Quake Toll, LeBron James, and 'I Love You' Around the World

Quake Toll Rises

The death toll from Monday's earthquakes in Turkey and Syria rose past 7,700 yesterday as thousands of rescue teams worked through snow and freezing conditions to pull remaining survivors from the rubble. Most deaths resulted from the collapse of unreinforced, low-rise concrete buildings built in close proximity to each other, according to analysts. 

Syria's rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib remains mostly cut off from aid, with over half of its 5 million residents displaced there due to war. Some nations have called for the lifting of broad sanctions against Syria in place since 2011 (see background) to facilitate support for its rescue efforts. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for a three-month state of emergency in 10 of its provinces, including Gaziantep, the quake's epicenter along the East Anatolian fault zone. See previous write-up here.

Geologists built a visual showing the pace and magnitude of the over 200 shocks Monday. View it here. 

LeBron Takes Scoring Title

NBA star LeBron James became the league’s all-time scoring leader last night, after putting up 38 points in a 129-123 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The performance lifts the 38-year-old James past the legendary Hall-of-Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who ended with 38,387 career regular-season points.  

Considered one of the greatest players in NBA history, the Akron, Ohio, native entered the league in 2003 with the Cleveland Cavaliers. A 19-time All-Star, James has led his teams to 10 Finals since 2007, winning four (two with the Miami Heat, one with Cleveland, and one with the Los Angeles Lakers). Among other accolades, James has been named the Most Valuable Player four times.

James has reached the milestone in 1,410 games—150 fewer than Abdul-Jabbar—though styles of play were different, the three-point line was not established until the 1979-1980 season. 

See other players who may top Abdul-Jabbar’s total during their career.

Microsoft's 'Bing' Surprise

Microsoft held a surprise product event yesterday, unveiling new versions of its Bing search engine and Edge internet browser powered by the technology underpinning the wildly popular AI chatbot ChatGPT. The rollout comes two weeks after Microsoft announced a multibillion-dollar investment in the chatbot's parent company, OpenAI.

It also marks the latest in the rush by tech companies to leverage generative AI—software that creates new content from input prompts (see 101). Experts say it may pose a unique challenge to current internet search engines, returning conversation-style answers instead of a list of links. Google announced a competing platform called Bard this week, while ChatGPT reached 100 million users just two months after launch.

Separately, AI firm Runway—cocreator of the text-to-image software Stable Diffusion—revealed yesterday a new platform that transforms existing videos based on simple text inputs. 

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