Hi! Get your lab coats: All 24 members of the National Science Board, the policymaking body that oversees the National Science Foundation, were reportedly fired in one fell swoop on Friday — by way of an email from the White House thanking them for their service. Today we’re exploring:

The Michael Jackson biopic has hauled $217 million in its global weekend debut

Michael Jackson famously sang in his 1982 hit, “You wanna be startin' somethin’” — if that somethin’ is the late star’s eponymous biopic, that start is to the tune of $217 million.

In its global debut over the weekend, “Michael” stormed to the top of the worldwide box office after notching $97 million in three days in North America and a further $120 million across up to five days of release overseas. That marks the biggest opening weekend ever for a biopic of any kind, beating the previous record held by Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” which grossed ~$180 million on its debut weekend.

Not only this, but “Michael” has rocked the box office to already become the third highest-grossing musical biopic of all time, per figures from Box Office Mojo, earning only $72 million less than Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” has since it was released in 2022... in just five days.

Combining a list of the musical biopics with the highest worldwide grosses compiled by Billboard with Box Office Mojo data, “Michael” is still some way off the ~$911 million lifetime gross seen for 2018’s Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but it's off to a smooth start.

Regardless of whether the movie maintains its momentum in months to come, “Michael” now boasts the second-largest global debut of the year so far (behind the staggering ~$373 million five-day global debut for “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie”).

Gloves are off

Despite a dramatic production and a pretty dismal critical reception, “Michael” appears to have won audiences over, in keeping with the trend for biopics about music’s best-loved artists.

Looking at Rotten Tomatoes scores for the top 20 highest-grossing musical biopics, per Billboard, the Popcornmeter (audience score) is consistently positive. However, only eight of these films would qualify as “Certified Fresh” in terms of scores from critic reviews (above 75% positive ratings on the Tomatometer).

Moviegoers who’ve splashed out to see their idol’s life story are probably more inclined to say they enjoyed the movie in the first place — and if, therefore, box office figures are a better temp-check for audience sentiment, “Michael” seems to be crushing it.

Last October, after the Springsteen biopic’s disappointing takings, we noted that the big-star-origin-story genre could be cooling down. But with MJ’s music already climbing up the charts, the stars might be aligning for another back catalog resurgence this summer.

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Sabastian Sawe just broke the two-hour marathon barrier in $450 Adidas “supershoes”

According to running shoe review site RunRepeat, men who can complete a 5K in 17 minutes and 30 seconds are in the top 1% of runners. Yesterday at the London Marathon, Sabastian Sawe, a 31-year-old runner from Kenya, shaved 3 minutes and 20 seconds off that pace, and then repeated that almost 7.5 more times, to become the first marathon runner in history to break the two-hour barrier in an official race, clocking in at 1:59:30.

Eleven seconds later, and wearing exactly the same Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 shoes as Sawe, Yomif Kejelcha became the second person in history to cross the historic threshold, while Tigist Assefa set a women-only world record of 2:15:41 in the Pro Evo 3s as well. Adidas was, obviously, pretty buzzed about the trio’s results.

Some feet!

The new men’s world record marks a monumental milestone in running. It's also a decisive blow in the race between the world’s two biggest sportswear companies. Nike announced its “Breaking 2” ambitions 10 years ago, at the time revealing that it had already been working on marathon sneakers with the 120-minute mark in mind three years before that. Still, even with the legendary Eliud Kipchoge and the late Kelvin Kiptum in their shoes, there’s yet to be a Nike athlete to break the barrier in an officially recognized marathon.

Adidas made a “limited number” of the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3s, with their 97-gram weight and regulation-scraping 39mm stack height, available for purchase on its website a day before the marathon, which auspiciously made the model eligible for the big race.

Of course, none of this is to take away from the magnitude of Sawe’s historic achievement itself.

The Kenyan’s astonishing time was a full minute and five seconds faster than the previous record, set by Kelvin Kiptum at the Chicago Marathon in October 2023 and ratified in February the next year, only five days before the 23-year-old’s tragic passing.

Although Tigist Assefa broke the record for a women-only race yesterday, the overall world record still belongs to Ruth Chepngetich, who ran 2:09:56 at the 2024 Chicago Marathon per World Athletics figures, but is now serving a three-year ban after admitting to violating anti-doping restrictions.

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Off the charts: Which American corporate behemoth had its best trading day since the 1980s on Friday? [Answer below]. 

Answer here.

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