June 13 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the business pages of British newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

The Times

- The $85.4 billion bid by AT&T Inc for Time Warner Inc was given the go-ahead last night by a federal court in Washington, clearing the way for a spate of mega-mergers in America. https://bit.ly/2t3RKDN

- Mercedes-Benz will recall thousands of vehicles in Britain after being caught up in a new diesel emissions scandal. The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency confirmed last night that the German carmaker would be required to take vehicles off the roads after some were found to contain "defeat devices" designed to cheat emissions tests. https://bit.ly/2sT4625

The Guardian

- Tesla is slashing thousands of jobs, its chief executive, Elon Musk, announced on Tuesday, as the electronic car company attempts to hit production targets and reach profitability. Musk called the job cuts, which will affect about 9 percent of the company's more than 40,000 employees, "difficult, but necessary" in a tweet. https://bit.ly/2HK9Q2V

- Deliveroo is planning to expand in the UK this year by signing up 5,000 eateries who use their own delivery fleets in a direct challenge to Just Eat Plc . https://bit.ly/2y4WVZF

The Telegraph

- Steve Denison, a former partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), has been banned from audit work for 15 years and hit with a half a million pound fine over his auditing of BHS's accounts. PwC was also hit with a record 10 million pounds ($13.37 million) penalty over the inquiry. https://bit.ly/2Mnj60s

- The UK is set to benefit from 1,600 new tech jobs as part of a 2.3 billion pounds investment from private companies including cloud giant Salesforce.com Inc, the Prime Minister announced on Tuesday. https://bit.ly/2MjGCvg

Sky News

- The UK's wage growth weakened to 2.8 percent in the three months to April though there was a strong increase in the number of people in work, official figures show. https://bit.ly/2l4xM8g

- Abu Dhabi Investment Authority has entered exclusive talks ‎to acquire JC Flowers' 21.4 percent shareholding in Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC). A deal, which could be struck in the coming weeks, is expected to value PIC at about 3 billion pounds. https://bit.ly/2yete8X

The Independent

- The UK Home Office has announced new "startup visas" for people who want to found their own business. The new route, which will make the visa process faster and smoother for entrepreneurs coming to the UK, will replace a visa route which was exclusively for graduates, potentially opening it up to a wider pool of people. https://ind.pn/2JzojnY

($1 = 0.7480 pounds) (Compiled by Bengaluru newsroom; Editing by Sandra Maler)