WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of the Interior held a press conference Wednesday to announce the release of a new stick. “The stick is a maple stick, is 14 inches long, and is sure to please casual nature lovers and serious stick enthusiasts alike,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said of the stick, which has a little bark peeling off one end and a sort of nub coming off it at a 45-degree angle. “We think it will make a perfect complement to our other 38 billion sticks currently in circulation.” Salazar added that his personal favorite feature of the new stick, which will be deposited onto a forest floor in New Hampshire in March, is that if you break it in half, it becomes two sticks.