Ford Motor Company is hitting most of its financial targets these days.

The Detroit automaker is profitable; last year it restored dividends to shareholders; and recently, the company's stock climbed back to investment grade.

But Ford will miss one key target in 2012.  The company will lose market share this year, rather than gain it, as company executives predicted last year. 

Market share is a car company's percentage of total car sales.    

Two of North America’s biggest natural gas corporations, Encana and Chesapeake Energy, are under scrutiny today after the Reuters news agency intercepted at least a dozen emails from 2010 between the competing companies that might show evidence of price-fixing in Michigan’s oil and gas lease market. 

Reuters alleges that the emails suggest top company officials discussed a plan to divide up counties in Michigan auctioning "prime oil- and gas-acreage" in order to avoid a costly bidding competition.

Both companies deny the allegation, though they admit to discussing the possibility of entering into a joint venture in Michigan.

Yesterday, Reuters reported:

Shares of Chesapeake Energy Corp and Encana Corp tumbled Monday after a Reuters investigation showed that top executives of the two rivals plotted in 2010 to avoid bidding against each other in a state auction and in at least nine prospective deals with private land owners.

Following the report, the state of Michigan pledged to determine whether the two energy giants acted two years ago to suppress land prices there.

In Michigan, private land owners can sell the drilling rights on their properties, and the state’s Department of Natural Resources holds auctions to sell state-owned rights called "oil and gas leases" biannually.

Around 2008, this market gained national attention when the Utica and Collingwood Shale oil and natural gas fields drew interest as potential natural gas mother lodes in northeast Michigan. Companies looking to access the reserves thousands of feet underground through a new process called horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, started purchasing these rights. Bids for the drilling rights per acre soared to record highs in the May 2010 auction. 

Arrangements are being made to return more than 350 Michigan inmates to the courts where they were sentenced. The prisoners will get new sentences under a U.S. Supreme Court decision this week. The court struck down mandatory sentences of life without parole for people convicted of crimes committed when they were juveniles.
    
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette is advising the state Department of Corrections on how to proceed. He says Michigan will comply with the ruling, but prosecutors will make sure judges are reminded of the crimes the inmates were part of.

Michigan Gov. Snyder was in Detroit today talking about cooperatively coming up with a new vision for Detroit, but he wasn't met with cooperation by some.

The Detroit Free Press reports his meeting was disrupted by protestors.

A meeting between Gov. Rick Snyder and the council of Baptist Pastors ended abruptly this morning when a group of several dozen protesters disrupted the meeting with shouts about the emergency manager law.

“Are you going to make sure the repeal gets on the ballot?” one protester shouted, with several more taking up the chants.

After a few moments, Snyder was escorted out of the Bethel Baptist Church on the east side of Detroit.

The group behind a push to allow eight new private casinos in Michigan handed in more than a half million signatures today to put the issue on the November ballot.