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1. US reverses exemptions on immigration raids
Within a week of advising agents to pause immigration raids on farms, hotels and restaurants, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has reversed course, the Washington Post reports.
The Department of Homeland Security sent on June 12 an email to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to "hold on all worksite enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels," the newspaper reports.
By yesterday, however, the immigration raids appear to be back on.
“There will be no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine ICE’s efforts,” Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary for DHS, said Monday. “Worksite enforcement remains a cornerstone of our efforts to safeguard public safety, national security and economic stability.”
2. Fed expected to continue wait-and-see approach
While U.S. inflation appears to have cooled in recent months, officials with the Federal Reserve are expected to continue holding off on lowering interest rates, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The cause for the Fed's cautious approach is seeing how tariffs will influence inflation expectations, the newspaper reports. The idea is that if retailers expect higher costs in the future, they'll raise their costs now. The same can be true for landlords raising rents as well as employees seeking higher pay.
“If everybody expects inflation to go up, then it goes up. And that’s what the Fed is worried about,” said Alan Detmeister, senior economist and executive director of investment bank UBS.
3. Hotel experts address need for resiliency in development
The increasing amount of environmental risks to hotels has many industry experts pushing for greater consideration for both sustainability and resiliency in development plans, reports CoStar News' Natalie Harms from the 2025 NYU International Hospitality Investment Forum.
"Resilience is a community sport," said Breana Wheeler, director of operations for the U.S. at BREEAM, a building science research organization. "When we think about resilience, it's not just about whether or not your asset can perform or withstand an event. It's not just your asset — it's your block, it's your neighbors, it's your community overall. And ultimately, recovery comes from whether or not that whole ecosystem, your whole community, can actually recover from that event as well."
4. San Francisco's Phoenix Hotel to close
The Phoenix Hotel, famous for hosting touring rock bands in San Francisco, will close at the end of the year, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The hotel located in the Tenderloin district has been struggling since the pandemic.
The hotel was built in 1956 as the Caravan Motel until Chip Conley bought it in 1987 and turned it into the Phoenix, marketing it to touring bands with free tour bus parking and free massages for tour managers, according to the article. It's played host to David Bowie, Kurt Cobain, Sinead O'Connor and Neil Young, among many others.
Conley is a longtime hotelier and founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality. He and his partners hold the lease to the property and own the hotel's name and brand but not the land. The San Francisco Baking Institute bought the property for $9.1 million last year.
5. China enacts new global exporting strategy
As it adapts to the new tariff environment with the U.S., China has started to send its goods to other countries at a much higher pace than expected, the New York Times reports. The country's trade surplus around the globe is almost $500 billion, a more than 40% year-over-year increase.
“China has loads of things that it needs to export, and whether or not the U.S. puts tariffs on China, it’s pretty much impossible to stop the shifts in flows,” said Leah Fahy, a China economist at Capital Economics.