Brasilia/Sao Paulo — Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in cities across Brazil on Wednesday to rally against education spending freezes in the biggest demonstrations yet against President Jair Bolsonaro, who called marchers “useful idiots and imbeciles”. Brazil’s National Student Union called for protests against what it called spending cuts, after the education ministry said it was freezing nearly a quarter of discretionary spending due to the government’s precarious fiscal situation. The marches in more than 200 cities, according to a count by the Globo TV network, mark the first national protests against the administration of the far-right Bolsonaro, whose poll numbers are falling as he struggles with a weak economy, rising unemployment, an unruly coalition in Congress and infighting within his cabinet. Speaking in Dallas, Texas, where he travelled to attend a gala dinner, Bolsonaro denied his government had cut education budgets and cast the protests as a partisan spectac...
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