| All eyes will be on the Middle East this weekend after Israel’s strike at Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. In today’s newsletter, we’ve complied a group of resources from Bloomberg News to stay informed. Plus: Patrick Clark writes about the history of Indian American hotel ownership, the G-7 gathers in Canada at a critical time, and the Los Angeles Clippers’ quest for a home team advantage is working. Help us improve Bloomberg newsletters: Take a quick survey to share your thoughts on your signup experience and what you’d like to see in the future. If this email was forwarded to you, click here to sign up. Israel launched airstrikes Friday against Iran, targeting nuclear and ballistic weapons sites as well as many of the country’s military leaders and nuclear scientists. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the assault would continue for “as many days as it takes” to ward off the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement that Israel “should anticipate a harsh punishment,” and Israel reported that it repelled a drone attack. Bloomberg News’ live blog will be updated throughout the day with the latest information. President Donald Trump urged Iran to accept a nuclear deal to avoid further attacks in a post on Truth Social: “There is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end.” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in an interview with Bloomberg News, said, “We’ve long held concerns, grave concerns, about Iran’s nuclear program, and we absolutely recognize Israel’s right to self-defense.” Listen to a Q&A with Bloomberg’s Joumanna Bercetche, Golnar Motevalli, Dan Williams and Nick Wadhams about what this massive escalation in tensions means for the Gulf region and the rest of the world. Israel prides itself on having some of the best air defenses in the world. Learn more in an explainer from Marissa Newman. Marc Champion of Bloomberg Opinion asks a big question about this action: Can this achieve Israel’s stated goal of ensuring, once and for all, that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon? How Indian Americans Became Hotel Owners | A thing you discover quickly as a reporter on the lodging beat is that when you track down the owner of a US hotel—to ask them about safety procedures during the Covid-19 pandemic or staffing challenges in the travel boom that followed or some other topic—it’s not uncommon for them to be named Patel. Sometimes the owner will be an immigrant of Indian descent; often, they are second- or third-generation operators who grew up in the family business. The Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA), a trade group, says that 60% of US hotels are owned by its members. A lot of those properties are cheap motels. A lot of them are a lot nicer than that. I recently tried to track down some history of this community for a Bloomberg Businessweek feature on Hampton Inn, the hotel brand that conquered the world by being rigorously good enough. One executive involved in its development told me that part of Hampton’s early success was due to its embrace of Asian American hoteliers in the 1980s and 1990s, when many banks, insurance companies and even hotel brands looked askance at Indian owners. One person I met was HP Rama, the founding chairman of AAHOA, who opened a Hampton Inn in Augusta, Georgia, in the 1980s, when the chain was just a couple of dozen hotels. He remembers it being all business then: If a prospective franchisee could run a hotel well and improve the reputation of the brand, Hampton wanted them. “They took chances on us, and we didn’t disappoint them,” Rama says.  Amar Shah at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York on Monday. Photographer: Getty Images Another was Amar Shah, a director of a short film called the Patel Motel Story, which debuted this week at the Tribeca Film Festival. Shah grew up in a gas station family—his parents owned a Texaco in Orlando—but spent much of his childhood in motels owned by other members of Central Florida’s Indian American community. The film is concerned with a story older than Rama’s: that of Kanjibhai Manchhu Desai, who Shah says was the first Indian hotel owner in the US. Desai left the Indian state of Gujarat in 1930, traveled to Trinidad and eventually California, where, as an undocumented immigrant, he worked as a farmhand. The hard work took a toll on his body, and Desai started looking for another way to earn money. He leased a motel in Sacramento from a Japanese American woman who’d been sent to a World War II-era internment camp. When she returned, Desai gave back the property and bought a different motel in San Francisco. It thrived, and Desai evangelized the hotel business, writing to friends and family in Gujarat and offering to help them buy US hotels—planting the first seeds of an industry that now controls billions of dollars in real estate. “It’s one of the coolest immigrant entrepreneurial stories,” Shah says. It’s also a story of capitalist success, which means there are very few big winners. Desai himself was eventually deported; he died in poverty in London. Shah eventually tracked down one of his great-grandsons in Southern California. “He’s in the motel business,” Shah says. “He hasn’t become a billionaire.” —Patrick Clark Related: Hampton has become the largest US chain, and a global export, by being rigorously OK. The waffle makers are standing by. You can also listen to the story here.  The temple at the heart of every Hampton Inn (now with banana bread batter). Photographer: Jared Soares for Bloomberg Businessweek | 
