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Philadelphia’s iconic children's museum has raised nearly all the funds needed to exit bankruptcy and stands only thousands of dollars away from exiting bankruptcy, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported today. The Please Touch Museum filed for chapter 11 protection last fall to settle $60 million in debt owed. The museum and the bondholders reached an agreement for a much lower payoff — and the museum is reportedly only a few thousands of dollars away from the $5.75 million needed to leave bankruptcy. The museum still must pay off at least one other debt, a reduced parking-tax claim, but it appears Please Touch is in a much stronger position than it was several months ago.

The administrators of a top luxury hotel in Puerto Rico have been arrested and charged in a tax evasion case as the U.S. territory cracks down on corruption amid a worsening economic crisis, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The island's Justice Department said that Wilhelm Sack and Harold Davies Mayne of the Horned Dorset Primavera are accused of withholding more than $600,000 in room occupancy tax over the past six years. The announcement comes nearly a year after the hotel filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy as it struggled with nearly $1.7 million in debts, including more than $800,000 owed to Puerto Rico's Treasury Department and more than $320,000 owed to the island's struggling power company.

TransCare Corp., a private ambulance company controlled by Lynn Tilton’s Patriarch Partners, says the blame for its recent collapse lies squarely on senior lender Wells Fargo Bank NA, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In bankruptcy court papers filed on Monday, a Patriarch affiliate said Wells Fargo “stymied” efforts to muster the funding needed to prevent the company’s abrupt descent into chapter 7. However, Wells Fargo said in a court filing yesterday that it strongly disagrees with Patriarch’s claims and sequence of events, saying it has been lenient with TransCare even though the company has “been in and out of default” for most of the last year.

Paper manufacturer Verso Corp. won final court approval of financing designed to ease an effort to eliminate $2.4 billion in debt under chapter 11 protection the Wall Street Journal reported today. Loans designed to support both Verso and the former rival it acquired last year, NewPage, provide money for day-to-day operations and money to refinance existing loans attached to the company. Early in its case, Verso, which filed for bankruptcy protection on Jan. 26, won interim approval on financing that addressed its immediate liquidity needs. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross indicated at a hearing yesterday that he would sign off on the financing package once final documents are prepared. A turn to online channels for publishing and catalogs has hurt Verso’s sales of coated paper, pushing the company into talks with senior creditors about reshaping its balance sheet for a tougher business climate.

Retired U.S. Judge Joseph Farnan has agreed to serve as the mediator in the chapter 11 bankruptcy of the operating unit of Caesars Entertainment Corp., Reuters reported yesterday. Farnan's agreement to mediate the drawn-out case came as the company and creditors wait for the independent examiner's report, due mid-March. Creditors have accused Caesars of looting the operating unit before the bankruptcy for the benefit of private equity owners Apollo Global Management and TPG Capital Management . The examiner's report will look into the accusations. The operating unit proposed a mediator last month as a way to help creditors reach a compromise and guide the case to resolution.

Peabody Energy Corp.’s lenders are pushing the largest U.S. coal producer to restructure its $6 billion in debt through bankruptcy, the company said in a filing on Monday, Reuters reported yesterday. Peabody is pursuing bond exchanges to deal with its debt as coal prices decline. Its lenders are concerned that Peabody is not pursuing an in-court restructuring, according to the filing. Peabody has been trying to sell coal mines in New Mexico and Colorado to privately owned Bowie Resource Partners LLC to raise $358 million cash and relieve it of certain liabilities tied to the mines, according to a statement on Nov. 20, 2015.

Sports Authority Inc. said that it filed for chapter 11 protection today, making it the first major U.S. retailer to file for bankruptcy this year, Reuters reported today. The sporting goods retailer said today that it expects to have access to up to $595 million in debtor-in-possession financing during its restructuring. Sports Authority said that it had identified about 140 stores and two distribution centers, in Denver and Chicago, that it intends to close or sell as part of its restructuring plan. The company listed assets worth up to $50,000 and liabilities of between $1 million and $10 million in its filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. Sports Authority was expected to file for bankruptcy after it missed a $20 million coupon payment on Jan. 15, triggering a 30-day grace period to work out a compromise with creditors, Reuters had reported last week.

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. won bankruptcy-court approval to put its restructuring plan, which incorporates a recent settlement with a key creditor body, to a vote, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross on Friday signed off on an outline of the Texas oil and gas company's restructuring plan, paving the way for creditors to begin voting on the plan's terms. At the heart of the plan is a pledge by many of Magnum Hunter's lenders and bondholders to swap some $1 billion in debt for most, if not all, of the new common stock in the restructured company. Magnum Hunter sought chapter 11 protection in December after striking this deal with top creditors.

Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., the casino operator founded by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, emerged from bankruptcy court protection on Friday and is now a subsidiary of billionaire Carl Icahn’s Icahn Enterprises LP, Bloomberg News reported. While Trump hasn’t owned the parent of the Taj Mahal casino for years, his record in Atlantic City, N.J., has become a topic on the campaign trail. Trump opened the Taj Mahal in 1990. The parent company continually struggled with debt, and Trump Entertainment filed for bankruptcy court protection in September 2014. The filing coincided with a protracted downturn in betting in Atlantic City that led four of the city’s 12 casinos to close. It was the Trump casino businesses’ fourth time in bankruptcy.

Creditors of zinc producer Horsehead Holding Corp. have weighed in against a proposed bankruptcy financing package, saying that nearly 18 percent of the $90 million loan is going to benefit the company's top lenders in the form of fees, interest and legal costs, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The Pittsburgh-based company sought chapter 11 protection on Feb. 2, seeking to reshape its balance sheet for tough industry conditions. Horsehead, a recycler of steel byproducts, says that it needs the money to keep going in the face of lowered prices and falling demands for its products, zinc, nickel and zinc oxide. Senior bondholders that are driving talks about a restructuring are offering the $90 million loan, on terms junior creditors term "egregious." Horsehead's bankruptcy lenders stand to tap the loan proceeds for more than $16 million for lender and lawyer fees and interest, the committee's lawyers noted.