PRESS DIGEST - New York Times business news - Dec 1
Dec 1 (Reuters) - The following were the top stories in the New York Times business pages on Monday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
* Sales in the nation's stores were strong over the weekend, to the relief of retailers that had been expecting a holiday shopping period as slow as the overall economy.
* Now that the government has spent nearly $1.4 trillion to stabilize the financial system, economists and policy makers - and the president-elect - are trying to figure out how much must be invested in a stimulus package to stop the recession, and what that money should be spent on.
* The Detroit automakers will have diverging agendas this week as they take their second run at Congress for federal aid.
* If Detroit is to win a bailout this week, the United Automobile Workers may have to agree to big cost cuts.
* Cellphone makers and carriers hope that touch screens will bolster sales this holiday season.
* CNN, in the afterglow of an election season of record ratings for cable news, is elbowing in on a new line of business: catering to financially strained newspapers looking for an alternative to The Associated Press.
* Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries left Cairo this weekend without an agreement to reduce production and push prices higher.
* After years of being criticized for its response to food-sickness outbreaks and contaminated imports, the Food and Drug Administration is stepping up efforts to convince the public and skeptical lawmakers that it is making progress in overhauling the nation's food defenses.
* President Hu Jintao of China warned at a government meeting over the weekend that the global financial crisis was threatening to undermine the country's booming economy and that China could lose its competitive edge as trade growth slows.
