Sweet season

By Emily Weinstein

I’m the editor in chief of New York Times Cooking and Food.

• Read the recipe all the way through before you start baking. I know this is boring, an assignment in English class when you’re ready for recess. Do it so you’re not caught off guard when, for instance, a recipe calls for you to chill the dough for three hours, but the party starts in 20 minutes.
• Measure and prepare all your ingredients first. This is also a little dull. But once you start moving through the recipe, you’ll find how amazing it is to have everything you need at hand so you can glide through the steps, no pausing to frantically search for the salt. And, if your cookie recipe calls for room temperature butter (many do), take it out of the fridge to soften as soon as you’ve decided to bake.
• Cookie dough generally freezes well; make extra. Freeze the dough in individual portions if you want to be able to bake a single cookie on a whim. (You can easily double recipes using our new scaling feature. You’ll need to be in the Cooking app on Android or iOS; click on the little icon at the top right of the ingredients list.)
• It’s better to underbake than to overbake. You can’t unbake a cookie any more than you can unsalt a soup. So take the pan out of the oven when the cookies look just done; they’ll firm up as they cool. (And if you take them out of the oven and they’re still raw, just put them back in for a minute.)
• Really, follow the directions, especially if you’re making a recipe for the first time. If the recipe says to leave two inches between the cookies on the baking sheet, do it. If it says not to move the baked cookies until they are completely cool, listen.

• The Supreme Court agreed to review the constitutionality of President Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship.
• A judge ruled last week that Lindsey Halligan, a federal prosecutor appointed by Trump, was in the job illegally. But she has still not left her post.
• A federal judge in Florida approved the release of grand jury documents from an investigation of Jeffrey Epstein nearly two decades ago.

• A federal vaccine committee voted to end the longstanding recommendation that all newborns be immunized against hepatitis B.

• A video of the U.S. military’s Sept. 2 attack on a boat in the Caribbean shows the survivors waving overhead, according to people who saw it. Some interpreted it as an attempt to surrender.
• FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, awarded Trump with a new peace prize after its leader had publicly lobbied for Trump to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

• Vanity Fair will not renew its contract with the journalist Olivia Nuzzi, extricating itself from the controversy over her relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
• The E.U. fined X, Elon Musk’s social media company, $140 million for violating a law that regulates digital content.
• The New York Times sued Perplexity, an A.I. start-up, claiming that Perplexity repeatedly used its copyrighted work without permission.

• Frank Gehry, a titan of architecture who designed some of the world’s most recognizable buildings, died at 96.
• Many of Gehry’s projects, including the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, are regarded as masterpieces. See 12 projects that show the scope of his work.

• Netflix announced it would acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming business for $83 billion.
• The deal, which includes TV and film studios as well as HBO Max (but not CNN), would give Netflix even more leverage over Hollywood — and a greater presence in theatrical releases.

• The animated couple from “Zootopia” has its own fandom, some of which hails from the furry community. The love runs deep.
• The race for this year’s Academy Award for Best Picture has five sure bets. What about the other slots?

• At least six stage productions this year have a homophobic slur in their titles — sometimes to shock or provoke, but also to reclaim the word. Does that make it OK?
• The authorities in Japan said Jeremy O. Harris, the Tony-nominated playwright and actor, was arrested on suspicion of attempting to smuggle illegal drugs.

• In Budapest, political disputes and aging infrastructure have led to cascading problems at some of the city’s beloved baths.
• Brasses roared with punitive force; strings attacked notes as if lashing them. The Pittsburgh Symphony, playing at Carnegie Hall, sounds exactly how an orchestra should sound, writes David Allen.
• A new $40 million exhibit at the National Archives, opening nine months after Trump fired the chief archivist, uses technology to explore the items in its vaults.