Nov 7 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
* Twitter's initial public offering, which values the company at roughly $18 billion, is a sign of its maturity, even as it combats slowing growth. ()
* Giant retailer Amazon announced a program to pay independent bookstores to sell its e-books and popular reading devices. ()
* Federal prosecutors and SAC Capital Advisors cleared a legal hurdle on Wednesday after Judge Richard Sullivan said he would sign off on the civil portion of the hedge fund's insider trading guilty plea and roughly $1.2 billion penalty. ()
* Google said it would appeal a French court's ruling that it strip from its search results nine images of the former European racing chief Max Mosley. ()
* Certain products on the Walmart website displayed wildly low prices Wednesday morning, such as a kayak for $11 or a treadmill for $33, according to news reports and Walmart. There was even a $579 projector available for $8.85. ()
* Time Warner reported mostly upbeat earnings on Wednesday, and television was the biggest reason. The company reported earnings of $1.18 billion for the third quarter of 2013, compared with $822 million for the same quarter a year ago, a 44 percent increase. ()
* Video-rental chain Blockbuster will close the 300 stores that it still has in the next two months, said the company's owner, Dish Network. ()
* Wall Street's financial advisers, asset managers and underwriting investment bankers can expect their 2013 bonuses to rise as much as 15 percent, according to a closely watched compensation survey to be released on Thursday. ()
* The move by the activist hedge fund Clinton Group to try to oust senior executives at the Internet and shopping network ValueVision is poised to become a bitter battle. ()