PRESS DIGEST - New York Times business news - Dec 8

Dec 8 (Reuters) - The following were the top stories in the New York Times business pages on Tuesday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

* More than 20 percent of the nation's water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data.

* Facing political pressure to abandon "fair value" accounting for banks, the chairman of the board that sets American accounting standards will call Tuesday for the "decoupling" of bank capital rules from normal accounting standards.

* Japan's governing coalition announced $80.6 billion in stimulus spending Tuesday in a bid to buttress the country's fragile economic recovery and underpin Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's popularity ahead of elections next year.

* The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday issued a final ruling that greenhouse gases posed a danger to human health and the environment, paving the way for regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, power plants, factories, refineries and other major sources.

* One of the leading candidates to take the helm at Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) has become embroiled in an investigation of the bank's merger with Merrill Lynch. The office of New York's attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, has contacted several of the bank's lawyers in the last two weeks with concerns about testimony given last month by Greg Curl, the bank's chief risk officer.

* The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday accused three former executives at New Century Financial Corp of hiding losses as homeowners began missing mortgage payments. The claims, made in a civil suit filed in the Central District of California, come two years after New Century buckled under the weight of its bad loans.

* Unveiling significant changes to its dominant search engine on Monday, Google Inc (GOOG.O) said it would begin supplementing its search results with the updates posted each second to sites like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

* Boxee, a start-up that is trying to bring the boundless selection of Web video to the living-room television, said on Monday that it would put its software into a set-top box that will go on sale next year.

* In the beleaguered music industry's latest bid to generate more money from its content, two top music labels on Tuesday will introduce Vevo, a Web site for music videos.

* U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday that he would consider using money from the government's bank bailout package to reduce the deficit and to create jobs.

* As Dubai World [DBWLD.UL] and its creditors steel themselves for tough negotiations over the conglomerate's debt, some foreign investors say they have enough support to force the company into a default and lay claim to its most prized assets.

* Some less-affluent victims of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme could receive extra help from a change in the tax code, under a proposal submitted Monday by Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York.

* Having given up on selling The Boston Globe, The New York Times Co (NYT.N) said Monday that it had also decided not to sell another Massachusetts newspaper, The Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

* Americans borrowed less for a record ninth month in October, another sign that consumer spending would remain weak, making it harder for the economy to mount a sustained rebound.

* Nearly one in six American workers is foreign-born, the highest proportion since the 1920s, according to a census analysis released Monday.

* After jurors in Brooklyn said they were deadlocked, the judge declared a mistrial Monday in the case of an incendiary Internet broadcaster charged with threatening three federal judges with death.

* The former chief of eBay Inc (EBAY.O), Meg Whitman, took the witness stand on Monday to make the case that Craigslist, the free online classifieds provider, had unfairly denied the e-commerce company a seat on its board.

* The British government laid out more concrete steps for reducing the country's budget deficit on Monday, but would not say whether its update on spending and borrowing plans due Wednesday would include a controversial tax on bonuses.

* The Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, warned Monday that it is too soon to know whether the economic recovery will last and again pledged to hold interest rates at record-low levels for an "extended period."

* The biotechnology company Celgene Corp (CELG.O) said Monday that it would buy the privately held Gloucester Pharmaceuticals for $640 million, a deal that gives Celgene access to crucial cancer drugs.

* FedEx Corp (FDX.N) said Monday that its second-quarter earnings would easily beat its previous forecast, citing strong growth in international demand for its air services, especially in Asia and Latin America.