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Jessica Valenti columnLGBTQ+ rights This article is more than 9 years oldHomophobic, transphobic parents make abusive homes. Let's help LGBT kids get outThis article is more than 9 years oldJessica ValentiWe know that conversion therapy is harmful and that there are few good options for children removed from their parents. We need better options Death of Leelah Alcorn sparks outcry about treatment of transgender people If a young person is being abused at home – if they’re being berated, emotionally abused, or denied necessary mental and physical care by their parents – we want them to have access to every available option to get out and to safety.

Fiction in translationReviewThis novel about a young woman growing up in a dysfunctional family in Rome is a gleeful dance between truth and fiction Originally published in Italy as Niente di Vero, or “Nothing True”, Veronica Raimo’s autofictional fourth novel comes garlanded with praise and prizes. The story of a young woman growing up in Rome in a dysfunctional family who goes on to become a writer, it’s cruder and more slippery than Fleabag, funnier but less insightful than Deborah Levy’s “living autobiographies”, and ultimately frustrating for the way in which its author, for all her startling candour, somehow eludes our gaze.

Crime fictionObituaryReginald Hill obituaryCrime writer best known for his novels about the detectives Dalziel and PascoeOn the publication of the 21st Dalziel and Pascoe novel in 2007, an interviewer asked Reginald Hill if this was his 48th published novel to date. Hill replied: "That sounds very reasonable. I counted religiously till I got to 10, then in a more secular fashion till I got to 20, and after that I lost interest in keeping a tally.

US newsThe Louisiana senator, once a Democrat, trots out folksy, at times racist lines in an exaggerated accent – but is it a put-on? Senator John Neely Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, offended Mexicans across the world in a hearing on the FBI and DEA’s budget this month, calling for American military members and law enforcement agents to invade their country in order to “stop the cartels” while adding that Mexico would be “eating cat food and living in tent behind an Outback [Steakhouse]” if not for “the people of America”.

AfghanistanThe elite force who are ready to dieBrigade of well-equipped Arab mercenaries is backbone of Taliban forcesAs US jets bomb Taliban frontlines one of their key targets will be Osama bin Laden's ruthless "055 brigade" of Arab mercenaries. The brigade is a small unit of highly trained, well-paid guerrilla fighters set up by Bin Laden shortly after he arrived in Afghanistan five years ago. The highly motivated elite international group is a key target, much as Saddam Hussein's republican guard was in the 1991 Gulf war, military experts say.

Cif beliefReligion This article is more than 14 years oldBrazil's evangelical turnThis article is more than 14 years oldCarolina Beal and Jair StanglerBrazil's new churches are booming. But for all their marketing savvy, they don't yet have the status of CatholicismThere is a popular proverb in Brazil: God is Brazilian, and the land is blessed. No one knows, of course, whether God really is Brazilian, but his popularity in the country is not in doubt, and in the last 10 years, Brazilians have been finding many different ways to communicate with him.

PregnancyKlara Dollan spent nine months totally unaware that she was pregnant. The possibility only crossed her mind as she gave birth in her bathroom. But cryptic pregnancies like hers are far from unusual When Klara Dollan, then 22, woke up at 4am on the day she was due to start her new job, she thought her agonising stomach cramps signalled her period being “back with a vengeance”. She had been taking the pill with no break for more than six months, but had stopped about two weeks before.

TV reviewTelevisionReviewAn intriguing and ambitious offshoot, if not quite the combination of Broadchurch and The Wicker Man promised by star Shane Richie Summer, 1994, and something bad is happening at sea, off the coast of County Waterford. A boat has turned over, a woman and some children are clinging to it. A man arrives in another boat; yay, they’re saved! But he can’t get his boat close enough. Come on, you idiot, stop shining your torch at them, nudge up closer, throw a rope, do something.

JazzObituaryRamsey Lewis obituaryAmerican jazz pianist whose influence stretched from Britfunk groups in the 1970s to modern performers such as Mariah CareyThe American jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis, who has died aged 87, enjoyed considerable crossover success. For almost 60 years Lewis was one of the world’s most popular jazz musicians: a knack for interpreting pop songs as jazz instrumentals won him youthful audiences and helped make Lewis’s records part of the soundtrack to British club culture.