Announcement by Marco Rubio is being widely seen as setback for Brazil’s president, and a boost for his far-right challenger

The United States has designated Brazil’s two largest criminal gangs, the First Capital Command (PCC) and the Red Command, as foreign terrorist organisations.

The announcement, made by Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, on Thursday, is being widely seen in Brazil as a setback for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the president who had strongly opposed the designation – and a boost for Lula’s main challenger in October’s presidential election, the far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro.

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Exclusive: Campaigners and victims call for urgent change after sentences for youths convicted of rape in England

Three teenage boys convicted of the rape and serious sexual assault of girls as young as 14 were given fines of £26 each and rehabilitation orders, the Guardian has learned.

The three separate cases all took place over the past year in north-east England. They were tried under youth court rules that deal with suspects aged 17 or under and place a greater emphasis on rehabilitation than adult courts.

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He rarely gives interviews and hates explaining his work – yet his stunning paintings, inspired by subcultures and German Romanticism, reveal a lot about this reclusive Canadian

Steven Shearer is a quiet man. He’s elusive, too, shy and reclusive. He is difficult to pin down for an interview. And once you have, it is tough to get him talking. Maybe the Canadian artist thinks his work – spanning 40 years and multiple media, including stunning paintings of long-haired teens, collages of appropriated images, and billboard-sized poetry inspired by heavy metal lyrics – speaks for itself. But Shearer’s work doesn’t really speak, at least not clearly; it mumbles awkwardly into its sleeve like a goth at a family Easter picnic.

“I wrote down lots of potential things to say,” he says from his immaculate white studio in Vancouver, ahead of his show at David Zwirner Gallery in London, his first UK exhibition since 2007, “but it’s not my nature. All the hope or will to be able to communicate kind of goes into the pictures. And I try to stay out of the way once that’s happened.”

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The creator of It’s a Sin is back – and he’s furious. His new series, Tip Toe, explores the rise of homophobia through a feud between two Manchester neighbours. He and stars Alan Cumming and David Morrissey talk death, fear and ‘joy as a form of protest’

Late at night on Manchester’s Canal Street, the heart of the city’s famous queer scene, two neighbours are at war. An escalating feud between gay bar manager Leo (Alan Cumming) and reserved, judgmental neighbour Clive (David Morrissey) shows no sign of abating. Yells from Leo are so loud they echo down the canal. The street is not closed to the public as their altercation plays out, so you can’t tell who in the background is an employee at Leo’s bar, Spit & Polish, who is a regular, and who is a member of the public out for their midweek pint. In the background, an ambulance’s lights flash while unflappable drag queens continue to flyer for their neighbouring bars.

Russell T Davies’s Tip Toe, a new Channel 4 drama, looks at how political rhetoric, toxic online bullying and misinformation can add jet fuel to a feud between neighbours. The location of the series won’t be lost on viewers of Queer As Folk. The 1999 classic, which regularly featured scenes shot in Canal Street, followed the lives of three gay men, in a way that not only made being gay seem cool, it also reflected a new era of tolerance. Viewers took from it that the future could only be bright.

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America's telecoms regulator has issued a public notice to broadcasters reminding them of their public interest obligations, a move that could be viewed as a veiled threat to toe the Trump administration line on content. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) document, published May 28, points out that federal law requires broadcasters to operate in the public interest, and that it has been charged with ensuring they only get to hold a license to broadcast so long as they meet that obligation. It also points out that available broadcast frequencies are a finite resource, so there are inevitably more would-be broadcasters than available spectrum licenses, and it falls to the government to pick the winners and losers when it comes to which organizations get one. "No broadcaster has a 'right' to use the pubic [sic] spectrum," it states. In fact, the document goes to great lengths to point out that broadcast spectrum is different from other media, such as newspapers or the internet, where there is no FCC obligation to identify and serve the needs of any particular community. Unlike essentially all other forms of distribution, "no one can broadcast without a license from the federal government due to the unique technical aspects of the public resource that they operate on." Broadcasters are prohibited from engaging in news distortion, the FCC says, which is pretty much uncontroversial, as is the requirement to provide equal opportunity to political candidates. They are also prohibited from airing obscene, indecent, and profane content, or broadcasting hoaxes, it says. But on the latter point, President Trump has labeled as a hoax any suggestion that the Russian government tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, for example. Would news reports discussing this topic therefore be considered to be broadcasting a hoax? The FCC goes on to claim that US courts have recognized there are limits on First Amendment rights for broadcasters, and if it finds that a media firm has failed to serve the public interest, it may take appropriate action. This may include unspecified enforcement action; attaching conditions to a renewal application or limiting it to a short-term basis; or requiring a licensee to file an early license renewal application. The FCC concludes by encouraging broadcasters to "review their current practices and confirm that they fully align with their statutory public interest obligation." The public notice comes against the backdrop of ABC being ordered to file early license renewal applications for eight owned stations after complaints about late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over jokes he made about First Lady Melania Trump. ABC criticized the move as "unlawful, arbitrary, and unconstitutional," according to reports. It has also been reported that more than 40 civil rights organizations are pushing back against an FCC inquiry asking whether TV content featuring transgender or non-binary people should include specific content warnings or revised ratings classifications. ®

In 2007 streed Danny Hoekzema, toen veertien jaar, ervoor dat jongeren onder de zestien óók een plek op de Pride kregen. De Amsterdamse burgemeester Job Cohen was eerst tegen, maar de jongerenboot kwam er. Een terugblik aan de vooravond van de Pride-maand.

De nieuwe elektrische Renault Twingo heeft aardige kanten, maar haalt het niet bij het origineel, ziet Bas van Putten. Aan boord een sympathieke digitale assistent met robotdictie.

gnsk has added a photo to the pool:

MOSKOU (ANP) - Het Kremlin komt snel met tegenmaatregelen tegen Roemenië, zegt de woordvoerder van Buitenlandse Zaken, Maria Zacharova.

Roemenië verklaarde eerder op vrijdag de Russische consul tot persona non grata en sloot het consulaat, nadat een volgens Roemenië Russische drone had geleid tot brand in een flat nabij de grens met Oekraïne. Daarbij raakten twee personen lichtgewond. Onafhankelijk bewijs dat het gaat om een Russische drone is er vooralsnog niet.

Het land omschreef het drone-incident als een ernstige en roekeloze escalatie van het Kremlin. Ook westerse bondgenoten spraken zich in vergelijkbare bewoordingen uit. NAVO-baas Mark Rutte verzekerde president Nicușor Dan vrijdag dat het militaire bondgenootschap zich zal inzetten voor het versterken van de droneluchtafweer in Roemenië.

Het land zelf kondigde aan nog vrijdag te investeren in betere droneafweer. Daarvoor wil het geld gebruiken uit het Europese SAFE-fonds, leningen bestemd voor defensiedoeleinden.