News You Can Use for Thursday

Canadian Stocks Head for Record on Takeovers and Higher Metal Prices Canadian stocks rose to a record as takeovers and higher prices for some metals boosted shares of materials producers such as Lundin Mining Corp. and Goldcorp Inc.

Emerging-Market Stocks Climb to Record, Erasing Losses From February Rout Emerging-market stocks rose to a record, erasing losses from the global rout that began Feb. 27, on prospects for improved economic and profit growth.

Xstrata sees 'phenomenal' demand for commodities like copper Demand for copper in China may increase 8 percent to 10 percent this year compared with last year

Denial in the Desert Some climatologists have not hesitated to call this a "mega-drought," even the "worst in 500 years." Others have been more cautious, not yet sure whether the current aridity in the West has surpassed the notorious thresholds of the 1930s (the Dust Bowl in the southern Plains) or 1950s (devastating drought in the Southwest). But the debate is possibly beside the point: The most recent and authoritative research finds that the "evening redness in the West" (to invoke the portentous subtitle of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian) is not simply episodic drought but the region's new "normal weather."

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