Rick Ross was born William Leonard Roberts II in 1976, and he borrowed his stage name (and the associated big-time cocaine-selling hustler persona) from the legendary L.A. drug lord Freeway Ricky Ross. But the website MediaTakeout uncovered a photograph of William Leonard Roberts II when he was a Florida corrections officer. Most people thought that'd be the end of his career. Freeway Ricky Ross then sued him for stealing his name. None of it mattered. Rick Ross the rapper just sold more records.

GQ moved up the release of this Charlie Sheen profile: ”The fucking AA shit. The sobriety shit. It was always for other people. I just wanted to get a job back and get enough money to tell everybody to go fuck themselves and then roll like Errol Flynn and Frank Sinatra—the good parts of those guys.”

One of the most valuable cars in the world crashes going 200 mph on the Pacific Coast Highway. Its owner claims to be an anti-terrorism officer. In fact, he’s a former executive at a failed software company—and a career criminal. The unraveling of an epic con.

“For much of my life, there was something about my mother I felt almost allergic to. As she approached death, for the first time I found I didn’t merely love her, I actually liked her.”

A eulogy of sorts for the King.

An inside account of the Nairobi mall attack.

A profile of the comedian.

The challenges of establishing a legal marijuana economy in Washington State.

On recreational genetics, privacy and the new vulnerability of family secrets.

On the culture of abuse and coverup at Patrick Henry College.

Andrew Ross Sorkin’s intimate coverage of Wall Street.

The undoing of Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who resigned in January amidst multiple swirling scandals.

Inside the lucrative, predatory, booming world of subprime car loans.

Unraveling the story of an amnesiac who doesn’t want to know his past.

A strange, ongoing property battle among the richest of Texans.

The allure of conclusion-shaping and a wunderkind’s fall.

France, wealth and the saga of tax exile Gérard Depardieu.

Adventures in the cosmetics department of a Neiman Marcus in Dallas.

An inside account of the Egyptian leader’s last day in power.

On the attempt to rehabilitate Afghanistan’s child jihadis.

The unequal risk of climbing Mount Everest.

Untangling the legend of “Knausgaard-free days.”

The mystery of a death in Dallas.

The comic failings of a Kickstarter project that promised a “Netflix for vinyl.”

Falling into the black hole of literary journalism’s most famous eccentic