Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.HORST FRIEDRICHS / ANZENBERGER / R​EDUXLimbo is too gentle a word. For many parents, the uncertainty around school reopenings amounts to a daily strain, as they contemplate another full season of juggling child care and career.

This story was updated on July 31, at 4:12pm.On the same morning that the United States government reported the steepest economic collapse in U.S. history, President Donald Trump mused on Twitter about postponing the 2020 election. Trump is getting desperate, more desperate by the day.

Last summer, I made a grievous mistake while getting my hair braided.

Awards of any kind are weighted with subjectivity and competition, two qualities that can make them seem unilluminating, corrupting, or just plain useless. Yet the public is still drawn to what critics and judges deem the best of the best: We closely watch the Oscars and the Emmys, and pore over Pulitzer Prize–winning works.

Earlier this week I mentioned the surprisingly important role that craft brewing had played in downtown renewal across the country over the past decade. And I talked with one of the pioneers of that movement, Jim Koch of the Boston Beer Company, about how this part of America’s startup economy was likely to fare.Here are reports from two companies of a similar spirit but entirely different scale from Koch’s nationally distributed Samuel Adams brand.