Inside the Arctic ice breaker battle

… plus curiosities from Wicked-land, New Zealand's parliament, and more.

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Here’s what’s on deck this week: 

🧊 Arctic power plays, plus 1,001 days of war

🌪️ What the latest hurricane research reveals about climate change

📱 How phones are changing our real life relationships.

1,001 days of war, hazardous air, a potential blockbuster, breaking ice, and a Maori standoff. // Source: Wikimedia Commons, Canva graphics

1,001 — The number of days that have passed since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine, with no clear end in sight. On Sunday, the United States gave Ukraine its blessing to use U.S.-supplied missiles to strike Russia. In response, Russia on Tuesday formally lowered the threshold for Russia’s use of its nuclear weapons and said that any attack backed by a nuclear-armed power (lookin’ at you, U.S.👋) will be considered a joint attack. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to put the pressure on global powers to place firm sanctions on Russia to stymy its ability to continue its war in Ukraine.

Every “today” is the best moment to push Russia harder. … You know very well that Putin does not value people or rules; he values only money and power – these are the things we must take away from him to restore peace.

— Zelenskyy in a speech to the European Parliament on Tuesday.

1,185 — The ultra-hazardous air quality levels in Delhi, India, on Monday, according to the global air quality tracker IQAir — a whopping 23x above the tracker’s threshold for healthy breathing. Today, the city remains one with the worst air quality in the world. These unprecedented levels not only affect sensitive groups, such as the elderly, those with chronic heart and lung issues, and asthma, but they also affect absolutely everyone. The problem is, there’s still little understanding of how pollution in India is impacting its citizens.

“I can only imagine that the prevalence of heart attacks, of strokes, of heart failure — they must all increase significantly because of this high level of air pollution. But there are no studies from India to support it.”

— Sundeep Salvi, president of the Indian Chest Society, to The New York Times

$125 million - $150 million — The projected earnings of the Broadway musical-turned Hollywood movie Wicked across U.S. theaters this weekend. (Ticket pre-sales are already over $30 million, and Barbie opening weekend last July earned over $162 million.)

“There’s a little bit of a Barbie moment going on with Wicked in terms of pre-sales,” an industry insider told Deadline on Tuesday. “They just keep going up and up with tracking numbers through the roof.” Indeed, according to the film tracker The Quorum, Wicked ranks among only a few titles with the highest awareness and interest ratings since the pandemic.

So if you care to find me, look toward literally any movie theater on November 22, when this film premiers.