation is comparatively easy," Annan told the journalist who asked him if he considered resigning. "It is much more difficult to stay on and continue to do the job you are elected to do, and focus on the important agenda of the organisation and the membership." Annan has been under mounting pressure in the United...