After more than seven years, Bankruptcy Beat is going off the air as we transition to WSJ Pro Bankruptcy. Thanks to our readers over the past 7 1/2 years who tuned in as we covered everything from the Lehman Brothers collapse to 50 Cent’s bankruptcy.  We hope you continue to tune in to our work on WSJ.com and eagerly await WSJ Pro Bankruptcy, launching later this month.  Although Bankruptcy Beat will no longer be active after the launch, you’ll still be able to view articles on this platform, and you can still follow us on Twitter.

Auf wiedersehen!

-Bankruptcy Beat Staff

(Daily Bankruptcy Review is a daily newsletter with comprehensive coverage and analysis of emerging and in-progress insolvencies and turnarounds. For a two-week trial, visit http://on.wsj.com/DJBankruptcyNews, scroll to the bottom and click “try for free.”)

DBR reports in WSJ on the bankruptcy filing of China Fishery Group Ltd. in the U.S.

As DBR reports in WSJ, Caesars Entertainment Corp. made a tentative labor deal with Atlantic City, N.J., union-represented casino workers. A strike is still a threat for some other boardwalk casinos.

President Barack Obama on Thursday signed a Puerto Rico debt-relief bill, WSJ reports.

There are more rough waters ahead this year for dry bulk shippers, DBR reports in WSJ.

Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. won at an auction for retailer Sports Authority Holdings Inc.’s intellectual property, DBR reports in WSJ.

Write to Melanie Cohen at melanie.cohen@wsj.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MelanieLisa

Synthetic grass maker AstroTurf LLC filed for bankruptcy protection. Read the Daily Bankruptcy Review article via The Wall Street Journal.

(Daily Bankruptcy Review is a daily newsletter with comprehensive coverage and analysis of emerging and in-progress insolvencies and turnarounds. For a two-week trial, visit http://on.wsj.com/DJBankruptcyNews, scroll to the bottom and click “try for free.”)

A Brazil court accepted telecom company Oi SA’s request for bankruptcy, WSJ reports.

According to WSJ, a debt-relief bill for Puerto Rico won approval in the Senate.

WSJ reports on the criticism faced by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in the sale of British retailer BHS, which later collapsed.

Bankruptcy Beat reports on a law firm that is representing several colleges in battles over tuition payments from students’ financially struggling parents.

Write to Melanie Cohen at melanie.cohen@wsj.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MelanieLisa

The law firm that has bailed colleges and universities out of NCAA athletic-compliance trouble is getting dragged into the bankruptcy courtroom, where fights are increasingly breaking out over tuition payments.

The Bond, Schoeneck & King firm is representing several colleges that face demands to return tuition payments made by a student’s parents. That money, court-appointed bankruptcy officials argue, should have paid off the parents’ own bills.

The disputes have put repayment pressure on at least 49 colleges and universities, according to a Wall Street Journal tally. Skidmore College officials, for example, hired Bond lawyers to help them keep $87,807 that a Georgia mother paid for her daughter’s education at the private college in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Bond lawyers have worked for more than 100 colleges and universities that need help on matters such as complying with NCAA rulebooks, negotiating professor contracts and reading the fine print of grants. The firm is “stocked with former NCAA investigators,” according to a New York Times article published in 2007 that traced the niche to the academic fraud scandal at the University of Minnesota’s men’s basketball team.

“We do a tremendous amount of higher education work,” said lawyer Stephen Donato, who co-leads the firm’s bankruptcy practice.

But will the higher ed expertise help them in the tuition disputes?

The bankruptcy judge who is handling a lawsuit against Ithaca College, which was sued in January to return $95,727 for a Connecticut woman’s debts, made it clear that the work won’t be easy.

During a hearing last month, Ithaca College’s local lawyer had begun to raise the popular defense that society expects parents to pitch in for pricey schooling costs these days, but U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Ann Nevins cut them off.

“I’m not happy about these education cases, but there are plenty of folks who can’t afford to send their children to college, and there doesn’t seem to be a constitutional right to send your child to college, as much as some folks would like there to be,” she said during a hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Hartford, Conn.

In the courtroom, colleges face bankruptcy trustees who have the power to take back money that a bankrupt person spent several years before filing for protection if a trustee finds that the person didn’t get “reasonably equivalent value” for that expense. In the case of a child’s tuition payment, the filer didn’t get the value for the expenditure—the child did.

At least one other school called in a prominent law firm for help in this precinct. Johnson & Wales University hired the Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr law firm to defend the private, Rhode Island-based college in a lawsuit over $46,909 in tuition, which was paid by a Connecticut couple for their daughter’s education.

The hiring signals that colleges are ready for a fight—a shift from their usual strategy. Historically, colleges have opted to settle the disputes quietly using small law firms or their own in-house counsel.

But bankruptcy experts predict more of these lawsuits to come as college costs rise and more parents chip in to help their kids. Four judges who have written opinions on the issue were split, and several others have hinted that a fresh ruling is needed to clear up the rules.

Congress could beat the judges to it. Less than a week after The Wall Street Journal’s first report on the lawsuits, Rep. Chris Collins (R., N.Y.) introduced a bill that would block bankruptcy trustees from filing lawsuits against universities and college students to recover tuition money that had been paid years before.

Write to Katy Stech at katy.stech@wsj.com. Follow her on Twitter at @KatyStech

(Daily Bankruptcy Review is a daily newsletter with comprehensive coverage and analysis of emerging and in-progress insolvencies and turnarounds. For a two-week trial, visit http://on.wsj.com/DJBankruptcyNews, scroll to the bottom and click “try for free.”)

Atlantic City, N.J., is still threatened by a possible casino strike, DBR reports in WSJ.

DBR reports in WSJ on the Supreme Court agreeing to look at a bankruptcy deal involving trucking company Jevic Holdings Corp. that left truck drivers unpaid.

Read DBR’s report in WSJ on Sam Wyly’s $1.1 billion tax bill.

WSJ reports on the departure of SunEdison Inc.’s chief financial officer.

Lawmakers promised to compete a rescue package for Puerto Rico, the Associated Press reports.

The Upshot wonders if Brexit is Europe’s “Lehman Brothers moment.”

Write to Melanie Cohen at melanie.cohen@wsj.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MelanieLisa

(Daily Bankruptcy Review is a daily newsletter with comprehensive coverage and analysis of emerging and in-progress insolvencies and turnarounds. For a two-week trial, visit http://on.wsj.com/DJBankruptcyNews, scroll to the bottom and click “try for free.”)

EZ Worldwide Express, a bankrupt shipping firm that had a delivery contract with Forever 21 Inc., abandoned the contract after business slowed too much to make it profitable, DBR reports in WSJ.

A bankruptcy judge said ex-billionaire Sam Wyly and his deceased brother’s estate owe more than $1 billion for hiding assets form the Internal Revenue Service, Bloomberg reports.

A unit of Aurelius Capital Management LP is seeking bankruptcy against a Netherlands subsidiary of Brazil’s Oi SA, Reuters reports.

(And don’t forget to check out the latest professional bankruptcy moves.)

Write to Melanie Cohen at melanie.cohen@wsj.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MelanieLisa

Jessica Peterson McKinlay has joined law firm Dorsey & Whitney and will be of counsel in the financial restructuring group. She has represented debtors, creditors, trustees and others in bankruptcy court and related litigation. Most recently, she was a shareholder in the bankruptcy and creditors’ rights group at law firm Durham Jones & Pinegar.

Kristen D. Romano and Jonathan E. Samon have joined law firm McGlinchey Stafford’s commercial litigation group in New York City. Ms. Romano, an associate, has experience in complex bankruptcies and litigation and has advised bankruptcy and other entities, and she has worked on chapter 11 and chapter 7 cases. Mr. Samon will be of counsel. He represents financial institutions in consumer finance and real-estate litigation in bankruptcy court. He also has experience in white collar criminal defense litigation and securities litigation.

Compiled by Melanie Cohen

A Missouri-based hotel company founded by hotelier John Q. Hammons filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with assets and debts each more than $1 billion, according to court papers. Read the Daily Bankruptcy Review article via The Wall Street Journal.

(Daily Bankruptcy Review is a daily newsletter with comprehensive coverage and analysis of emerging and in-progress insolvencies and turnarounds. For a two-week trial, visit http://on.wsj.com/DJBankruptcyNews, scroll to the bottom and click “try for free.”)

Modell’s Sporting Goods and Sports Direct International didn’t bid on Sports Authority Holdings Inc. by the bid deadline, DBR reports via WSJ.

“Dance Moms” star Abby Lee Miller is set to plead guilty to bankruptcy fraud Monday, the Associated Press reports.

O.J. Simpson’s lawyer filed for bankruptcy, Bloomberg reports.

(And don’t forget to check out what is happening in bankruptcy this week.)

Write to Melanie Cohen at melanie.cohen@wsj.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MelanieLisa

The media company will ask the Manhattan bankruptcy court to sign off not only on its sale timeline, but also the stalking horse, or lead, offer from Ziff Davis LLC.

Gawker, which publishes blogs under the banners of Gizmodo, Jalopnik and Jezebel, filed for bankruptcy earlier this month with a $90 million offer from Ziff Davis, the digital-media company and magazine publisher. The offer, however, is subject to higher bids. Gawker has mapped out a timeline that calls for other offers by July 27, and if needed, an auction to be held on July 29.

The sale has already faced opposition from Hulk Hogan. Lawyers for the former professional wrestler, whose real name is Terry Bollea, recently filed a challenge to the sale plan, saying it would unfairly trade away potentially valuable legal rights that could ultimately boost Gawker creditors’ payout at the end of the bankruptcy. Mr. Bollea is a key creditor in Gawker’s bankruptcy proceeding because he won a $140 million judgment against Gawker and Chief Executive Nick Denton in a privacy lawsuit.

Also Monday, teen retailer Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. will ask the Wilmington, Del., bankruptcy court to move its bankruptcy proceedings along. The teen retailer is specifically seeking approval to put its reorganization plan to a creditor vote.

Only unsecured creditors owed roughly $60 million will be allowed to vote on the plan. Some creditors within that group, owed between $11 million and $22 million, are expected to recover up to 3.6% of what they are owed under the plan.

PacSun filed for bankruptcy in April after negotiating a restructuring deal with private-equity lender Golden Gate. The company has agreed to swap 65% of the $88 million in debt it is owed for equity in the restructured company, subject to rival bids; none were received.

Golden Gate has also agreed to invest $20 million in the reorganized retailer.

-Peg Brickley and Tom Corrigan contributed to this article.

Write to Lillian Rizzo at lillian.rizzo@wsj.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Lilliannnn

(Daily Bankruptcy Review is a daily newsletter with comprehensive coverage and analysis of emerging and in-progress insolvencies and turnarounds. For a two-week trial, visit http://on.wsj.com/DJBankruptcyNews, scroll to the bottom and click “try for free.”)

Berkshire Hathaway Co. subsidiary Russell Brands LLC is proposing to buy the maker of the first “smart” basketball, Bankruptcy Beat reports.

The Federal Reserve said all big banks cleared capital requirements, The Wall Street Journal reports.

A bankruptcy judge Friday will weigh whether a private-client unit of National Bank of Anguilla can keep customer names a secret as it tries to get their money back, Bloomberg reports.

Detroit’s public schools’ proposed budget was released at a public hearing, the Associated Press reports.

Write to Melanie Cohen at melanie.cohen@wsj.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MelanieLisa