2025 ZikG // Shutterstock

Every year, flu vaccines are updated to match the flu viruses expected to circulate. For 2026, the vaccine focuses on several influenza strains that research predicts will be most prevalent. This includes both influenza A and B types, which cause seasonal outbreaks. The goal is to reduce the risk of infection and limit the severity of symptoms if you do get sick.

The flu shot is formulated based on global surveillance data collected months in advance. Scientists analyze which strains have been most active and how they have mutated. This process helps create a vaccine that offers the best possible protection for the upcoming flu season. The vaccine development process involves collaboration among various health organizations and research institutions worldwide, ensuring that the most current data influences the formulation. This global effort is crucial, as flu viruses can change rapidly, and staying ahead of these changes is essential for effective vaccination.

Telehealth platform Doctronic provides guidance on the 2026 flu vaccine, including timing, effectiveness, and who should get vaccinated.

Key Takeaways

• The 2026 flu vaccine targets the most common and dangerous flu strains expected this season.
• Optimal timing for the flu shot is early fall, ideally before flu activity peaks.
• Flu vaccine effectiveness varies from year to year but remains the best defense against severe illness.
• Understanding the benefits and limitations of the flu shot helps you make informed health decisions.

What Strains Are Included in the 2026 Vaccine?

The 2026 flu vaccine typically covers:

• Influenza A (H1N1) strain, a common cause of seasonal flu
• Influenza A (H3N2) strain, often linked to more severe outbreaks
• Two influenza B strains from the Victoria and Yamagata lineages

These strains are chosen to provide broad coverage and help protect vulnerable populations such as the elderly, young children, and people with chronic health conditions. Beyond just protecting these high-risk groups, the vaccine also plays a vital role in community immunity. When a significant portion of the population gets vaccinated, it reduces the overall spread of the virus, thereby protecting those who may not be able to receive the vaccine, such as individuals with certain allergies or compromised immune systems. This collective responsibility underscores the importance of annual flu vaccinations, as they not only safeguard individual health but also contribute to the well-being of the entire community.

When Is the Best Time to Get Your Flu Shot?

Timing your flu shot correctly is essential for maximizing its effectiveness. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends getting vaccinated by the end of October. This timing allows your body enough time to build immunit

Apollo.io

Your sales organization is spending an average of $1,200 per rep annually on sales tools, yet 67% of purchased features go unused. According to Gartner, IT spending is growing 9.3% in 2025, but most C-suite teams can’t answer a simple question: What revenue did last quarter’s tech investment actually generate? Apollo.io explains what C-suite executives should understand about sales tech stack ROI.

Apollo.io

Key Takeaways

• Stop tracking adoption rates, measure revenue impact per dollar spent on each tool in your stack.
• According to ICONIQ, 2025 State of AI Report, 47% of AI-native companies have reached critical scale and proven market fit, compared to only 13% of companies that simply “enabled” existing products with AI features.
• Your biggest waste isn’t the tools you bought; it’s the duplicate data, disconnected systems, and time reps spend toggling between platforms.
• Build ROI models that account for implementation drag, training costs, and the productivity dip before value kicks in.

What’s actually broken with sales tech stack ROI?

The problem isn’t that your sales tools don’t work. It’s that nobody knows what “working” means in dollars and cents.

Your CRO says the new engagement platform increased activity by 40%. Your CFO asks how much revenue that activity generated.

Silence.

Here’s what’s happening: Each department bought tools to solve its own problems. Sales got a dialer and sequencing platform.

Marketing added attribution software and a customer data platform. RevOps implemented data enrichment and analytics. Nobody mapped how these systems work together, and now you’re paying for three different contact databases that don’t sync, two conversation intelligence platforms that capture different calls, and four reporting dashboards that show conflicting numbers.

The financial impact is measurable. When your VP of sales presents pipeline growth, she’s using data from the customer relationship management tool.

When your CMO shows marketing-influenced revenue, he’s pulling from the marketing automation platform. When your CFO asks why the customer acquisition costs increased 23% while conversion rates stayed flat, nobody can connect the dots because the data lives in silos.

Research from Read more

Fahroni // Shutterstock

As Deloitte states in its report Boosting Industrial Manufacturing Capacity for the Energy Transition, the manufacturing sector has a pressing need to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, both as a means of minimizing operational costs and shrinking its carbon footprint. The capabilities of renewable energy sources continue to evolve, and upfront installation costs are consistently declining.

For heavy manufacturing facilities managing multi-megawatt energy profiles, the decision to install on-site generation has historically been hindered by high capital expenditure (CapEx) and long return-on-investment (ROI) horizons.

However, the convergence of plummeting photovoltaic (PV) hardware costs and federal incentives has fundamentally altered this calculus. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the cost to install solar has dropped by more than 40% over the last decade. For industrial facilities with available roof space exceeding 50,000 square feet, this price compression creates a specific economic tipping point where self-generation moves from a sustainability initiative to a core operational expense (OpEx) reduction strategy.

The Rise of Rooftop Solar in Heavy Manufacturing

While residential solar demand has fluctuated — McKinsey & Company notes a flattening in domestic installations in 2024 after a prior surge — the industrial sector is decoupling from this trend.

Projections from Grand View Research in their Rooftop Solar PV Market Summary indicate the industrial segment will account for 40.1% of revenue growth through 2025. This divergence is driven by two key financial levers: energy independence and tax equity.

• Grid insulation: Heavy manufacturing operations rely on consistent uptime. On-site arrays reduce exposure to grid volatility and peak-demand pricing.
• Tax incentives: The Investment Tax Credit (ITC) and Production Tax Credit (PTC) remain primary drivers. The Congressional Budget Office, in its Business Tax Credits for Wind and Solar Power Report, estimates that without these subsidies, renewable energy spending would be roughly 33% lower. These mechanisms allow facilities to offset significant portions of the initial CapEx, accelerating the break-even timeline.

Solar panel costs have also dropped by 99% in the past 50 years. The long-term operational value of rooftop solar now outweighs the initial installation burden.

More rooftop solar projects are underway in heavy manufacturing at the moment, with many recently completed. Read more

Summit Art Creations // Shutterstock

Shipping and mailing are two of those “invisible” cost centers in many businesses—you pay for postage, labels, carriers, packaging, and handling but may not have full visibility into how much you’re spending, where the inefficiencies lie, or whether your service levels justify the cost.

Without that view, it’s nearly impossible to control costs, take advantage of savings opportunities, or make data-driven decisions to improve your business.

Stamps.com explores how businesses and professional services organizations using data analysis in logistics and predictive analytics to gain shipping and mailing insights can uncover patterns they’d otherwise miss.

By using shipping and mailing data and analytics, you can:

• See where your money goes: What are you spending per carrier, service level, destination, or package type?
• Spot inefficiencies: Are you using an expensive expedited service when a cheaper ground option would suffice or shipping small parcels with a large-parcel service?
• Compare carriers and services: Which carrier is the most cost-effective or ships the fastest?
• Forecast and optimize: Are you allocating funds effectively or choosing the best fulfillment locations?

How to use reporting tools and shipping data analytics to save money

Having the tools is one thing; using them effectively is another. Here are the top ways to leverage reports to reduce spending.

Establish a baseline of your spend and performance

Pull your current shipping and mailing data for the last two years via your shipping platform and review the spend. Look at the total spend and breakdown (by carrier, service level, and destination zones) and the total number of shipments and shipments by service level and package size/weight.

Segment and analyze by dimension

Use filters to break up the data by carrier, service type, and cost codes, which let you track expenses and bill postage spend back to specific clients, projects, or departments.

Look for patterns in the data, such as services where the cost is disproportionately high relative to volume or weight, package sizes where you might be overpaying, and carriers with below-average transit performance.

Identify data-driven opportunities to optimize

Based on your analysis, formulate cost-saving opportunities such as service-level right-sizing. If many items are shipped via expedited service but the delivery time doesn’t require it, consider a slower but less expensive service. You can also consider shifting carriers or transferring more volume to a more affordable provider if one offers a lower rate for a specific zone or weight.

Monitor the impact of your changes and optimize continuously

With reporting in place that helps you make sense of your metrics, keep a close eye on how your actions are impacting spend and performance. Create recurring reports for a conv

Alisha Jucevic for CalMatters

Dancers say their craft can’t be duplicated by AI. Our tests show they’re right — for now.

Bird singing and dancing, as practiced by the Cahuilla Band of Indians, tell a story about the creation of the world, and how the Cahuilla migrated to their current home in Southern California. Moving the same way your ancestors did, perhaps on the exact same land, makes you feel part of the past, present, and future all at once, said tribal member Emily Clarke. She’s done bird dance with her loved ones since she was 7 years old—an act, she said, not only of spirituality but also of perseverance, since bird dance is among the acts of Native American culture nearly eradicated by colonization and U.S. government policy.

So when Clarke heard that some generative artificial intelligence models, like Google’s Veo 3 and OpenAI’s Sora 2, can mimic the dance, her first thought was that it was wrong, distasteful and disrespectful. Then she wondered briefly if automated forms of bird dance could help preserve her culture—before deciding they can’t, since they will never replicate the conversations and community bonds that have helped give Cahuilla bird dance its distinct style and impassioned practitioners.

“It would miss the cultural and social importance, and without that, it’s not bird dancing,” she said.

Developers of AI systems are working continuously to do an increasingly better job of replicating complex human movement, including dance. Doing so has become a sort of holy grail in the field of generative AI due to the many technical challenges involved, but it remains an open question among dancers like Clarke of how much the technology will disrupt the world of dance as it progresses.

Clarke’s conflicting and uncertain thoughts about AI mirror those of other dancers across California interviewed by CalMatters, who were, depending on the specific question or moment in time, optimistic, skeptical and concerned about AI’s incursion into their art form. Most settled into the view that AI is incapable of capturing the uniquely human aspects of dancing, including the cultures surrounding it, the pride and passion of dancers, the energy imparted by audiences, or the form’s essential element of improvisation.

Photo courtesy of Emily Clarke

CalMatters and The Markup tested four commercially-available AI video-generation models — OpenAI’s Sora