Justin Bieber is now 18 years old. Which means, technically, he's an adult. But the question remains: Is he a man? (If you just laughed, congratulations: You're mean.)

How come Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and arguably the most inventive pop storyteller of his generation, never became as famous as so much of the derivative trash he inspired? Better question: Now that his summer blockbuster, The Avengers, is about to arrive, isn't this the part of the story where the overlooked hero rises to meet his big moment?

Statistically speaking, there's probably a cooler you out there. The guy who's actually living that life you'd imagined for yourself before you got married, had a couple of kids, and strapped in to that desk job. Wherever he is, he's definitely having more fun than you are. What if you could track that guy down? Hang out with his friends. Eat, drink, and sleep according to his responsibility-free schedule? Then you could decide, once and for all, if the cooler life is the better life.

He's won again! He's back! Or so we're told again and again as we prepare for the most highly-anticipated Masters in years. But the sad truth is that Tiger Woods—the real Tiger—is still the same cursing, pouting, hermetically sealed prima donna he's always been, before the car wreck, before the affairs, before the fall. And if all that didn't change him, then nothing ever will.

They've become a part of the pop-culture landscape: sexy, private shots of celebrities (your Scarletts, your Milas) stolen from their phones and e-mail accounts. They're also the center of an entire stealth industry. For the man recently arrested in the biggest case yet, hacking also gave him access to a trove of Hollywood's seamiest secrets—who was sleeping together, who was closeted, who liked to sext. What the snoop didn't realize was that he was being watched, too.

If you think Mitt Romney is too mild, too "golly gee," too Mormon, to survive the shark tank of a modern presidential campaign, his answer is Eric Fehrnstrom. He's Mitt's most trusted adviser and the guy whom Romney turns to when someone's leg needs breaking. (Figuratively, of course.) If Karl Rove was Bush's brain, then Fehrnstrom gives his boss what he most dearly needs—a backbone.

George Wright, America's most elusive fugitive, ran for forty years. He ran from the cops after escaping from prison. He ran from the feds after the most brazen hijacking in history. He ran from the authorities on three continents, hiding out and blending in wherever he went. It was a historic run—and now that it's over, he might just pull off the greatest escape of all

He seemed at first like a one-or-two-club-hit wonder, hovering in the bubbly background alongside J.Lo and the Black Eyed Peas. Cheesy? Claro. But Pitbull knows exactly what he is—a former Miami MC who figured out how to trade the crunk and coke rap for the real money: branding. Which is why he's now repping Dr. Pepper and DJ'ing your Zumba class. Kent Russell confronts his hometown hero to see if he's still got any of the 305 left in him.

On vacation to Paris, we sometimes imagine what it'd be like to live full-time among the locals. But ever wonder how it'd be to work—like, work work—with them, too? In this exclusive excerpt from his forthcoming memoir, "Paris, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down", Rosecrans Baldwin relays what it's like to strap in at a (particularly dysfunctional) office job to pay the (barely decipherable) bills... the daily offering to the dream of the American in Paris.

Yes, it seems that Mitt Romney has been running for president forever. But we did some digging, and you don't know the half of it. As Robert Draper discovered, Romney has been driven by a force larger than himself for a very long time.