PRESS DIGEST-New York Times business news - Aug 1

Aug 1 (Reuters) - The following were the top stories on the New York Times business pages on Wednesday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

* Unemployment in the countries that use the euro remained at a record high in June, official figures showed, underlining the debilitating effect of Europe's continuing debt crisis on its economy.

* UBS AG reported a 58 percent decline in its net profit for the second quarter as a fall in investment banking income weighed on the Swiss bank. UBS's investment banking unit was also hit by a $356 million loss connected to the botched Facebook Inc's initial public offering.

* Google Inc announced that it had agreed to acquire Wildfire, a social media marketing firm, for an undisclosed sum.

* A federal jury cleared Brian Stoker, a former midlevel Citigroup Inc executive, of wrongdoing in connection with the bank's sale of risky mortgage-related investments at the peak of the housing boom.

* Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc plans to buy out Carl Icahn's entire stake in the film studio for about $590 million, as preparation to eventually go public, a person briefed on the matter said.

* Two of the world's largest poker companies, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars, some of it to be reimbursed to online gamblers, to settle federal money laundering and other charges, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York said.

* As concerns rise about the state of America's cities and the bond markets where they raise money, federal regulators called for broad reforms, while noting that some of the most rudimentary changes would require an act of Congress.

* The independent federal agency that administers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said that it would not let the mortgage companies offer debt forgiveness to borrowers, again rejecting the entreaties of the Obama administration.

* On Tuesday, India suffered the largest electrical blackout in history, affecting an area encompassing about 670 million people, or roughly 10 percent of the world's population.

* A leading Indian television network, New Delhi Television Ltd, or NDTV, has sued the Nielsen Company, accusing its Indian unit of providing "false, fabricated and manipulated data" on TV ratings for almost a decade.