Puerto Rico Debt Crisis Mounts With Key Deadline Just Week Away

The pressure is building on Puerto Rico as lawmakers struggle to ease a cash crunch days before the commonwealth’s electric utility confronts a bond payment it may be unable to make.

Prices of the junk-rated island’s newest general obligations reached a record low Wednesday after David Chafey, chairman of the territory’s Government Development Bank, said he’s resigning for personal reasons. The departure, which sparked worries about a leadership void, came as a group of hedge funds asked GDB officials and the governor for a meeting to discuss terms of a planned bond sale.