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Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Thursday.

1. The death toll in Turkey and Syria sharply rises as the aid effort looks to overcome hurdles.

The official death count from Monday’s magnitude 7.8 earthquake — which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey called “the disaster of the century” — has now surpassed 20,000. With more than 17,000 dead in Turkey, it is the country’s deadliest quake since 1939.

Here are images of the aftermath.

In Turkey, truck shortages, blocked roads and other logistical hurdles impeded efforts by the 100,000-plus rescue personnel to unearth victims, bury the dead and provide aid to desperate survivors. Making it all the more challenging, the area is experiencing subfreezing temperatures and widespread shortages of heating and electricity. An open-air, makeshift morgue in a Turkish parking lot provided a grim reminder of the toll.

In northwest Syria, the first international relief arrived after days of waiting, but emergency workers there said the aid fell far short of what was needed. Millions of people there had already been displaced by the country’s civil war when the earthquake hit.

2. Some economists are rethinking their recession predictions.

Experts have spent months debating whether the Fed’s aggressive campaign to tame inflation would force the economy into a significant downturn or if policymakers could pull off a soft landing. But economic prognosticators have begun questioning whether the U.S. economy will land at all — perhaps growth will simply hold up.

Some analysts think a mild recession remains likely, but optimists point out that employers have added more than half a million jobs in the past month, the housing market has showed signs of stabilizing and many Wall Street economists have marked down the odds of a downturn this year.

In other economic news, big brands keep raising prices, and shoppers just keep spending.

3. “Not just a silly balloon.”

The Chinese balloon that was shot down by a U.S. fighter jet last week had multiple antennas and tools capable of collecting electronic communications, American officials said, adding that it was just one in a fleet of surveillance balloons directed by the Chinese military.

The big white orbs have exacerbated regional tensions: China and the U.S. had begun to mend their relationship before the balloon incident pushed both superpowers back to diplomatic distance. “It’s not so much a balloon going over the U.S. and other countries, but what might happen in, say, the Taiwan Strait,” a former Singaporean diplomat said.

In related news, the Biden administration is preparing new rules that would restrict U.S. technology investments in China.

4. Ukraine’s president asked the E.U. for rapid financial aid as Russian attacks intensified.

President Volodymyr Zelensky concluded a whirlwind tour of Europe with a speech at the European Parliament in Brussels today, asking for funding to rebuild Ukraine and for his country to be quickly admitted as a full member state.

In Ukraine, better trained and equipped Russian divisions have joined tens of thousands of newly mobilized soldiers trying to break through the front line, Ukrainian officials and analysts said. Some of the most intense fighting in recent days has been focused around the eastern city of Kreminna, a small but vital pocket of land in the Donbas region.

In other news from the war, the Kremlin-affiliated Wagner mercenary group, known for its ruthless tactics, said it would no longer recruit fighters in Russian prisons.

5. Nicaragua freed hundreds of political prisoners to the U.S.

The authoritarian government of Daniel Ortega handed over 222 prisoners this morning, American officials said, in one of the biggest prisoner releases ever involving the U.S.

Nicaragua received nothing in return, the officials said, but agreed to release the prisoners as a way to signal a desire to restart relations with the U.S., which has imposed sanctions on the country.

In other international news, South Africa’s president declared a “state of disaster” in response to an electricity crisis that has led to outages of up to 10 hours a day.

6. Some schools are secretly removing students with disabilities from class.

These “off-the-book suspensions” occur hundreds and perhaps thousands of times each year, according to a report by the National Disability Rights Network. They include “transfers to nowhere,” in which students are involuntarily sent to programs that do not exist.

A Times review found that the informal removals harm some of the nation’s most vulnerable children, leaving them academically stifled and socially marginalized. And the hard-to-track removals often violate federal civil rights protections.

In other education news, the College Board was in contact with Florida officials over objections to its African American studies course while it developed the curriculum.

7. Burt Bacharach, whose pop hits lifted the 1960s, died at 94.

Bacharach was a debonair composer, arranger, conductor, record producer and occasional singer whose hit songs, like “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” distilled the decade’s mood of romantic optimism into Wagnerian lounge music.

Because of the high gloss and apolitical stance of the songs Bacharach wrote during an era of social upheaval, they were often dismissed as background music by fans of rock’s hard edge or the intimacy of the singer-songwriter genre. But in hindsight, his collaborations with the lyricist Hal David rank high in the pantheon of pop songwriting.

8. The era of star-studded basketball in Brooklyn is over.

The Nets agreed to trade Kevin Durant, one of the N.B.A.’s best players, to the Phoenix Suns only days after sending their star guard, Kyrie Irving, to the Dallas Mavericks in a separate deal.

Now, just a few years after assembling a squad considered to be among the most talented in history — one that included another superstar, James Harden — the Nets are essentially starting over.

In the West, the Los Angeles Lakers also made a major trade, dealing away the guard Russell Westbrook, whose brief and tumultuous tenure with the team also didn’t pan out.

In other sports news, 10 former N.F.L. players filed a lawsuit claiming that the league’s commissioner and others had systematically denied them benefits for injuries.

9. Do you remember your first car?

For many young people, being able to get behind the wheel of a car and go anywhere is an almost magical rite of passage. And their first car grants them that freedom.

The photographer Adali Schell, 21, spent last summer documenting that experience in Los Angeles, where he grew up.

One teenager, Kali Flanagan, said that his car had become his escape pod: “There’s this sense of freedom and lack of supervision, and then the actual speed that you’re going with the windows down and the loud music and the collection of your friends.”

10. And finally, more than an “oh, bother,” this Winnie the Pooh is a monster.

Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Christopher Robin and other beloved characters from the Hundred Acre Wood are back on the big screen next week. But this time, the story of Pooh is spectacularly unsuitable for children: It’s a gore-splattered, live-action sequel, featuring a terrifying pair of psychopaths who commit gruesome murders.

To be sure, Disney didn’t go off the rails. Instead, the company’s copyright expired, allowing the characters to enter the public domain. But don’t expect to see Tigger or Pooh’s signature red shirt in the new movie: Those are still Disney’s exclusive property.

Have an unorthodox night.

Allison Zaucha compiled photos for this briefing.

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