The Most Important Stories You Can't Miss This Week

This year, science fiction’s most venerable franchise marks its 50th anniversary with a new movie and its first new TV series in over a decade. But is the chance to unify and mobilize its famously devoted — and demanding — fanbase the true final frontier? Read it at BuzzFeed News.

As a gay Latino man, Rigoberto González knows there are few safe spaces for him, but Latin night always felt like a solace. "It was not always pretty, it was far from perfect, but it felt necessary because my queerness was necessary, because my body hungered for attention." Read it at BuzzFeed News.

In the wake of the massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Raillan Brooks examines what it means to be Muslim and gay in a society that insists you can't be both. "People like me were massacred for who they were, and people like me get blamed for it because of who they are. Neither side realizes it's being played against the other." Read it at The Village Voice.

Best known for her support of an Oregon militia’s armed standoff against the federal government, Michele Fiore is now trying to become part of that government. Nick R. Martin explores how the calendar girl for the guns-for-everyone movement is the face of a political fringe that is slowly pushing itself towards the mainstream. Read it at BuzzFeed News.

Caity Weaver gets a rare, off-camera glimpse into the business of being Kim Kardashian. "She has figured out how to spin the mundanity of being herself—something billions of people do every day for free—into a more lucrative business than being the most famous rapper in the world." Read it at GQ.

Jia Tolentino conducts a devastating — and necessary — conversation. "Yes, I had this very particular, horrible situation—but if I had had an abortion at 20 weeks just because I didn’t feel ready, that should be okay, too. Like it or not, all of our rights are intertwined." Read it at Jezebel.

As the inevitability of Donald Trump's presidential nomination sinks in, Sam Stein sits down with the other GOP frontrunners' key strategists to figure out where they all went wrong. "We're in politics. Nothing is suprising." Read it at Highline.

Say you could buy a diamond that looked just as pristine as any other at a fraction of the cost — because it was grown in a lab. Would you? Chavie Lieber explores the rapid rise of one of the jewelry industry's most contested products. Read it at Racked.

Two years ago, Bryce Masters went into cardiac arrest and briefly died while being violently arrested by an officer. Nick Berardini and Matt Stroud reveal the lasting consequences of the encounter and how the cause of Masters' near death was the very device many insist can't kill. Read it at The Intercept.