With a new jobs report coming out today, economists are looking for evidence to determine if the labor market is turning around.

The U.S. added more jobs than expected in January, though the Bureau of Labor Statistics also significantly revised down 2025’s annual number. Meanwhile, a report from payroll processing firm ADP this week found that private sector employment picked up in February, and layoffs had plunged after the worst January since 2009, Challenger, Gray & Christmas found.

Today’s report is pivotal ahead of the Federal Reserve’s rate-setting meeting later this month, and concerns that the war with Iran could accelerate inflation.

This is a published version of the Forbes Daily newsletter, you can sign-up to get Forbes Daily in your inbox here.

President Donald Trump has replaced Kristi Noem as Homeland Security secretary after a tumultuous tenure, announcing Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) will step into the role at the end of the month. Noem, who has been under increased scrutiny amid recent congressional hearings, will take on a role with the “Shield of the Americas,” Trump’s new security initiative focused on the Western Hemisphere.

Major stock indexes tumbled Thursday as the war with Iran sent oil prices to a nearly two-year high, stoking fears of rising inflation. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis president Neel Kashkari said this week it was likely “too soon” to estimate the economic impact of the Iran conflict, but noted there was uncertainty about monetary policy amid surging energy prices.

MORE: While the overall market doesn’t like geopolitical uncertainty, some sectors stand to benefit from a prolonged conflict. Defense companies that have contracts with the U.S. military—like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Palantir—are the most direct beneficiaries, while higher oil prices can boost energy companies.

As the creation of AI-generated music has exploded, Apple Music is introducing a “transparency tag,” requesting that record labels and music distributors flag when songs and artwork are created with AI. It’s the latest effort from a streaming service to address the issue, and comes as platforms like Suno and Udio make it easy for users to generate songs.

A group of Democratic-led states sued the Trump Administration to stop the 10% blanket tariff that President Donald Trump imposed after the Supreme Court struck down his sweeping levies. The states argued the tariff, which Trump has suggested he’ll hike to 15%, was imposed under a statute that was not meant to apply to trade imbalances.

MORE: Costco will turn tariff refunds into lower prices for customers, the wholesaler’s CEO said during an earnings call Thursday, as it is one of a number of companies suing the federal government for its money back on duties it has already paid. The Supreme Court’s ruling against Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs opened the door for companies to seek refunds, though Costco CEO Ron Vachris said the "future impact of tariffs remains extremely fluid.”

The landmark deal to keep TikTok online in the U.S. is facing its first legal challenge, with a group of lawyers arguing that it still violates the law banning the app, passed in 2024 and upheld by the Supreme Court. Trump delayed enforcing the ban for months, and eventually approved a deal that gave a group of investors control of the app through a new U.S. entity. The lawsuit claims that ByteDance “continues to own and operate the recommendation algorithm for TikTok U.S.”

Cursor Goes To War For AI Coding Dominance

Cursor was built to be a kind of “Google Docs for programmers,” CEO Michael Truell described to Forbes in 2024. Now, the company is confronting a new reality: Developers may no longer need a code editor at all.

Over the winter holidays, employees playing with Anthropic’s latest model, Opus 4.5, experienced an uncomfortable realization: Its coding abilities had advanced to the point where developers no longer needed to review every line of output. Instead of collaborating with an AI assistant inside Cursor’s code editor, they could issue high-level instructions to autonomous agents and in return receive completed features—sometimes, even the finished product. That put Cursor’s central product thesis suddenly in question.

At a January all-hands meeting, Cursor leadership warned that the months ahead would be turbulent ones. Projects might be scrapped, priorities shifted. The company’s new mandate was labeled “P0 #1”—priority zero: “Build the best coding model.”

Until recently, Cursor seemed nearly unstoppable. The company began 2025 with roughly $100 million in annualized revenue. By November, that figure had surpassed $1 billion. Its latest financing round valued the company at nearly $30 billion, minting its four cofounders as billionaires and placing Cursor among the top 20 most valuable private companies in the world.

But in the fast-moving world of AI, perceived momentum can appear—or evaporate—overnight.

WHY IT MATTERS “Startup founders told Forbes the shift is profound,” say Forbes’ Rashi Shrivastava and Anna Tong. “Instead of writing code line by line, many developers now orchestrate agents—assigning tasks, reviewing outputs, coordinating multiple parallel processes. ‘It is the biggest, most fundamental change in software development since the beginning,’ says Andrew Hsu, cofounder and CTO of AI language tutor app Speak. The company’s team of 50 engineers is all using coding agents (mostly Claude Code, but also Codex in some instances) to ship features in a matter of weeks instead of months. Cursor knows it must disrupt itself to survive.”

MORE Vibe Coding Startup Cognition Mints A New AI Billionaire

There’s growing uncertainty over whether the World Cup will bring the promised stimulus to the U.S. economy, as the tournament kicks off in less than 100 days. Some challenges include the Iran war and a year-long decline in international tourism:

1.7%: The year-over-year lift in revenue per available room expected in June and July, roughly a quarter of the overall boost received the last time the U.S. held the World Cup in 1994

$30.5 billion: How much economic output the World Cup was projected to drive in the U.S., per FIFA

Tourism thrives on ‘stability and safety,’ says Alan Fyall, professor at the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management

If you feel like you’re busy but not actually accomplishing your goals, it may be “procrastivity”—or procrastination meets productivity. It might mean you’re taking on trivial tasks like cleaning your desk to put off higher-stakes or more emotionally demanding work. To break the cycle, identify your biggest priorities before even sitting down to work, and if you feel a sudden impulse to knock out lower-priority work, wait 10 minutes. You can still schedule time for administrative tasks, but limit it to a specific time block.

One fast food chain is offering $100,000 for the position of “Chief Tasting Officer,” after another CEO’s viral taste test ignited a fast food burger rivalry. Which company is hiring for the role?

Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Sarah Whitmire, Chris Dobstaff and Caroline Howard.

© Forbes