PRESS DIGEST - New York Times business news - Aug 14

Aug 14 (Reuters) - The following were the top stories in the New York Times business pages on Thursday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

* Another month of weak retail sales in July added to evidence that the spending power of American consumers has weakened considerably, despite the booster shot of billions of dollars from the government's tax stimulus program.

* Chrysler plans to spend $1.8 billion retooling a Detroit factory that builds Jeeps so that it can start making a more fuel-efficient, car-based crossover vehicle there.

* A bank that flew under the radar screen has quietly racked up a market value of $10 billion, eclipsing troubled giants that have been swamped by mortgage and credit card losses.

* Roche (ROG.VX), the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, is expected to increase its offer for the biotechnology company Genentech Inc DNA.N now that an initial $43.7 billion bid has been rejected.

* Internal letters cast a new spotlight on senior executives of the Swiss bank UBS (UBSN.VX) and some of the letters show that the bank ignored warnings about possible violations of securities laws.

* Wu Jianping, the head of China's food safety watchdog, died after falling from a building, an government official said, amid an investigation into his financial problems.

* As summer vacation season began, Americans got out of their cars, driving 12.2 billion fewer miles in June than in the same month a year ago. The 4.7 percent decline, which came while gas prices were peaking, was the biggest monthly driving drop in a downward trend that began in November, the Federal Highway Administration said Wednesday.

* Paula Wagner is in talks to leave her post as chief executive of United Artists, less than two years after taking charge of a planned revamp of the studio in partnership with her longtime associate Tom Cruise.

* The federal appeals court in Washington said that just because a software programmer gave his work away did not mean it could not be protected.