He plays for Queen and country
Taking a page from Vladimir Putin’s playbook, a buff British PM David Cameron went body boarding during holidays in Cornwall. He’d urged Britons to aid tourism by vacationing at home. While en vacances, his wife, Samantha, delivered their fourth child, Florence, another economic boost.

That’s one way to put it
Was it the divorce? Or was it one week with Canadian golf guru Sean Foley that straightened out Tiger Woods’s golf game? Many credited his break with wife Elin Nordegren—made legal in a Florida court and capped with her cathartic interview with People—for his much improved performance at last week’s Barclays tournament in Paramus, N.J. But Woods gave a nod to Foley, who spent a week tinkering with Tiger’s swing. Foley has worked with some of the world’s best golfers, and was profiled in Maclean’s recently as the likely repairman of Woods’s broken game. Perhaps understandably, Woods is gun-shy about a permanent relationship: “I need to wrap my head around having a commitment level going forward.”

Oh, now you tell us
Climate change, it turns out, is rather a big deal. At least that’s the revelation that has struck Bjørn Lomborg, the world- famous global warming downplayer. The author of the bestseller The Skeptical Environmentalist long argued in favour of adapting to the consequences of a man-made temperature rise, rather than trying to fight it with agreements like the Kyoto Protocol. But in a forthcoming book, he calls for a $100-billion-a-year effort to develop clean energy sources and geo-engineering projects. Better still, UN climate change chief Rajendra Pachauri, who once compared the Danish economist to Hitler, has provided a jacket blurb for the new book.

A skater scorned
Off-ice dramatics in the world of figure skating can rival on-ice spectacle, as witnessed by the firing of Brian Orser and Tracy Wilson as co-coaches to 19-year-old Kim Yu-na—a four-year relationship that saw the South Korean skater named 2009 world champion, and win gold at the 2010 Olympics. Orser, a former Canadian world champion, announced the pair had been let go by Yu-na’s mother, Park Mee-hee. Yu-na lashed out at Orser on Facebook, saying she had “consulted” with her mother but “it was my final decision.” In retaliation, Orser revealed his former star pupil’s upcoming skating music without her consent—a faux pas in the figure skating world.

Life can’t imitate art
Julianne Moore has never been one to shrink from a nude scene, but her latest exposures have proven too much for Venetian civic leaders, who this week banned billboards featuring the Boogie Nights star from a busy public square. The ads for Bulgari jewels show a nude Moore tastefully covered by handbags, bling and, weirdly, a pair of molto-cute lion cubs. But Mayor Giorgio Orsoni said St. Mark’s Square simply isn’t the place for steamy portraiture. There are limits to Italian sensuality. British gelato maker Antonio Federici offended Catholics with magazine adverts showing a pregnant nun and gay priests enjoying the firm’s product. Company officials said the ads meant to imply “forbidden Italian temptations.” But sometimes forbidden really means not allowed.

Toques off to her
Michelle Wie, the most hyped female golfer of her generation, vindicated her faithful followers with a Canadian LPGA victory at Winnipeg’s St. Charles Country Club. Dubbed the “female Tiger Woods” when she arrived as a 10-year-old phenom, Wie’s mojo stalled in recent years and the 20-year-old Honolulu native became better known for her luxury-brand endorsements than her putting. After her win, she affected a Canadian accent when asked if she’d been able to get away from the course: “I didn’t really have a chance to go oot and aboot,” she joked.

It’s complicated
One of Afghanistan’s top prosecutors, Fazel Ahmed Faqiryar, was fired after repeatedly refusing to halt corruption investigations targeting high-ranking Afghan officials, including Mohammed Zia Salehi, a suspected CIA mole and one of President Hamid Karzai’s top aides. Faqiryar’s dismissal comes amid growing Western concern over Karzai’s failure to root out corruption. Karzai fired back saying that NATO’s attempts to rout the Taliban “only causes civilian casualties, nothing else.”