The news at a glance

Corn: Smaller harvest stirs shortage fears

Prices for corn and other staples soared on commodities exchanges last week, after the U.S. government warned that next year’s corn crop would be “dramatically” smaller than this year’s, said Gregory Meyer in the Financial Times. The U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its forecast for next year’s corn harvest by 4 percent, to 12.7 billion bushels, and warned that corn reserves could fall to half of this year’s 1.8 billion bushels. The USDA hasn’t issued such a large downward revision since 1995. The U.S. grows most of the world’s corn and exports more grain than any other country.

Even if the lower forecast is accurate, next year’s U.S. corn crop will probably be one of the largest in history, said Scott Kilman and Liam Pleven in The Wall Street Journal. But it still might not satisfy strong demand from the “accelerating economies of emerging nations such as China” or from Russia, whose wheat crop was decimated by wildfires over the summer. The looming shortages have raised the specter of food riots like those that rocked the developing world in 2007. Grain traders in the Middle East and North Africa have already started to hoard supplies.

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Energy: Constellation unplugs nuke plant

Constellation Energy this week canceled plans for an $8 billion nuclear plant on Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, saying that the cost of securing billions in federal loan guarantees made it economically infeasible, said Jim Polson and Alan Katz in Bloomberg.com. The decision threatens Constellation’s joint venture with France’s EDF, which wanted to proceed with the plant. Some analysts speculated that Constellation was trying “to put pressure on EDF to fund more of the construction.” EDF is eager to gain a U.S. market for its reactor design.

Takeovers: Potash Corp. seeks a white knight

Fertilizer maker Potash Corp., fending off a $130-a-share, $38.5 billion takeover bid by Australia’s BHP Billiton, is seeking to lure new suitors into the fray, said CBC News. The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan has approached Temasek, Singapore’s state investment fund, about teaming up on a bid. Potash shares have been trading well above $130 per share since BHP’s bid was made public, “a sign the market believes BHP will either have to raise its offer or that a richer offer will emerge.”

Aphrodisiacs: Drugmaker bails on ‘pink Viagra’

German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim has halted work on an experimental pill to boost female sex drive, after failing to convince U.S. regulators the pill was effective, said FoxNews.com. The drug, “aimed at premenopausal women with a persistent and unexplained lack of sex drive,” was a potential “moneyspinner” for Boehringer. U.S. regulators said the so-called pink Viagra was largely ineffective and carried “unacceptable risks.” Almost 15 percent of test subjects stopped taking the pill after experiencing depression, fatigue, or fainting.

Upstarts: A challenger emerges to Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster, which dominates sales of concert and sports tickets in the U.S., has a new rival, said Ethan Smith in The Wall Street Journal. But Outbox Enterprises, a subsidiary of Canada’s Outbox Technology, will take a “significantly” different approach to the market. Instead of selling tickets via a single, centralized website, as Ticketmaster does, Outbox plans to supply technology that will enable event promoters to sell tickets directly through their own websites.