Ford Motor Co. earned $1 billion in the third quarter, fueled by U.S. market share gains, cost cuts and the government’s Cash for Clunkers rebates.

The Cash for Clunkers program gave a much-needed shot in the arm to Virginia automobile dealers who have watched their sales slip for nearly two years.

The judge overseeing Delphi Corp.‘s bankruptcy case is expected to rule Thursday on the auto supplier’s plan to hand control of the company to its lenders and eventually end its nearly four-year stay in Chapter 11.

Helped by a lightened debt load, Ford Motor Co. posted a surprise second-quarter profit of $2.3 billion Thursday, following the worst loss in company history a year earlier. Shares rose 8 percent in morning trading.

Some soccer moms will have to give up hulking SUVs. Carpenters will still haul materials around in pickup trucks, but they will cost more. Nearly everybody else will drive smaller cars, and more of them will run on electricity.

Billions of dollars in government loans already handed out to prop up General Motors and Chrysler won’t be enough. The companies, which have received $17.4 billion so far, filed plans with the government more than doubling that request to a staggering total of $39 billion.

It’s not that Southerners are secretly wishing for the Big Three to collapse. But if those automakers were to falter, the new players are poised to ramp up production and possibly turn the South into the next Detroit.

Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, reported income Thursday that shattered its own record for the biggest profit from operations by a U.S. corporation, earning $14.83 billion in the third quarter.

“Airline travel is airline travel — it’s been bad for a long time,“ Chris Bardasian, an American Airlines frequent flyer, said recently at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. “I suspect prices will go up, fewer people will travel, and if you’re willing to pay the price it will be fine.“

Continental Airlines said Thursday it is cutting 3,000 jobs and reducing capacity by 11 percent, citing record fuel costs that have pushed the industry into its worst crisis since 2001. It also said its two top executives will forgo pay for the rest of the year.
The job cuts represent about 6.5 percent of the company’s work force of 45,000.

So Guillen placed an ad on Craigslist to see whether anyone wanted to share her 88-mile round-trip commute. Her 2008 Volkswagen Passat gets 29 miles per gallon, but the commute still cuts deep into her family’s budget.