PRESS DIGEST - Wall Street Journal - Feb 8

Feb 8 (Reuters) - The following were the top stories in The Wall Street Journal on Monday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

* Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will begin this week to lay out a blueprint for a credit tightening, to be followed once the Fed decides the economy has recovered sufficiently.

* Auto dealers over the weekend began repairing cars recalled by Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) for faulty gas pedals, extending their services hours in a bid to get customers back on the road and limit the damage to the car maker's name.

* Former Merrill Lynch & Co chief John Thain is joining embattled lender CIT Group Inc (CIT.N), bringing together two prominent casualties of the credit crisis.

* Signs that the trouble in the Greek bond market was infecting others in Europe helped send the Dow Jones Industrial Average into a spiral last week, but analysts debate what Greece's debt problems really mean for U.S. stocks.

* IBM Corp (IBM.N) is introducing its next generation of microprocessor chips and systems that use them, hoping to extend the computer giant's recent lead in the market for midrange servers.

* Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Sunday said the U.S. wasn't in danger of losing its triple-A bond rating, in the wake of a warning from Moody's Investors Services about U.S. treasury-bond rating.

* Japan Airlines Corp 9205.T is leaning toward maintaining its alliance with American Airlines instead of teaming with Delta Air Lines Inc (DAL.N), in part because of growing concerns a JAL-Delta partnership would trigger antitrust concerns in the U.S.

* Like millions of American households, the Mortgage Bankers Association found itself stuck with real estate whose market value has plunged far below the amount it owed its lenders. But the trade group for mortgage lenders is refusing to provide the terms of a deal it made with creditors to escape from that predicament.

* Japanese drink makers Kirin Holding Co (2503.T) and Suntory Holdings Ltd [SUNTH.UL] Monday scrapped ambitious plans to merge and create one of the world's biggest brewers after failing to resolve deep-rooted differences over who would own and manage the future company despite months of talks.

* Francois Trahan, one of the top-ranked stock-market forecasters on Wall Street, will join the boutique research firm run by former Bear Stearns Cos colleague Edward Wolfe, people familiar with the matter said.

* Toy magnate Alfred Kahn has bought Bernard Madoff's Manhattan penthouse, according to a person familiar with the deal.