Abbé Pierre, a Roman Catholic priest who crusaded against homelessness in France, is such a celebrated figure in the country that television viewers once voted him the third-greatest French person of all time. Streets, schools and public parks are named for him. He was seen as a steady moral compass for the nation, even after he died at age 94 in 2007.

But over the past two months a much darker image has emerged: that of an accused sexual predator.

Years after his death, Abbé Pierre is facing a sudden profusion of sexual harassment and assault accusations — a stunning fall from grace that has prompted soul-searching at the social justice movement he started; raised uncomfortable questions about who knew about his behavior toward women; and unsettled a country that once hailed him as a symbol of virtue.

“The image of purity, of solidarity, of empathy that he had is crumbling,” said Axelle Brodiez-Dolino, a historian at France’s National Center for Scientific Research who has written a book about Abbé Pierre and Emmaüs, one of the nonprofit organizations that grew out of the movement he founded to address poverty and homelessness.

“That doesn’t change the good that he did in the past,” she added. “But there was a dark side to him that the broader public was completely unaware of.”

Two reports, commissioned by the nonprofits and published in July and this month, have laid bare accusations that Abbé Pierre sexually harassed or assaulted at least two dozen women between the 1950s and the 2000s, mostly in France but sometimes abroad, including in the United States. The accusations have been made by the women themselves, by members of their families, or by witnesses.

One woman said Abbé Pierre groped and kissed her when she was 8 and 9 years old in the mid-1970s. Another said he forced her to watch him masturbate and to perform oral sex on him in 1989. Yet another said Abbé Pierre abused her after she asked for help finding housing in the early 1990s.

The reports do not publicly identify anyone who came forward, but say the accusers were nonprofit employees or volunteers, members of families close to him, staff members at establishments he visited or people he met through his charitable endeavors.

The reports were compiled by Groupe Egaé, a private consulting firm that specializes in preventing sexual and sexist violence. It conducted an investigation at the request of the nonprofits — the Abbé Pierre Foundation, Emmaüs France and Emmaüs International — after a woman came forward privately in 2023, accusing the priest of sexual assault. The organizations say they believe the accusers and expect more to come forward.

“Our movement knows what it owes to Abbé Pierre,” the organizations said in a joint statement. “Now, we must also confront the unacceptable suffering that he forced upon others.”

Abbé Pierre, born Henri Antoine Grouès in 1912 into a wealthy silk-merchant family from Lyon, entered a Capuchin monastery at age 18. He fought with the French Resistance during World War II, served as a chaplain in the French Navy and became a lawmaker.

He campaigned for the homeless, issuing a famous radio call for shelter and supplies during the harsh winter of 1954. That effort inspired a 1956 law that is still in effect in France, making it illegal to evict tenants during the coldest winter months.

After that, not even the occasional brush with controversy dented his national image. He topped a newspaper ranking of France’s most popular personalities 17 times.

Now the nonprofits he left behind are scrambling to distance themselves from a man who was inextricably linked to their work. While he was rarely involved in the day-to-day running of their operations, his scruffy beard, black beret and cape made him an instantly recognizable advocate.

The Abbé Pierre Foundation said that it was going to change its name. Emmaüs France said it would move to remove his name from its logo. An independent commission of experts will investigate how he was able to act unimpeded for more than half a century.

“What we are trying to do through these measures isn’t to forget Abbé Pierre or obfuscate his role,” said Adrien Chaboche, the chief executive of Emmaüs International. “What we are changing is the way that we, as a movement and as associations, present ourselves to the world — and we can’t do that with a figurehead who now embodies such a disgraceful and reprehensible reality.”

They are not the only ones reassessing his legacy. Some cities in France have said they would be stripping his name from public spaces. Nancy, in the east, said it would remove a plaque honoring Abbé Pierre that was affixed only months ago.

How much of his behavior was known to those close to him is unclear. The reports, and investigations in the French news media, suggest that some people close to him knew he had a problematic attitude toward women.

Some victims had alerted nonprofit colleagues or managers of the abuse, the reports said. One charity worker cited said female colleagues were advised not to meet with Abbé Pierre alone. And Martin Hirsch, who was president of Emmaüs France from 2002 to 2007, wrote in a newspaper in July that it was an open secret within the organization that he had once been sent to a psychiatric clinic in Switzerland “because his attitude toward women was problematic.”

Abbé Pierre had publicly confessed later in his life to having sexual relations with women as a priest. But years before the #MeToo movement and broader scrutiny of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in France, the focus appeared to have been more on whether he had broken his vows — and less on whether those relations were consensual.

Pope Francis said on Friday that he did not know when the Vatican had learned about the abuse but added that “certainly after his death, it became known.”

“Abbé Pierre was a man who did a lot of good but was also a sinner,” the pope said on the plane returning from a trip to Southeast Asia and Oceania. “We must speak clearly about these things and not hide them.”

Agnès Desmazières, a historian who has written a book about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, drew a parallel with the case of Jean Vanier, the Canadian founder of a French charity who was accused after his death of engaging in several abusive sexual relationships.

Mr. Vanier and Abbé Pierre were both charismatic figures admired for their charity work, she said. Each has since been accused of using that reputation to abuse women.

“In a way,” Ms. Desmazières said, “Abbé Pierre’s charitable success protected him.”

Ségolène Le Stradic contributed reporting.

One is a colossus spanning theme parks, merchandise and movies, with 150 Academy Awards, 225,000 employees and annual revenue of nearly $90 billion.

The other is a third-generation family firm with 280 workers that packages hot sauce, soy beans, multicolored sprinkles, a herb called horsetail, six varieties of panettone and seven kinds of salt for sale in Paraguayan supermarkets.

Yet Mickey (MEE-kay) is a household name to rival Disney across the little-touristed South American nation of 6.1 million. In fact, a visitor might assume they’re partners.

There are the red uniforms worn by Mickey’s staff. There’s its family-friendly slogan: “the obligation to be good!”

Above all, there’s the cartoon mouse — also called Mickey, and indistinguishable from Mickey Mouse — whose iconic circular ears adorn the gates of the company’s factory, its trucks and a mascot in heavy demand at Paraguayan weddings.

But don’t get it twisted, said Viviana Blasco, 51, sitting in the capital, Asunción, among Mickey-branded stationery, T-shirts, and coffee cups.

There’s “the Disney Mickey,” said Ms. Blasco, one of five siblings who run the business, and “the Paraguayan Mickey, our Mickey.”

Still, if the Paraguayan Mickey seems remarkably similar to the Disney one, it may not be entirely a coincidence.

Paraguayans are notoriously creative — some would say light-fingered — when it comes to intellectual property.

Factories churn out knockoff Nike, Lacoste, and Adidas clothing. Paraguay’s educational authorities warned last year that Harvard University Paraguay — in Ciudad del Este, the country’s second-largest city and a counterfeiting hot spot — was awarding bogus medical degrees. (The school has no connection to the more famous Harvard.)

Paraguay ranks 86th out of 125 countries in an index compiled by the Property Rights Alliance, a research institute based in Washington, scoring 1.7 out of 10 for copyright protection.

But Mickey, the Blasco family enterprise, has survived multiple legal challenges leveled by Disney.

It is also a remarkably beloved institution that speaks to Paraguay’s peculiar history, gastronomy and national identity.

The Mickey saga began, Ms. Blasco said, in 1935.

Paraguay had just endured a deadly conflict with Bolivia over the Chaco, a tangle of sun-baked scrub. An earlier conflagration, the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-70), had seen Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay wipe out half of Paraguay’s population.

It was still reeling from both.

Ms. Blasco’s grandfather, Pascual, the son of Italian immigrants, saw an opportunity to spread some joy — and turn a profit. He opened a tiny shop selling fruit and homemade gelato. It was called Mickey.

Exactly where the idea came from, said Ms. Blasco, remains “something of a mystery.”

But Pascual, she said, often vacationed in Buenos Aires — Argentina’s cosmopolitan capital, known for movie theaters showing international films. Mickey Mouse was making his silver-screen debut, including in “The Gallopin’ Gaucho” (1928).

“On one of his trips, he must have seen the famous mouse,” Ms. Blasco said.

Whatever its origins, Mickey was a hit. A few years later, Pascual opened the Mickey Ice Cream Parlor, Café and Confectioners.

By 1969, Mickey was selling rice, sugar and baking soda in packages now decorated with the eponymous mouse. In 1978, the business moved to a factory topped by a 62-meter illuminated Christmas tree.

Ms. Blasco denied that her family had appropriated Disney’s property.

“We didn’t take it, we built a brand over many years. Mickey grew in parallel to Walt Disney,” Ms. Blasco said, becoming “deeply implanted in Paraguayan culture.”

That affinity was evident at several stores that stock Mickey products in Luque, a working-class suburb of Asunción.

The Mickey mascot was taking photos with fans, including Lilian Pavón, 54, a pediatric nurse. “I’m a fanatic of Mickey products,” she said, praising, in particular, the company’s breadcrumbs and oregano.

But her feelings for the 7-foot felt rodent go beyond condiments, she added, as Mickey bumped fists with shoppers and distributed ring-shaped biscuits called chipa.

As children, she said, she and her friends hoarded Mickey Mouse pencil cases, notebooks and stickers. They dreamed of visiting Disneyland or Walt Disney World. But the cost of flying to Anaheim or Orlando made the pilgrimage “impossible,” even as an adult, Ms. Pavón said.

“I’m happy just to see Mickey in places like this,” she added, standing in the chilled meats aisle of El Cacique, a budget supermarket.

Mickey resonates with Paraguayans’ sense of nostalgia, said Euge Aquino, a TV chef and social media influencer who uses its ingredients to make comfort food like pastel mandi’o (yuca and beef empanadas).

Paraguay is not known for its haute cuisine, she admitted.

It’s flat, hot, and a long way from foreign foodie trends.

“Our climate is pretty difficult,” Ms. Aquino, 41 said, “so you cultivate and eat whatever grows.”

What grows is mainly yuca or cassava and corn, which is sacred to the native Guaraní people. But what local dishes lack in pizazz, she said, they make up for in flavor and meaning.

Paraguayans still knead yuca starch and milled corn to make chipa during Holy Week. They infuse their yerba mate with fragrant herbs like boldo, burro, and begonias. They stuff their soups, stews and casseroles with aniseed, saffron, cloves, nutmeg, paprika and cilantro, all purveyed by Mickey in serving-size sachets.

“A moment, a taste, an aroma is a memory,’’ said Ms. Aquino, as a sopa paraguaya — a spongy “soup” made with Mickey corn flour — turned golden-brown in her oven. “And that memory can generate so many emotions. It’s your mom’s or your grandmother’s cooking.’’

Mickey’s popularity, she said, also has a lot to do with the mascot handing out candy outside the factory gates every Christmas: a tradition dating back to 1983.

Ms Aquino recalled feeling goose bumps as she waited outside the factory during the annual festivity in the early 1990s.

“There was no social media, there were no cellphones, there was nothing,” Ms. Aquino said. “Then suddenly Mickey comes along, and you’re like, ‘Wow!’ It was madness.”

“He’s a rock star,” she said.

By now, a “peaceful coexistence” reigns between Mickey and its United States doppelgänger, said Elba Rosa Britez, 72, the smaller company’s lawyer.

This truce was hard-won.

In 1991, Disney filed a trademark violation claim with Paraguay’s Ministry of Business and Industry that was rejected. The company then filed a lawsuit, but in 1995 a trademark tribunal ruled in Mickey’s favor.

Disney appealed again, taking the dispute to Paraguay’s highest court.

There, one judge agreed that Paraguayans could easily confuse the Disney Mickey and the Paraguayan Mickey.

But Disney didn’t reckon on a “legal loophole,” Ms Britez explained.

The Mickey trademark had been registered in Paraguay since at least 1956 — and Pascual’s descendants had since renewed it — without protest from the multinational.

In 1998, Paraguay’s Supreme Court issued its final ruling. Through decades of uninterrupted use, Mickey had acquired the right to be Mickey.

“I jumped for joy,” Ms Britez said.

Mickey’s legal immunity in Paraguay, Ms. Blasco acknowledged, might not extend to selling its products abroad. “We’ve never tried.”

The Paraguayan firm that represented Disney declined to comment. Disney officials did not respond to requests for comment.

During a recent national holiday, the man inside the Mickey mascot costume was warming up in an air-conditioned metal container inside the company’s factory that serves as his office.

Ms. Blasco asked The New York Times to withhold Mickey’s identity from the Paraguayan public to preserve some of the “magic” behind the mascot.

“Seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces is priceless,” the mascot said, before straightening his bow-tie and strolling out to his adoring public.

“Mickey!” they shouted, “Mickey!”

Mickey posed for photos, scattered sweets into strollers and passed popcorn through car windows to wide-eyed toddlers. Bus drivers honked their horns. A road-building crew waved. A worker leaned out of a garbage truck, pumped his fist and yelled: “Hey, Mickey!”

Some lining up to meet the mascot said Mickey’s David-vs-Goliath triumph against Disney filled them with national pride.

“It’s nice,” laughed Maria del Mar Caceres, 25, a stay-at-home mother. “At least we won at something.”

President Biden’s deliberations with Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain about whether to allow Ukraine to attack Russia with long-range Western weapons were fresh evidence that the president remains deeply fearful of setting off a dangerous, wider conflict.

But the decision now facing Mr. Biden after Friday’s closed-door meeting at the White House — whether to sign off on the use of long-range missiles made by Britain and France — could be far more consequential than previous concessions by the president that delivered largely defensive weapons to Ukraine during the past two and a half years.

In remarks at the start of his meeting with Mr. Starmer, the president underscored his support for helping Ukraine defend itself but did not say whether he was willing to do more to allow for long-range strikes deep into Russia.

“We’re going to discuss that now,” the president told reporters.

For his part, the prime minister noted that “the next few weeks and months could be crucial — very, very important that we support Ukraine in this vital war of freedom.”

European officials said earlier in the week that Mr. Biden appeared ready to approve the use of British and French long-range missiles, a move that Mr. Starmer and officials in France have said they want to provide a united front in the conflict with Russia. But Mr. Biden has hesitated to allow Ukraine to use arms provided by the United States in the same way over fears that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia would see it as a major escalation.

On Thursday, Mr. Putin responded to reports that America and its allies were considering such a move by declaring that it would “mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia,” according to a report by the Kremlin.

Mr. Biden and Mr. Starmer offered little insight on Friday into the actions they planned to take. But officials on both sides of the Atlantic said they did not expect any announcement immediately after the White House meeting. In the past, Western countries have begun providing new military equipment to Ukraine without announcing the decision publicly.

“This wasn’t about a particular decision that we’ll obviously pick up again in UNGA in just a few days’ time with a wider group of individuals,” Mr. Starmer told reporters after the meeting, referring to the annual meeting in New York of the United Nations General Assembly at the end of the month.

But he also hinted that he expected a decision about the missiles to come soon.

“I think if you look at both the Ukrainian situation and the Middle East, it is obvious that in the coming weeks and months there are really important potential developments, whatever timetable is going on in other countries,” he said.

John F. Kirby, the national security spokesman at the White House, said Friday that the Biden administration takes Mr. Putin’s threats seriously because he has proved himself capable of “aggression” and “escalation.” But Mr. Kirby added that there had been no change in Mr. Biden’s opposition to letting Ukraine use U.S. missiles to strike deep inside Russia.

“There is no change to our view on the provision of long-range strike capabilities for Ukraine to use inside Russia, and I wouldn’t expect any sort of major announcement in that regard coming out of the discussions, certainly not from our side,” he said.

Mr. Kirby’s comments came just hours before the two leaders met for their first lengthy conversation since Mr. Starmer became prime minister in early July.

The question of whether to let Ukraine use the long-range weapons that can travel 150 to 200 miles has been a rare point of disagreement between British and American officials, who have largely been in lock step on strategy over the past 30 months of fighting.

British officials have argued that Ukraine cannot be expected to fight effectively unless it can attack the military sites that Russia is using to shoot missiles or the airplanes that deliver “glide bombs.” And they believe that Mr. Putin, for all his nuclear threats warning that war between Russia and European forces could be coming, is largely bluffing. Mr. Putin, they say, has shown he does not want to bring NATO directly into the fighting.

Mr. Biden’s view has been far more cautious.

He has hesitated at every major decision point, starting with shipping HIMARS artillery, then through debates on whether to send M1 Abrams tanks, F-16 fighters, and short- and long-range ATACMS, a missile system critical to American preparations to defend both Europe and the Korean Peninsula.

But those decisions have primarily helped Ukraine’s military defend its territory and try to repel the Russian invasion. Over time, his aides say, they have discovered that Mr. Putin was less sensitive to the introduction of new weapons into the battlefield than they had thought. So they have gradually approved more capable, longer-range arms for Ukraine.

The questions of how Mr. Putin would react to the use of American weapons by Ukraine to strike deep inside Russian territory, officials say, could lead to a very different outcome.

“When he starts brandishing the nuclear sword, for instance, yeah, we take that seriously, and we constantly monitor that kind of activity,” Mr. Kirby said. “We have our own calculus for what we decide to provide to Ukraine and what not.”

The American concerns are twofold. The first has been rooted in Mr. Biden’s concern that the war not escalate; time and again he has told members of his staff that their No. 1 priority was to “avoid World War III.”

The second American concern is a practical one: Pentagon officials do not believe Ukraine has enough of the ATACMS, the British Storm Shadow and the French SCALP missiles to make a strategic difference on the battlefield. The reach of the missiles, they note, is well known — and Russia has already moved its most valuable aircraft beyond the range the missiles can fly.

Moreover, the U.S. officials say, they simply cannot supply many more to Ukraine. The Pentagon has warned that it must keep a healthy reserve of weapons in case of an outbreak of fighting in either Europe or Asia. And the missiles are so expensive that they contend Ukraine could get more firepower putting that money into drones.

So in the American telling of events, the decisions being debated by Mr. Biden and Mr. Starmer are more symbolic than substantive.

Looming over this is the American election.

In the debate against Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday, former President Donald J. Trump declined several opportunities to say he was committed to Ukraine’s victory. Instead, he talked of striking a deal, one that Ukraine may be coerced to sign.

While Ms. Harris is likely to continue the outlines of the American strategy, providing more arms and aid to Ukraine as long as Congress keeps the spigot open, Mr. Trump has made clear he is uninterested in continuing to spend heavily. And while Europe has stepped up, it does not have enough of an arsenal to make much of a difference.

Early this summer, Amin Abed, a Palestinian activist who has spoken out publicly about Hamas, twice found bullets on his doorstep in northern Gaza.

Then in July, he said he was attacked by Hamas security operatives, who covered his head and dragged him away before repeatedly striking him with hammers and metal bars.

“At any moment, I can be killed by the Israeli occupation, but I can face the same fate at the hands of those who’ve been ruling us for 17 years,” he said in a phone interview from his hospital bed, referring to Hamas. “They almost killed me, those killers and criminals.”

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Senator JD Vance outlined a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine. But objectively, it sounds a lot like Vladimir Putin’s.

Mr. Vance’s critics immediately said he had described a Russian victory, while his supporters said he had offered the only realistic path to peace.

In an interview with “The Shawn Ryan Show” that was posted on Thursday, Mr. Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, was asked about former President Donald J. Trump’s plans to end the war.

Mr. Vance said Mr. Trump would sit down with Russians, Ukrainians and Europeans and say, “You guys need to figure out what a peaceful settlement looks like.” He went on to outline what he thinks a deal would entail: The Russians would retain the land they have taken and a demilitarized zone would be established along the current battle lines, with the Ukrainian side heavily fortified to prevent another Russian invasion.

While the remainder of Ukraine would remain an independent sovereign state, Mr. Vance said, Russia would get a “guarantee of neutrality” from Ukraine.

“It doesn’t join NATO, it doesn’t join some of these sort of allied institutions,” Mr. Vance said. “I think that’s ultimately what this looks like.”

Victoria J. Nuland, a former senior State Department official who helped shape the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy, said Mr. Vance’s plan was very similar to what Mr. Putin had repeatedly offered as peace terms.

“This is essentially the proposal put forward in February,” she said. “And why? Because it is a great gift to him.”

The Kremlin’s terms for ending the war have focused on Russia keeping the territory it has captured and forcing Ukraine to become neutral, meaning it would not join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Biden administration officials have long insisted those demands amount to capitulation, not negotiation.

Ms. Nuland questioned who would enforce a demilitarized zone, given that there was little appetite for a large international peacekeeping force. Absent that or other robust security guarantees, Mr. Putin would simply bide his time and then restart the war, she said.

“Putin will just wait, rest, refit and come for the rest,” Ms. Nuland said.

Another problem with Mr. Vance’s vision is that it ignores the will of the Ukrainians, who insist they want to keep fighting to regain their lost territory, said Luke Coffey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank.

“I don’t think he offered a realistic proposal for peace,” Mr. Coffey said. “He offered a plan for a Russian victory.”

Mr. Vance’s plan has worried Ukrainians. Oleksandr Merezhko, the chairman of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, called the proposal “election rhetoric which will hardly stand the test of political reality.”

He said what was “conspicuously absent” from Mr. Vance’s description of Mr. Trump’s peace plan was “the issue of reliable security guarantees for Ukraine.”

But Elbridge A. Colby, who was a Pentagon official during the Trump administration, said Mr. Vance’s plan was based on a realistic assessment of the current status of the war, which began in February 2022.

Mr. Colby said Russia was continuing to make significant progress in eastern Ukraine and counterattacking in Kursk, a Russian region that the Ukrainian military has occupied since last month. Wars usually end roughly along the line of contact between two opposing armies. And he said there was no plausible basis for thinking Ukraine would gain the upper hand.

Mr. Colby said Mr. Vance’s statement ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine was the right policy choice, and that an expansion of the alliance farther east was not in America’s security interests. But he said Mr. Vance’s comments do not rule out economic and social ties with Europe, or even other security contributions.

“Senator Vance is being realistic and putting out forthrightly a realistic basis for ending the conflict,” he said, “while other people are engaged in a kind of irresponsible fantasy.”

Of course, it is not entirely clear that Mr. Vance was speaking for Mr. Trump. At times Mr. Trump has embraced Mr. Vance’s policy positions and other times pushed back on them. Mr. Coffey said that during his presidency, Mr. Trump showed that he often ignores advice from top officials, and there is no guarantee that Mr. Vance’s plan will be adopted. Still, he added, the two men appear in alignment.

“Listening to what Trump has said, and listening to what Vance has said, I would say Vance is probably in the ballpark,” Mr. Coffey said. “But what matters at the end of the day is what Trump does or does not want to do.”

Edward Wong contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.

Three American citizens were among 37 people sentenced to death on Friday for their role in a coup attempt in the Democratic Republic of Congo four months ago.

In an attempted coup on May 19, which the military of the central African nation said it had foiled, three people were killed in a gunfight near the presidential palace and armed men briefly occupied an office of the presidency.

The coup leader, Christian Malanga, an opponent of the Congolese government who ran a minor opposition party, streamed the attack live before security forces killed him. His son, Marcel Malanga, was among those who received the death penalty, along with his high school friend Tyler Thompson. Both are American citizens in their 20s.

In July, Marcel Malanga told the court he was not involved in planning the coup and that he and Mr. Thompson had been forced to join in while visiting his father.

“Dad had threatened to kill us if we did not follow his orders,” Reuters quoted him as saying.

The 37 people were convicted of criminal conspiracy, terrorism and other charges, while 14 others were acquitted. The third American, Benjamin Zalman-Polun, was a business associate of Christian Malanga.

Among those convicted was Jean-Jacques Wondo, a prominent researcher of political and security issues in Africa’s Great Lakes region and a dual citizen of the D.R.C. and Belgium.

Military officers have seized power in several African nations in the last four years, riding waves of public dissatisfaction with elected leaders, who are often seen as corrupt, self-interested and anti-democratic.

Christian Malanga called his movement New Zaïre. The Democratic Republic of Congo was rechristened Zaïre by its longtime president, Mobutu Sese Seko, who seized power in a 1965 coup, before the country reverted to its previous name in 1997.

In a video filmed in the president’s offices before he was killed, Mr. Malanga accused the president, Félix Tshisekedi, of “doing stupid things.” Dressed in military fatigues, boots and, in at least one case, flip-flops, a few dozen of his men waved his flag, featuring a hand carrying a torch.

The verdict was read out at the military prison where the defendants were being held on the outskirts of Kinshasa, and it was broadcast on Congolese television. Dressed in blue-and-yellow prison uniforms, they listened to their fate from the pen erected for them in the prison yard. The Americans sat together on blue plastic chairs, occasionally whispering to each other.

Although the D.R.C. has never abolished the death penalty, there was a moratorium on executions for over two decades. But in March, the government announced it would start executing people again, a decision that human rights organizations condemned.

President Tshisekedi has himself called the country’s justice system “sick.”

Asked his advice to Catholic voters in the coming U.S. presidential election, Pope Francis said they must choose the “lesser of two evils” because “both are against life” — Kamala Harris for her support for abortion rights, and Donald Trump for closing the door to immigrants.

“Sending migrants away, not allowing them to grow, not letting them have life is something wrong; it is cruelty,” Francis said in a news conference on the plane as he returned to Rome after his long trip to Southeast Asia and Oceania. “Sending a child away from the womb of the mother is murder because there is life. And we must speak clearly about these things.”

The remarks came as Francis, 87, concluded a grueling 11-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region that included stops in Jakarta, East Timor and Singapore, showcasing his commitment to reach out to the faithful in what he calls “the peripheries” and to build a less Eurocentric church that looks to Asia.

His stance on the American presidential race reflects the divide among Catholic voters in the United States, who in previous elections have been just as split between the parties as the larger electorate. The American bishops’ conference similarly advises Catholics to take the array of church teaching into account in the voting booth and does not endorse candidates — although some bishops weigh in more explicitly.

Francis described the rejection of migrants as a “grave sin” and “cruelty,” and abortion as “murder.” He said that both “are against life” and clearly wrong.

But when asked whether it would be morally admissible to vote for someone who favored the right to abortion, he responded: “One must vote. And one must choose the lesser evil. Which is the lesser evil? That lady or that gentleman? I don’t know. Each person must think and decide according to his or her own conscience.”

Francis did not mention either candidate by name.

Francis was also asked about the situation in Gaza, where more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in 11 months of the war that began after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7 last year.

“When you see the bodies of children killed, when you hear that schools are bombed because guerrillas might be inside, it’s horrifying. It’s horrible, it’s horrible,” Francis said.

“It’s sometimes said that this is a defensive war, but sometimes I believe that it’s a war, too much, too much,” the pope said, his words faltering. “I apologize for saying this, but I don’t see steps being taken toward peace.”

Francis added that he spoke every day to a parish in Gaza where both Christians and Muslims attend its schools. “They tell me horrible stories, difficult things,” he said, adding that the Holy See had been working to help mediate a cease-fire.

Francis’s views on abortion and migration were nothing new. But they became particularly relevant in the context of the coming elections in the United States, in which both are central issues.

“Both are against life: the one that throws out migrants and the one that kills children,” Francis said.

The Roman Catholic Church considers abortion a grave sin, and Francis has often referred to abortion as murder, even in the case of a fetus that is ill or has pathological disorders. In 2018, he compared abortion to contracting “a hit man to solve a problem,” and in his most recent papal document, issued this year, he firmly restated the church’s rejection of abortion, the death penalty and euthanasia.

At the same time, he has made the plight of migrants a centerpiece of his papacy, urging compassion and charity for the millions who have been forced to leave their homelands because of war, poverty or famine.

His first trip as pope, in 2013, was to Lampedusa, the island off Italy that in recent decades has become the entry point to Europe for countless migrants crossing the Mediterranean. There, he denounced the “globalization of indifference” to their plight.

He has since relentlessly denounced human trafficking and called for safe migration routes, and has said repeatedly that rejecting migrants is a grave sin. Last month, speaking to his last general audience before the trip to Asia and the Pacific, Francis told those present in St. Peter’s Square, “It needs to be said clearly: There are those who systematically work by all means to drive away migrants, and this, when done knowingly and deliberately, is a grave sin.”

Francis has put caring for migrants and opposing abortion on equal footing, saying in a 2018 document that both were holy pursuits.

It is also not the first time Francis inserted himself into a United States presidential race. In 2016, during the Republican primary, Pope Francis suggested that Mr. Trump was “not Christian” because of his campaign promises to deport more immigrants and to force Mexico to pay for a wall along the border.

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis said at the time, returning to Rome from Mexico on the papal plane.

On another in-flight news conference, he weighed in on whether communion should be given to politicians like President Biden who support abortion rights, saying that he had never denied communion to anyone.

On Friday’s flight, Francis also talked about the Vatican’s relationship to China. He has sought to improve relations with the country but still has not visited it, despite reaching a groundbreaking and sharply criticized deal on the appointment of bishops that is set to be renewed in October. Francis has continued his outreach to Asia, completing on Friday his tour of about a dozen countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

“China is a promise and a hope for the church,” he said on Friday, adding that he was happy about the discussions they were having with the country. “I would love to visit China.”

One of the largest counterterrorism operations against the Islamic State in Iraq in recent years killed four top insurgent leaders last month, the U.S. military said on Friday, dealing the group a major blow at a time when its attacks in Iraq and Syria are on the rise.

The raid by American and Iraqi commandos against several Islamic State hide-outs in western Iraq on Aug. 29 killed at least 14 insurgents and devastated the group’s top leadership in the country, according to a statement from the Pentagon’s Central Command and U.S. counterterrorism officials.

Among the dead the military identified was Ahmad Hamid al-Ithawi, the top ISIS commander in Iraq and one of the group’s most well-established veterans. Two senior commanders for ISIS operations in western Iraq were also killed, the military’s statement said.

Another main target killed was Abu Ali al-Tunisi, a Tunisian national who was the subject of a $5 million reward from the U.S. government, the military revealed on Friday. Mr. al-Tunisi has been ISIS’s most significant designer, manufacturer and teacher in explosives — including improvised devices, suicide vests and car bombs, counterterrorism officials said.

“The raid appears to have effectively killed off ISIS’ entire command in Anbar,” Charles Lister, the director of the Middle East Institute’s Syria and counterterrorism programs, wrote in a Substack newsletter, “Syria Weekly,” on Friday. Anbar is a vast province in western Iraq that has been a locus for violent Sunni extremists for years.

Central Command and the Iraqi military offered scant details when they announced the raid on Aug. 30, even though it was one of the most sweeping counterterrorism missions in the country in years.

Seven U.S. soldiers were injured as more than 200 troops from both countries — including elite Army Rangers backing up the main assault force — hunted down fighters in bunkers over miles of remote terrain, U.S. and Iraqi officials said, adding that the size, scope and focus of the mission underscored the terrorist organization’s resurgence in recent months.

The joint operation in Anbar province came even as Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, and Iraqi military commanders say they can keep ISIS under control without U.S.-led assistance. Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that would wind down the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq over the next two years. There are about 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq and 900 in neighboring Syria.

Central Command, however, announced in July that the number of attacks claimed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria was on track to double this year from last year. ISIS asserted responsibility for 153 attacks in the two countries in the first six months of 2024, the command said, but the military has repeatedly refused to provide a country-by-country breakdown of the figures.

“With ISIS resurgent next door in Syria and U.S. troops now scheduled to depart Iraq by the end of 2026, degrading ISIS’s leadership and capabilities in Iraq is more vital than ever,” Mr. Lister wrote.

The United States and other allied forces have helped Iraqi forces carry out more than 250 counterterrorism missions since October, according to Pentagon officials.

But this operation was unusual in the heavy presence of American commandos leading the initial raid. More than 100 U.S. Special Operations forces and other troops joined a smaller number of Iraqi soldiers in the main helicopter-borne, predawn assault.

Central Command in its statement said the raids “served to disrupt and degrade ISIS’ ability to plan, organize and conduct attacks against Iraqi civilians, as well as U.S. citizens, allies and partners throughout the region and beyond.”

Besides killing the ISIS insurgents, the American and Iraqi commandos scooped up a trove of cellphones, computers and other sources of information from the raids, military officials said on Friday. U.S. analysts will first quickly assess the information to determine if it holds clues that commandos could use to carry out immediate attacks against other high-priority targets.

Counterterrorism analysts will then spend months poring over the data to learn more about the group’s leaders, finances, operations and planning.

Brazil’s Supreme Court had a problem: X, the social network owned by Elon Musk, was not paying fines and had already been blocked across the nation.

So the court looked elsewhere: It made a different Musk-controlled company help settle the bill.

On Friday, Brazil’s Supreme Court said two banks in Brazil had complied with its orders to deduct $3.3 million in fines from the Brazilian accounts of X and Starlink, two companies controlled by Mr. Musk.

One of the court’s justices, Alexandre de Moraes, had issued the fines and blocked X across Brazil last month because Mr. Musk had defied his orders to block certain accounts on the social network and then closed the company’s office in Brazil to avoid any consequences.

In an effort to collect on the fines against X, Justice Moraes froze the local assets of Starlink, a satellite-internet service controlled by Mr. Musk that has surged in popularity in Brazil.

On Friday, the court said the banks had transferred to the Brazilian government $1.3 million from X’s local accounts and $2 million from Starlink’s. The court said the companies’ assets were no longer frozen in Brazil.

The development signaled an end to one of the more unusual aspects of the monthslong dispute between Justice Moraes and Mr. Musk. The two have battled over what can be said on X, with Justice Moraes arguing that certain accounts were illegally attacking Brazilian institutions and Mr. Musk responding that the judge was illegally censoring voices. The social network remains blocked in Brazil.

Justice Moraes determined that Starlink could be responsible for X’s fines because they were from the same “de facto economic group.” Some legal experts in Brazil questioned that interpretation, but the court said the two companies had missed the deadline to appeal.

Starlink had asked the court to unfreeze its assets, but another Brazilian Supreme Court justice quickly rejected the request.

Mr. Musk called the move to freeze Starlink’s assets “absolutely illegal,” noting that Starlink is owned by the private space company SpaceX. Mr. Musk said he owns 40 percent of SpaceX. Company filings show he also controls a majority of voting shares.

Starlink had previously supported X in its dispute. After Justice Moraes ordered the site to be blocked, Starlink told regulators it would not comply and would allow its 250,000 users in Brazil to keep using X. But two days later, faced with potentially losing its license in the country, Starlink agreed to block the site.