PRESS DIGEST - New York Times business news - July 1

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

* Wall Street finished its best quarter in years on Tuesday, but it would take almost three more rallies to return markets to where they were before the financial crisis.

* Banks and mortgage lenders are placing top priority on killing U.S. President Barack Obama's proposal to create a new consumer protection agency that would regulate home loans, credit card fees, payday loans and other forms of consumer finance.

* Ezra Merkin, the disgraced financier who lost more than $2.4 billion of his clients' money in Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, agreed on Tuesday to sell his art collection for $310 million in a deal that could pave the way for a settlement with the New York attorney general, Andrew Cuomo.

* A federal judge on Tuesday revoked bond for Allen Stanford, the Texas financier accused of masterminding a $7 billion fraud, sending him back to jail to await trial.

* The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced Tuesday that it was "conducting sweeps" of firms involved in several recent municipal bond collapses with an eye toward future investigations and possible disciplinary actions.

* Glum shareholders of the American International Group Inc (AIG.N) got apologies but little else at the insurer's annual meeting on Tuesday, a day after the company disclosed that more material losses could still be coming from the derivatives portfolio that caused the company's downfall last September.

* The Obama administration introduced online tools on Tuesday that will track and analyze the more than $70 billion a year that the federal government spends on information technology.

* General Motors Corp GMGMQ.PK headed to bankruptcy court on Tuesday to seek approval for the linchpin of its turnaround plan, the sale of its best assets to a new government-backed company.

* An influential scientific advisory panel has recommended that federal officials give top priority to comparing the effectiveness of competing medical strategies in areas that include treating prostate cancer, reducing hospital infections and lowering the rate of unwanted pregnancies.

* In a hint of hope for the country's struggling housing market, home prices did not fall as fast in April as they did in previous months, according to figures released Tuesday.

* Patients who received a bioengineered protein during spinal fusion procedures to correct neck pain had far more complications than patients who did not get it, according to a study released Tuesday.

* The British economy contracted in the first quarter by the most in more than 50 years, official figures showed Tuesday, as output in the manufacturing and construction sectors plummeted.

* Paramount Pictures, having cut its film production staff and schedule, is considering a plan to farm out some of its home video operations to 20th Century Fox or Sony Pictures Entertainment under a plan that could trim millions of dollars in cost annually, according to people who were briefed on the move.

* The Iraqi government stumbled once again on Tuesday in its frequently delayed effort to award development rights to its most valuable oil fields. In a public auction it largely failed to attract the lucrative offers it sought from dozens of international oil companies invited to the bidding.

* Chinese authorities said on Tuesday that they had issued new regulations aimed at restricting the trade and use of virtual money.