Business news in brief

The Federal Aviation Administration said it would pay $466.5 million toward a $5.4 billion expansion of Philadelphia International Airport. The project, aimed at reducing chronic delays and accommodating growth, will lengthen two runways, build a fifth runway along the Delaware River, add a new commuter terminal, and provide more gates, additional parking, an automated "people mover," and a ground-transportation hub for rental cars. - Linda Loyd

The Philadelphia area's unemployment rate rose in August to 9 percent, an increase of 0.2 of a percentage point from July, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry reported Tuesday. Total nonfarm employment fell 9,800 during the month, with large cutbacks in the hospitality, health-care, information-services, and retail industries and in local governments. In the City of Philadelphia, the jobless rate rose one-half a percentage point to 11.l5 percent. - Paul Schweizer

Radian Group Inc., Philadelphia, and the National League of Cities, which has 1,600 municipal members, said Monday they were exploring the formation of a company, backed by third-party investors, to insure municipal bonds. The league said it wanted to create a mutual bond insurer, which would be owned by the policyholders, to restore insurance capacity that was eliminated during the U.S. financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. Several bond insurers, including Radian Asset Assurance, stopped taking on new business because of losses linked to home loans. The main business of Radian is mortgage insurance. The shell of a municipal bond insurer, which Radian bought in June, is expected to play a role in the National League of Cities insurer, but details were up in the air, Radian said. - Harold Brubaker

LEAD Corp., the San Diego company that makes the Long Range Acoustic Device that Pittsburgh police used to control protesters during the Group of 20 economic summit two years ago, disputes the scientific claims in an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit filed last week. The suit claims a college professor suffered hearing loss when the loud device was used to issue police commands and to amplify loud sounds meant to disperse protesters. LEAD says the professor was far enough away so the noise would have been less than sounds created by emergency sirens. - AP

The Community College of Philadelphia will administer a $20 million U.S. Department of Labor grant on behalf of the state's 14 community colleges, part of $500 million in grants that the federal department is handing out this year for workforce training for laid-off workers who need to change careers. Pennsylvania's colleges will coordinate training and student support. Delaware Technical and Community College in Dover received nearly $5 million to develop training for those displaced in automotive and poultry industries. - Jane M. Von Bergen

Nearly 107,000 jobs were lost in Pennsylvania from 2001 through 2010 because of the growing U.S. trade deficit with China, the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute said. New Jersey's loss was 79,000 jobs, and nationally it was 2.8 million, EPI said. "Since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001, the extraordinary growth of U.S. trade with China has had a dramatic effect on U.S. workers and the domestic economy. . . . The U.S. is losing export capacity, and the growing trade deficit with China has been a prime contributor to the crisis in U.S. manufacturing employment," the institute said. - Paul Schweizer

Macy's Inc. said it was increasing hiring of mostly part-time workers by 4 percent for the holiday season to match sales growth in its stores and online. The Cincinnati retailer will hire 78,000 workers for its Macy's and Bloomingdale's stores, up from 75,000 a year ago. The company has posted six straight quarters of sales growth and said it saw the "momentum continuing." - Bloomberg News

A study by Bankrate.com found that only 45 percent of checking accounts across this country are free this year, down from 65 percent last year and 76 percent two years ago. But the study also found that most banks are willing to waive monthly fees when customers meet certain conditions, such as setting up direct deposit or maintaining a specific balance. The study also found that the average cost for using an out-of-network ATM rose slightly to $3.81. - AP

Sales of new homes nationwide declined to a six-month low in August, the Commerce Department said. The fourth straight monthly decline during the peak buying season suggests the housing market is years from a recovery. The August drop was 2.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 295,000. That's less than half the roughly 700,000 economists say must be sold for a healthy housing market. - AP

Deloitte & Touche L.L.P., one of the Big Four U.S. accounting firms, was sued in state court in Miami for failing to detect a fraud that allegedly led to more than $7 billion in losses at defunct Florida mortgage lender Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp. The suit was filed by Taylor Bean's bankruptcy trustee. Deloitte spokesman Jonathan Gandal called the claims "utterly without merit." - Bloomberg News

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said it would repurchase its Class A and Class B common shares whenever they fall to within 10 percent of the company's book value. This will be the first time since billionaire Warren Buffett took over Berkshire in 1965 that it will buy back its stock and is a clear signal that he believes the shares are now undervalued. Book value is a measure of a company's value that Buffett often cites. Shares of both classes are down 19 percent since February. - AP

The Treasury auctioned $29 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.020 percent, up from 0.010 percent last week. Also, $27 billion was auctioned in six-month bills at 0.035 percent, up from 0.030 percent last week. - AP