PRESS DIGEST - New York Times business news - Nov 17

Nov 17 (Reuters) - The following were the top stories in the New York Times business pages on Monday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

* The failure of one or more of Detroit's Big Three automakers would put a huge initial dent in American manufacturing, but in time foreign car companies would pick up the slack by stepping up production in their plants here, many industry experts and economists say.

* The United Automobile Workers president will testify to Congress this week, but many lawmakers may say that unions have exacerbated Detroit's problems.

* Japan, the world's second-largest economy, has officially slipped into recession, hurt by weak export growth and steep cuts in corporate spending amid the worsening global slowdown.

* Iceland said Sunday that it had agreed to cover European depositors at failed banks, breaking an impasse that had held up the dispersal of billions of dollars in international aid.

* Top executives at Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) sent a request to the company's directors on Sunday asking that they receive no bonus pay for their work in 2008, and the directors agreed, a company spokesman said.

* A proposed bailout of imperiled American automakers is coming under even more criticism as the departing Congress returns on Monday for a final partisan fight over the issue, while incoming lawmakers assemble for internal power struggles, leadership elections and a taste of life to come on Capitol Hill.

* Two short months ago lawmakers in California struggled to close a $15 billion hole in the state budget. It was among the biggest deficits in state history. Now the state faces an additional $11 billion shortfall and may be unable to pay its bills this spring.

* Federal prosecutors have indicted a former Bank One executive, charging that he sold questionable tax shelters through transactions arranged by Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE).

* The New York attorney general began sending subpoenas and document requests this month to colleges including Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown and several State University of New York campuses as part of an investigation of relationships between the colleges and health insurance companies that cover students.

* After a rocky beginning, the nonprofit group One Laptop Per Child thinks an advertising campaign will give a lift to the organization's effort to place low-cost laptops in the hands of children in developing nations.