Oct 27 (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.
* Maurice Greenberg, who built the American International Group into an insurance behemoth with an impenetrable maze of on- and offshore companies, has been quietly building up a family of insurance companies that could compete with AIG. To fill the ranks of his venture, C.V. Starr & Co, he has been hiring some people he once employed.

* A General Motors Co deal with the government that ensures that its former parts subsidiary Delphi Corp¿s union workers have their pension benefits restored does not cover nonunion workers. Some 21,000 salaried workers and retirees are furious that their roughly 46,000 union co-workers at Delphi have had their benefits restored, apparently with government largesse, and they have not.
* A year ago, governments around the world scrambled to pull their biggest banks from the brink of collapse. Now, policy makers are wrestling with just how much to rein in the financial behemoths that contributed to the crisis.
* Dutch financial conglomerate ING Group, under pressure from the European Commission, announced plans to accelerate the sale of its insurance operations and its Internet banking business in the United States to refocus on its European customer base.
* In the sprawling European subsidy program, which lavishes more than 50 billion euros a year in agricultural aid, no commodity is more susceptible to fraud, chicanery and rule-bending, experts say, than simple household sugar. Sugar producers have reaped millions of euros in payments, adding to the cost of sugar.
* CNN, which created the all-news cable network almost 30 years ago, hit a new competitive low with its prime-time programs in October, with three of its four programs between 7 and 11 p.m. finishing fourth and last among the cable news networks.
* An autopsy shows that Jeffry Picower, a prominent philanthropist accused of reaping about $7 billion in profit from Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff¿s vast Ponzi scheme, drowned on Sunday after having a heart attack.
* This Christmas, FAO Schwarz, the storied Manhattan toy shop, is branching out. Toys "R" Us, which bought the FAO Schwarz brand in May, plans to announce that it will be opening FAO Schwarz boutiques inside nearly 600 Toys "R" Us stores, beginning on Sunday.
* Stores are already stocking shelves with Christmas gifts, dusting off the decorations and outlining marketing plans, with a focus on the affordable and practical.
* Fisker Automotive, a small California-based manufacturer of luxury vehicles, is expected to reveal on Tuesday its plans to build plug-in hybrid electric cars at a former General Motors plant in Delaware.
* The battle over the Air Force¿s latest attempt to award a contract for aerial refueling tankers is heating up, with the main competitors and their supporters in Congress calling for changes in the way the bids will be evaluated.
* USA Today suffered a steep drop, losing the top spot in weekday circulation for the first time since the 1990s to The Wall Street Journal. The New York Times¿ weekday circulation fell 7.3 percent.
* Two separate 2007 studies showed that companies with the most women on their boards showed the best profitability.
* Forbes magazine said it planned to lay off several staff members from the editorial and business sides, a cost-cutting move in response to decreasing advertising revenue.
* Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, on Monday proposed freezing interest rates and fees on existing credit card balances until a new law took effect. Keywords: PRESS DIGEST/NYT

(Compiled by Tenzin Pema; Bangalore Equities Newsdesk +91 80 4135 5800; within U.S. +1 646 223 8780)

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