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| - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro named an actor and telenovela star, Mario Frias, as his new culture secretary Friday, replacing another soap opera star in the post a month after she quit. Frias, 48, who rose to fame as a heartthrob on teen soap "Malhacao" in the 1990s, will be the fifth person to hold the post in Bolsonaro's 18 months in office. He replaces Regina Duarte, an actress known as "Brazil's Sweetheart" for a lifetime of roles on famous telenovelas. The culture post, which Bolsonaro downgraded from a ministry, has been rife with controversy under the far-right leader, whom critics accuse of using it to wage a "culture war" on the left. Duarte's predecessor, theater director Roberto Alvim, was forced to resign in January after he paraphrased a speech by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Duarte for her part reportedly clashed with Bolsonaro over the president's calls to root out supposed left-wing bias among her staff. Bolsonaro has lost a series of high-profile cabinet members recently. They include popular justice minister Sergio Moro, who quit in April after accusing the president of interfering in police investigations; two health ministers, amid one of the world's worst coronavirus outbreaks; and most recently far-right firebrand Abraham Weintraub, the education minister, who resigned Thursday. jhb/bfm
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