PRESS DIGEST - New York Times business news - July 14

July 14 (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.

* Steven Rattner is quitting his post as U.S. President Barack Obama's chief adviser on the troubled automobile industry at a time when an investigation into his former Wall Street firm's role in a scandal involving public pension funds has intensified.

* Another bidder said it was nearing a deal for the European operations of General Motors Corp GMGMQ.PK, in a move that could derail plans to sell the unit to a Canadian auto parts maker and a Russian bank.

* CIT Group Inc CIT.N is one of the United States' biggest lenders to small businesses. But a debate is swirling in Washington over whether it is large enough -- or important enough -- to save.

* Cuts in routes and workers may help airlines weather the downturn, but if conditions worsen, some carriers may not survive.

* Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) plans to announce an investment of $600 million in producing liquid transportation fuels from algae -- organisms in water that range from pond scum to seaweed. The biofuel effort involves a partnership with Synthetic Genomics, a biotechnology company founded by genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter.

* When U.S. energy and commerce officials arrive in Beijing on Tuesday, they will confront policies that protect China's solar panel and wind farm industries.

* A federal judge agreed to postpone a hearing on efforts to force UBS (UBSN.VX) to provide the names of wealthy American account holders suspected of evading taxes.

* Marc Dreier, once a high-flying New York lawyer who orchestrated an elaborate fraud scheme that bilked hedge funds and other investors of $700 million, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a judge who rejected the government's request for a much longer sentence.

* Jobs in health care and those requiring postsecondary education will show the biggest gains by 2016, according to a report released by the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers.

* With business publications suffering from scarce advertising, McGraw-Hill Cos (MHP.N) has hired Evercore Partners Inc (EVR.N) to sell its BusinessWeek, a person briefed on the plans said, but analysts questioned how much interest there would be.

* Prosecutors say James Davis, chief financial officer of the Stanford Financial Group, was involved with a Ponzi scheme run by his boss, R. Allen Stanford.

* South Korea announced that it had concluded negotiations on a free trade agreement with the European Union that it hoped would encourage United States lawmakers to ratify a free trade deal with the country.