WASHINGTON — Applications for home-building permits, a gauge of future construction, fell in September by the largest amount in five months.

The applications for building permits fell 1.2 percent in September. That's the biggest decline since a 2.5 percent drop in April.

The decline, in part, reflected uncertainty about whether Congress will extend a tax credit for first-time homebuyers.

The Commerce Department said yesterday that construction of new homes and apartments rose 0.5 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 590,000 units.

That was a weaker showing than economists had expected.

YAHOO'S PROFIT UP, BUT REVENUES FALL

SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo Inc. may finally be pulling out of a three-year slump that cast aside two CEOs and spurred a cost-cutting spree that laid off about 2,000 workers.

The purge is the main reason Yahoo's third-quarter profit more than tripled from last year to soar past analysts' relatively low expectations.

But the results released yesterday also showed Yahoo's revenue fell by at least 12 percent for the third consecutive quarter.

The revenue rut means Yahoo still has a long way to go on its comeback trail.

Analysts, though, believe Yahoo should be able to boost its ad sales — the main source of its revenue — as long as the U.S. economy continues to heal and marketers funnel more of their budgets to the Web.

SUN MICROSYSTEMS TO CUT 3,000 JOBS

SAN FRANCISCO — Sun Microsystems Inc. plans to eliminate up to 3,000 jobs as it awaits a takeover by Oracle Corp., a deal that is being held up by antitrust regulators in Europe.

The layoffs Sun outlined yesterday in a regulatory filing amount to about 10 percent of the company's 29,000 workers and will take place over the next year.

They are the latest rounds of cuts at the struggling server and software maker, which reached the $7.4 billion deal with Oracle in April after nearly a decade of wobbly financial performance.

OBAMA TO REFOCUS FEDERAL LENDING

WASHINGTON — President Obama wants smaller community banks to have greater access to the government's $700 billion financial rescue fund as the administration refocuses the bailout money on small businesses and homeowners and winds down programs aimed at big banks.

Obama today plans to announce a package of initiatives designed to increase lending, including a request that Congress increase caps for existing Small Business Administration loans, the administration said.

The new effort comes as Republicans press Obama to end the rescue program and use bank repayments to reduce the national debt.