WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said an emergency program that had guaranteed as much as $3 trillion in assets in money market mutual funds was allowed to expire yesterday.

"As the risk of catastrophic failure of the financial system has receded, the need for some of the emergency programs put in place during the most acute phase of the crisis has receded as well," Geithner said in a brief statement.

Geithner had said last week that the financial system was healthy enough to begin unwinding some of the programs put in place a year ago after the collapse of Lehman Brothers triggered the worst financial crisis in seven decades.

FDIC CONSIDERS TAPPING TREASURY

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. says she is "considering all options, including borrowing from Treasury," to replenish the dwindling fund that insures bank deposits.

FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair's remarks go beyond what she said just three weeks ago when asked about tapping the Treasury after the fund that insures regular deposit accounts up to $250,000 hit its lowest point since 1992, at the height of the savings-and-loan crisis.

The FDIC estimates bank failures will cost the fund $70 billion through 2013.

MICROSOFT SUING OVER ONLINE ADS

NEW YORK — Microsoft Corp. has filed five lawsuits aimed at halting the flow of malicious online advertising.

The Redmond, Wash., software maker filed the claims Thursday in Washington state court against five unknown individuals under the business names Soft Solutions, DirectAd, qiweroqw.com, ITmeter INC. and ote2008.info.

Microsoft's associate general counsel, Tim Cranton, announced the move in a blog post. Microsoft accused the defendants of spreading "malvertisements," ads that can end up infecting computers with damaging software.

AMERICAN AIRLINES' EXPECTS TRAFFIC FALL

MINNEAPOLIS — American Airlines said it expects its September traffic to fall 16.4 percent from August as capacity drops 9.7 percent.

Airlines typically reduce flying after Labor Day. This year's fall schedules have been especially lean as airlines try to match their flying with reduced demand.

American said it expects third-quarter unit revenue, or revenue divided by capacity, to fall 14.5 percent to 15.5 percent compared with the same period last year.