PRESS DIGEST - Wall Street Journal - July 28

July 28 (Reuters) - The following were the top stories in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

* The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission plans to issue a report next month suggesting speculators played a significant role in driving wild swings in oil prices -- a reversal of an earlier CFTC position that augurs intensifying scrutiny on investors.

* Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis told investors he is planning to shrink the company's 6,100-branch network by about 10 percent, a pullback from the two-decade expansion that took the bank from coast to coast.

* An Obama administration effort to reduce home foreclosures by lowering the mortgage payments of struggling borrowers before they fall behind is failing to help as many people as expected.

* The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued new rules to govern short-selling, promising investors fresh information about the volume and velocity of negative bets placed against companies.

* Delphi Corp's DPHIQ.PK lenders prevailed in a bankruptcy auction and are poised to take control of the auto-parts supplier, beating back a U.S.-orchestrated deal to sell the company to GM and a private-equity firm.

* Putnam Investments said it would announce plans to cut fees on some of its mutual funds to be more "competitive in the marketplace."

* Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) posted a 21 percent decline in quarterly profit and said it would cut another 8,000 jobs as it battles a pullback in business spending.

* Citigroup Inc (C.N) Chief Executive Vikram Pandit declared the bank wouldn't retreat from fast-growing Asian businesses even as the financial crisis has forced it to shrink its balance sheet by about 25 percent.

* While U.S. regulators debate how to curb excessive speculation in commodities markets, exchanges are moving to impose limits on natural-gas trading, sparking outrage among traders.

* Truck maker Oshkosh Corp (OSK.N) will rehire 500-600 workers to meet a deadline to produce 2,244 military vehicles by year's end.

* German luxury auto makers including BMW AG (BMWG.DE) and Daimler AG's (DAIGn.DE) Mercedes-Benz are close to benefitting from a U.S. concession that will allow them and a few other foreign makers to keep selling cars that emit more greenhouse gases than those made by mass-market rivals such as General Motors Co. and Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T).

* Pakistani investigators have found substantial and incriminating evidence that directly connects Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba to last year's attacks in Mumbai.

* Google Inc (GOOG.O) is teaming up with Visible World, which uses software to create multiple versions of a given ad, in its push to offer TV advertisers more targeting options.

* Time Warner Inc (TWX.N) earlier this month bought back the 5 percent stake Google Inc (GOOG.O) owned in AOL for $283 million, according to a document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

* Thomson SA TMS.PA shares surged after the French media-technology and services company set out the terms of a debt-restructuring agreement with the majority of its creditors, ending months of uncertainty over its future.

* Aetna Inc's (AET.N) second-quarter profit fell 28 percent, a drop the health insurer blamed in part on members' increased use of medical services and on health providers' higher billings per case.

* Amgen Inc (AMGN.O) reported a 40 percent rise in second-quarter profit and offered a brighter outlook for 2009 on better-than-expected sales of its key drugs.