Fox News, and more

Good week for:

Fox News, after its ratings rose 8 percent in the two weeks since White House aides labeled the top-rated cable news channel “a wing of the Republican Party.”

Calling it, after a Stanford study found that coin flips favor whichever side of the coin was facing up when the flip is initiated, landing on that side as much as 60 percent of the time. “The way we flip coins creates a bias, and that makes it stay more time in the position it starts in,” says researcher Susan Holmes.

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Extreme golf, after the world’s longest golf course opened in the desolate Australian Outback. Golfers can play a hole—some are adjacent to gas stations and inhabited wombat holes—and then drive on to the next tee, 50 miles down the road in some cases. The 850-mile, par 71 course takes three or four days to complete.

Bad week for:

Mice on a plane, after a flight bound for London’s Heathrow Airport was grounded at JFK airport in New York when a small rodent was spotted scurrying around the cabin. The 300-plus passengers were told to get off the plane and had to wait three hours for a replacement.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s ego, after he was introduced by MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer as the Rev. Al Sharpton. “I’m Rev. Jesse Jackson,” he barked, clearly not amused. “I know who you are,’’ Brewer said pleadingly. “We all do.’’

Santo Gambino of Sicily, who was sentenced to house arrest for illegal dumping and pleaded with the judge to jail him instead. At home, he would be subject to his wife’s “nonstop nagging,” Gambino explained. The judge rejected his request.