PRESS DIGEST - Wall Street Journal - Oct 14

Oct 14 (Reuters) - The following were the top stories in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

* AOL Inc (AOL.N) and several private-equity firms are exploring making an offer to buy Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O), according to people familiar with the matter, devising a bold plan to marry two big Internet brands facing steep challenges.

* Steven Rattner, the Wall Street financier and Democratic donor who oversaw the Obama administration's auto-industry restructuring, is finalizing a deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission staff to resolve his role in a "pay to play" scandal involving New York state's public pension fund, people familiar with the matter said Wednesday.

* Private-equity firms are on pace to suck a record amount of cash out of the companies they own, responding to a robust borrowing market and a possible dividend-tax increase in 2011. But some investors are beginning to question whether the frenzy has gone too far.

* JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) Chief Executive James Dimon vowed to root out any flawed foreclosure-sale paperwork as the nation's largest bank in stock-market value widened a review of its practices to 41 U.S. states.

* Terra Firma's Guy Hands and Citi banker David Wormsley are at the center of a high-stakes trial over the $6.3 billion deal for EMI, one of the last and worst of the private-equity boom.

* The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the U.K. rose in September for a second straight month, and the jobless rate appears set to rise further as cuts in public sector spending hit private sector companies.

* Apple Inc (AAPL.O) shares reached a new milestone Wednesday, trading above $300 for the first time, as the electronics giant prepares to report quarterly results and preview a new operating system next week.

* Constellation Energy Group Inc CEG.N, a Baltimore-based energy company, is considering a plan that would force its partner, French state-owned utility Electricite de France SA (EDF.PA), to pay up to $2 billion to buy 12 of its power plants, people familiar with the matter said.

* A group of Anglo Irish Bank Corp [ANGIB.UL] creditors is fiercely resisting government efforts to have them help pay for the bank's bailout, complicating Ireland's already fractious banking-system rescue.

* Standard Chartered Plc (STAN.L) plans to raise about 3.26 billion pounds ($5.15 billion) in a rights issue to boost its capital position as new global banking rules take effect, a move analysts said could be followed by global peers.

* The European Union backed away from imposing a moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in European waters Wednesday, instead recommending new legislation to enforce tough new EU-wide safety standards for the offshore oil and gas industry.

* UBS AG (UBSN.VX) will give shareholders more insight into how it nearly collapsed under the weight of billions in toxic securities in 2008, but the Zurich-based bank's efforts to quell fury with former managers may fall short of some investors' expectations.