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1. Hotel execs expect better year for transactions
During an opening session at the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference, hotel executives shared their optimistic views over the deals market in 2026, reports CoStar News Hotels’ Trevor Simpson and Stephanie Ricca.
Robert Webster, vice chairman and president of CBRE Hotels Institutional Group, said right now is the second-best opportunity to buy a hotel he’s seen in his career. Debt is cheaper, and that should help property values on the sell side.
"Anytime there's a spike in risk to investment, typically, rates will go down not up, and if rates go down, it will help hotel values, and probably really help with the transaction market," he said.
2. More than 4,000 flights canceled due to winter storm
A winter storm moving across the U.S. on Monday resulted in 4,763 canceled flights by late afternoon, the Guardian reports, citing data from flight tracker FlightAware. Another 9,112 flights experienced delays.
“This massive storm is unleashing winter and springtime hazards at the same time,” said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Adam Douty in an email. “More than 200 million people could be impacted, from blizzard conditions in the Midwest to severe thunderstorms across the east, along with powerful winds sweeping across dozens of states.”
The Associated Press reports of hundreds more flights delayed or canceled this morning because of the storm.
3. Drone hits hotel in Iraq
A drone hit the Royal Tulip Al-Rasheed hotel in Baghdad Monday, but Iraq's interior ministry said there were no casualties from the attack, Reuters reports. The hotel is located in the Green Zone, which is where governmental buildings and the U.S. embassy are located.
The drone hit the hotel's upper fencing and did not appear to cause any material damage to the building.
Today, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad was the target of three drones and four rockets.
4. Australia's central bank raises interest rates
The Reserve Bank of Australia raised its interest rates by 25 basis points to 4.1% as the country continues to push back on inflation, CNBC reports. The rate of inflation has remained above the central bank's limit of 3%, and there are concerns the war in Iran will push prices higher.
Paul Bloxham, chief economist for Australia, New Zealand and global commodities at HSBC, pointed to domestic factors on CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia."
“The output gap is positive, inflation is too high where it is right now, and the unemployment rate is still quite low,” he said.
5. Cuba experiences third nationwide power outage
Officials in Cuba are working to restore power to the electric grid after the country's third nationwide outage in the past four months, CBS News reports. The government has blamed its energy problems on President Donald Trump, who in January threatened to put tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba.
Cuba's Ministry of Energy and Mines stated on social media platform X there was a "complete disconnection" of the country's electrical systems but later said there were some "microsystems" beginning to operate.
Cuba has not received oil shipments in over three months, and it has been relying on solar power, natural gas and thermoelectric plants.