Bags of sugar that leave the Dalmia Bharat Sugar mill in the western Indian city of Kolhapur come with an industry guarantee: It was harvested humanely, in fields free of child labor, debt bondage and abuse.

None of that is true.

The mill is certified by a group called Bonsucro, which sets the industry standard for sugar production. Brands including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever and General Mills use the Bonsucro name to reassure customers that their supply chains demonstrate “respect for human rights,” even in places where abuses are widespread, like the region around the Dalmia mill.

But a New York Times investigation found that Bonsucro’s inspections were all but guaranteed not to find problems. Internal documents and interviews with sugar mill executives, experts and Bonsucro contractors show that mills retain tremendous control over what auditors see and whom they can talk to. The audits are carried out hurriedly — from the mill to the farms in a matter of days — and the details are kept secret, which prevents public second-guessing.

Even the auditor who said she inspected the Dalmia mill said turning up problems was extremely rare.

“I’ve been auditing for the last two years, and I have not found any violations,” said Swapnali Hirve, who said she also inspected a mill owned by NSL Sugars. Both mills are in the state of Maharashtra.

But women who cut sugar cane that ends up in these mills work in brutal conditions. In interviews, they told us that they were pushed into underage marriages so that they could cut sugar with their husbands. They were locked into years of debt by sugar mill contractors. Some, like thousands of other working-age women in this region, said they felt pressured to get unneeded hysterectomies to resolve common ailments like painful periods and keep working in the fields.

One woman we talked to said that a contractor for the NSL mill even lent her the money for the surgery.

Yet Bonsucro certified the Dalmia mill. Two framed certificates, bearing Bonsucro’s olive green logo, hung in the factory’s back room during a visit last fall. NSL’s mill also passed its inspections and is in the process of being certified, mill executives said last year.

The audits are particularly notable because Bonsucro was warned years ago about debt bondage and child labor in India, records show. And Bonsucro’s chief executive, Danielle Morley, said in an interview that she knew about the unusually high rate of hysterectomies among sugar cane cutters in Maharashtra — even before a Times investigation in March.

Ms. Morley said that inspectors were never specifically told to look for evidence of coerced hysterectomies but will be from now on. “Going forward,” she said, “that’s what we’ve committed to.”

But she said the problem had deep social and economic roots that Bonsucro alone could not solve.

Bonsucro engages in what is known as social auditing, an inspection process that certifies many products that people consume or wear — especially those with labels like “sustainably produced.” Sometimes companies do the auditing themselves. Often, they outsource it to one of a niche industry of firms.

Human rights groups have argued for years that social auditing paints over abuses. And scholars have questioned whether groups like Bonsucro improve labor conditions.

“The question you need to ask is, what is the ultimate purpose of these organizations?” said Philip Schleifer, a professor at the University of Amsterdam who has researched Bonsucro. “Is it really to address problems, or to serve powerful companies?”

In Maharashtra, human rights problems persist in part because practically everybody says they are someone else’s responsibility. Factory owners blame the middlemen contractors who hire the laborers. Dalmia and NSL executives, for example, say that they do not directly employ the laborers, do not dictate the working conditions in the fields and see hysterectomies as a wider issue unrelated to the industry.

Contractors, in turn, say the factories are responsible. Big sugar-buying companies — both Indian and international — say it is tough to monitor farms. And consumers often have no idea about the origins of the sugar in the products they buy.

Bonsucro was meant to help fix that. Instead, its inspections have sent a false message that sugar mills that profit off abusive labor are actually problem-free.

In Maharashtra, hysterectomies are an extreme yet common consequence of this abusive system. Sleeping on the ground, giving birth in the fields and forgoing doctor visits can cause a host of gynecological problems. Faced with the misery of menstruating in 100-degree heat without running water or shelter, many women have hysterectomies to end their periods or to treat routine health conditions. Removing a uterus and ovaries can have lasting health consequences, especially for a working-age woman.

“My working conditions in the sugar cane fields led me to have a hysterectomy,” said Anita Bhaisahab Waghmare, a sugar cane cutter in her 40s who said she had worked since she was 13 for a contractor for the Bonsucro-certified Dalmia mill.

Auditors, though, say they have too few chances to speak to workers like Ms. Waghmare. The inspection process is highly stage-managed. Factory executives say they tell inspectors which farms they can visit — and choose only the best.

Bonsucro employs 30 people, many of whom operate from a London co-working space. Contractors carry out Bonsucro inspections, which are typically paid for by the factories themselves.

“We’re trying to do the right thing in a difficult sector with relatively limited resources,” Ms. Morley said.

Bonsucro said that Dalmia was vetted under an old standard. Only some fields were audited and, while the factory itself was certified, only some of its sugar qualifies. When the factory is recertified, Bonsucro will look at its supply chain more broadly.

Even after a Times investigation linked both Dalmia and NSL to labor abuses, Bonsucro did not sever ties with either company. Ms. Morley said Bonsucro was in discussions with the companies about the reported abuse.

But in the supply chains of the two mills that were inspected, she said, auditors saw no evidence of it.

How Did This Happen?

Bonsucro was formed in the mid-2000s at a critical moment.

Brands like Nike had faced boycotts over child sweatshop labor. Oil companies were under fire for pollution. Western companies faced the possibility of government regulation at home over labor and environmental practices abroad.

Sugar had not come under particular scrutiny, but it was widely known as one of the world’s most exploitative industries, involving a water-guzzling crop that requires backbreaking labor to harvest. Sugar cane farming conjured images of the cruelty of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Other industries had developed an answer to this threat of regulation. They embraced social auditing and formed certification bodies to inspect supply chains and hold companies to a standard.

For companies, it was a win-win. It allowed them, not governments, to set standards. And it signaled to the public that they worked with clean factories and humane suppliers.

While most advocacy groups preferred government regulation, a few embraced this model. Passing laws is hard. Better, they figured, to get companies to change on their own.

That is how Bonsucro began, as a mix of nonprofit groups and big sugar buyers: the World Wildlife Fund, Coca-Cola, Cargill and others.

WWF got involved as part of its broader ecological mission because sugar consumes so much water. Its participation was novel for an environmental group, Professor Schleifer said. “Earlier, there was a focus on more confrontational tactics, like boycotts,” he said.

In a 2004 internal memo that we reviewed, Jason Clay, of WWF said that a certification program would provide needed oversight. “My assessment was, we would never get governments to set regulations,” Mr. Clay said in an interview. “But we could get companies to.”

The case for social auditing assumes that consumers will pay a premium for green, humanely made products. Customers seem willing, for instance, to pay a little more for products like coffee that are stamped with the Fairtrade logo.

Sugar is different. Sugar from a variety of sources gets mixed together before it arrives on grocery store shelves. And consumers do not necessarily drive sales of sugar. Big companies like Tate & Lyle, Coca-Cola and Unilever do.

And according to sugar mill owners and others involved with Bonsucro, big companies were rarely willing to pay a premium for certified sugar.

That conflict lies at the heart of Bonsucro. Its seal of approval carries little value with customers. So sugar mills have little financial incentive to improve their practices to seek certification.

“It sounds like a minor difference,” one former Bonsucro member said. “But it’s huge.”

‘This Isn’t the Real Scenario’

Bonsucro focused first on Latin America, where a few dominant players often control much of the sugar cane harvest. That made audits relatively straightforward.

India, the world’s second-largest sugar producer, was more complicated. Each mill buys from thousands of farms, all of which would need to be audited to truly certify a supply chain.

“Organizing the smallholder farmer world in relation to migrant workers is beyond what Bonsucro can solve,” said Jeroen Douglas, a sustainability activist who was involved in the discussions around Bonsucro’s founding.

When auditors arrive in Maharashtra, they face a daunting question: Which farms should they inspect?

NSL Sugars, for example, buys from thousands of farms, said A. Arulappan, a company executive. When Ms. Hirve, the auditor, arrived, the company provided her with a list to choose from.

“We select good, progressive farmers, with loyalty to our unit,” Mr. Arulappan said in an interview.

Ms. Hirve, who conducted Bonsucro audits on behalf of the firm Control Union, acknowledged starting with what the mills give her. “They submit a farmer list,” she said. “During the audit, we choose the sample randomly.”

Ms. Morley, the Bonsucro chief executive, said she was surprised to hear that mill executives handpicked the farms. She called it “problematic.”

Sugar mill officials then accompany auditors to farms, Mr. Arulappan said. But auditors rarely speak to sugar cane cutting laborers, a Dalmia executive, S. Rangaprasad, said.

That oversight gap is significant because records show that Bonsucro was warned years ago that its inspections were insufficient at spotting abuses that were known to be rampant in India.

In 2018, Bonsucro commissioned a team of Columbia University graduate students to evaluate its effectiveness. The students focused on India. Before they left, they read local news and researched the Maharashtra sugar industry. They knew they were heading into a system that could be deeply harmful to workers.

When they arrived, though, they encountered many of the same obstacles that supply chain auditors face while inspecting sugar mills.

Sugar mill owners gave the Columbia team lengthy interviews but tightly restricted their access to the fields and workers.

“They planned it very strategically to make sure we did not reach the farmers directly,” said Priya Patil, an auditor who worked as an interpreter for the project. “There were moments where I felt like, ‘This isn’t the real scenario.’”

In 2019, a local government report revealed what those conversations might have yielded. Researchers surveyed 82,000 female sugar cane workers and documented abuses including debt bondage and child labor. About one in five women had undergone hysterectomies.

The Columbia team released its report that same year. It noted a series of risks — child labor, debt bondage and gender discrimination — but said that the researchers had been so tightly controlled that they could not study them.

In some cases, the researchers wrote, Bonsucro’s oversight system was unlikely to catch these abuses either. Because none of the audit details are public, nobody could know for sure. “These concerns underscore the weaknesses of social auditing,” they wrote.

Bonsucro does not make audit details public, Ms. Morley said, because companies would have to agree to it. “Everything that we do has to be discussed and negotiated and agreed upon by all of our members.”

She concedes that social auditing is flawed and can miss serious problems. “The challenges are quite well documented,” she said. But she said that Bonsucro was helping to change the industry by pushing for companies to improve their practices.

“The sugar cane sector is going on a journey of improvement,” she said. “But it does come from a fairly low base line.”

Qadri Inzamam, a reporter with The Fuller Project, contributed reporting from Beed, India. Alexandra Regida contributed research.

It was one of the first days of summer break, and a group of young girls was dancing to Taylor Swift songs in a studio on a quiet street in Southport, in northwest England.

As the class, which also included yoga and bracelet making, was drawing to an end on Monday morning, an attacker walked in and rampaged through the room with a knife, stabbing the children and two adults.

Two girls — Bebe King, 6, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7 — died of their injuries on Monday, the Merseyside Police said in a statement, while a third, 9-year-old Alice Dasilva Aguiar, died in the hospital early Tuesday. Eight other children were injured, five of whom remain in critical condition in the hospital, along with two adults who had tried to protect them, the police said.

The question of why such an unremarkable summer morning, filled with dancing and fun, had turned to horror was on the minds of many residents of Southport, a seaside town of about 95,000 people, on Tuesday as they grappled with the violence that had visited their quiet community.

“It was just little girls who wanted to dance,” said Carol Sansom, 76, who had come with her husband to lay flowers on Hart Street, where the class was held. They have lived in the neighborhood for more than five decades and described it as a residential place where they raised four children.

A 17-year-old from a nearby village was arrested on Monday on suspicion of murder and attempted murder and is still being questioned by police, who said they did not know the motive for the attack. “The incident is not currently being treated as terror-related and we are not looking for anyone else in connection with it,” the police said in a statement.

“It’s just hitting that this is our town,” Ms. Sansom said. “It’s just horrendous.” While she and her husband paused at the corner, a neighbor stopped by and relayed the news that one of the girls who died was the niece of an acquaintance, to gasps from the couple.

Tony Carney, 36, who works at a nursing home around the corner, said the authorities had told his workplace to lock itself down right after the attack on Monday. “The grief, it has spilled out into everyone’s lives here, even if you don’t know anyone involved,” he said as a stream of mourners filed past to leave flowers and written tributes.

Many people wanted to express support for the victims and their families, others to share their grief or to try to make sense of how this had happened in their community.

Some simply stood in the street and cried.

A young girl wearing the sparkly blue dress of Elsa from “Frozen” came with her grandparents and younger brother and laid bright pink flowers at the brick wall.

Tia Rose, 26, who lives in Southport, held her 2-year-old daughter in her arms, the child’s face shielded from the sun by a straw hat, as she crouched down to leave a bouquet.

“Last night, I went and got her out of bed and brought her in with me,” she said as she held her daughter to her chest. “As a mother, I just can’t even imagine it.”

Ms. Rose’s sunglasses partially hid her tears as she spoke. She said it was impossible to understand why someone would attack children in this way.

She said she thought the attack must have been targeted “because why else would you come down here?” she asked, gesturing at the largely residential street. “I come here almost once a week for different appointments, and now I don’t know if I will be able to come back.”

Ms. Swift, whose music had inspired the dance and yoga event, expressed her shock in a statement on social media on Tuesday. “The horror of yesterday’s attack in Southport is washing over me continuously,” she wrote.

She went on: “The loss of life and innocence, and the horrendous trauma inflicted on everyone who was there, the families, and first responders. These were just little kids at a dance class. I am at a complete loss for how to ever convey my sympathies to these families.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited Southport to pay his respects to the victims and their families on Tuesday afternoon. They were “going through raw pain and grief that most of us can’t imagine, I can’t imagine as a dad myself,” he said in comments to the news media.

He shook the hands of firefighters and ambulance crew members who had responded to the attack and, according to the BBC, told them, “I really want you to focus on the fact that there are children today alive because of what you did yesterday. That is incredible.”

Later, Mr. Starmer laid flowers at the police cordon. Around 100 people had gathered, mostly silently, but a small group, some of whom had been streaming live video from the site since the morning, shouted questions at the leader. One man yelled, “You have your photos. Off you go. Make some real change, prime minister! How many kids will be killed on our streets?” The man declined to give his name.

The authorities warned against speculation about the identity of the suspect, which has swirled online since Monday. The police said that one name that had circulated widely on social media and was rumored to be that of a suspect was incorrect.

Under British law, young people who are under criminal investigation cannot be named until they turn 18, except in very rare circumstances.

Hundreds of residents gathered in front of an arts venue in the center of town on Tuesday evening to hear from local leaders, holding bouquets and clutching one another. Many wept.

Jane Burns, the mayor of Sefton, the region that Southport is part of, told those gathered here that she hoped the community had found some comfort in coming together.

“Reach out and help,” she told residents. “Be kind, and let’s allow the families to grieve the way they wish to grieve. I ask for calm and respect at this time.”

While the situation had remained peaceful all day, a group of protesters clashed with police on Tuesday evening, about an hour after the vigil had ended. The Merseyside Police said they believed those involved in the confrontation were supporters of the English Defense League, a far-right extremist organization.

The group hurled bottles and garbage cans at the police, threw items at a mosque and set a police vehicle on fire. Twenty-two officers were injured, Merseyside police said in a statement on X. The police also said an order allowing them to search people at will was in force.

“It is sickening to see this happening within a community that has been devastated by the tragic loss of three young lives,” Alex Goss, the assistant chief constable of Merseyside Police, said in a statement. “Yesterday, our officers and other members of the emergency services were faced with one of the most difficult situations they will ever face. Tonight, they find themselves being attacked as they endeavor to prevent disorder.”

Mr. Goss noted that many people involved in the violence did not live in the area, and he said that false information about the attacker being originally from outside Britain had driven the riot.

“We have already said that the person arrested was born in the U.K. and speculation helps nobody at this time,” he added.

When President Biden abandoned his re-election campaign this month, citing the need to “pass the torch to a new generation,” some of the most envious accolades he received came from 6,000 miles away.

In central Africa, in coastal Cameroon, many are longing for their president, Paul Biya — at 91 the world’s oldest leader — to take a leaf out of President Biden’s book. But most think he never will.

“He’ll do everything to remain in power,” said Lukong Usheno Kiven, a human rights advocate based in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, where Mr. Biya has been in power for 42 years.

Mr. Biya is just one of dozens of notably aged leaders who are also far older than the populations they serve.

Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia are both 71. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is 73. Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, is 74, while Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, is 88.

But it is in Africa — the world’s youngest continent — where the gerontocracies are most stark. Eleven of the world’s 20 oldest leaders are African, according to research done by the Pew Research Center.

The presidents of Ivory Coast and Equatorial Guinea, Alassane Ouattara and Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, are both 82. Namibia’s 82-year-old interim president, Nangolo Mbumba, took office in February after the sitting president who was also age 82, died. Zimbabwe’s president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, is 81.

None of those countries has a median age higher than 22.

And many of those young people want their leaders to follow President Biden’s lead and head toward the exit.

Mr. Biden displayed “principled political leadership,” by stepping out of the race, said Rashweat Mukundu, a Zimbabwe-based adviser for International Media Support, which supports the rights of journalists.

“We don’t see that level of political maturity in Africa,” he added.

Countries that are less free tend to have older leaders, the Pew research showed. President Biden is the world’s 10th oldest leader. Of the other nine, only one leads a country classified as “free” by the think tank Freedom House. That is Mr. Mbumba, the Namibian president.

Some Namibians have long been pushing for younger leaders, said Rakkel Andreas, a political analyst in Windhoek, the southern African country’s capital — and Mr. Biden’s withdrawal has intensified chatter about aging leaders. Opponents of Vice President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, who is now the front-runner in Namibia’s election in November, have honed in on her 71 years.

But many Namibians have felt reassured about their own nation after seeing Mr. Biden’s age-related struggles, Ms. Andreas said.

“For the longest time, African leaders have been dubbed as these old people, not competent,” she said. “The whole world is seeing how the leader of the most powerful nation is clearly needing to retire.”

Presidents have handled the effects of their advancing years in different ways. When Zimbabwe’s late president Robert Mugabe appeared to be taking naps during meetings, aides claimed the nonagenarian was merely “resting his eyes.” Nigeria’s former president Muhammadu Buhari, who left office last year at age 80, disappeared for long stretches of his presidency to receive medical treatment abroad, and once complained that working for six hours per day was “no joke.”

By contrast, Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s 79-year-old president, made headlines when he shared his indoor workout routine during the pandemic.

“I’m going to start by warming up,” he said, before jogging barefoot laps of his red-carpeted office and doing push-ups as cameras flashed.

One commenter wrote, “Let’s see Biden do 3! My president is still solid as a rock.”

Some Africans justify the advanced age of their leaders. There is a “high reverence for elders as patriarchs,” said Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, a senior member of Mr. Biya’s political party, in Cameroon.

“Political cultures are different,” he said.

Africa has lately acquired a handful of much younger presidents. But most of them have taken power by force: like the 41-year-old leader of Mali, the 44-year-old leader of Guinea, or Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré, who is, at 36, the world’s youngest president. In Chad, the 40-year-old president, Mahamat Déby, who is the son of its longtime leader who died on the battlefield, won a disputed election in May.

Senegal’s Bassirou Diomaye Faye, age 44, is different. He won an election in the West African country, going from a prison cell to the presidency. His victory was hailed across the continent by youth yearning for a new generation of leaders.

President Biden’s withdrawal gave African youth more hope — though hope for change is thin on the ground in Cameroon, where Mr. Biya’s government brooks no dissent, and frequently cracks down on any opposition, according to rights groups. President Biya spends long stretches abroad, including in a luxury hotel in Geneva — but few expect anyone but him to win next year’s election.

“Despite Biden’s Withdrawal … Cameroon is Cameroon,” read one recent newspaper headline in the central African country.

Elian Peltier contributed reporting from Dakar, Senegal; John Eligon from Johannesburg, South Africa; Abdi Latif Dahir from Nairobi, Kenya; Ndi Eugene Ndi from Yaoundé, Cameroon; and Jeffrey Moyo from Harare, Zimbabwe. Jack Begg contributed research.

A generation ago, a charismatic former military officer swept into the highest office in Venezuela on a promise to deliver a more inclusive democracy, a system for the common man that would transfer the levers of power from the political elite to the people.

That man was Hugo Chávez, who in a democratic vote rode a wave of discontent into the presidential palace in 1999, eventually founding what he called the country’s socialist revolution.

But 25 years later, Mr. Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, oversees an authoritarian regime that jails dissidents, tortures enemies, censors the media — and has just claimed victory in an election that opponents say was blatantly manipulated, contrary to the will of the people.

On Monday, as anti-Maduro protests erupted around the country and armed government-aligned gangs tried to dissuade them, demonstrators in the northern state of Falcón climbed atop a Chávez statue. First, they attempted to hack off his head. Then, hindered by its bulk, they instead sent his entire mammoth metal body crashing to the ground.

Venezuela is now internationally isolated, reeling from a decade-long economic crisis and suffering from a gaping emotional wound: the loss of millions of citizens who have fled abroad.

Steve Levitsky, an expert on democracy at Harvard University, called Sunday’s vote “one of the most egregious electoral frauds in modern Latin American history.”

What happened to Venezuela?

How did a resource-rich nation, home to the world’s largest known oil reserves, once governed by a flawed but functioning democracy, fall so far in just a generation?

How is it that a movement once backed by “the people” has lost so much support that much of the nation believes it had to steal an election to stay in power?

In the 1970s, when oil prices were high, the nation flourished. The rich made millions and the poor made a decent living working for the rich. Venezuela was a destination for migrants and refugees from around the world.

A period of political stability and democracy reigned, following a deal known as the Punto Fijo Pact, in which the country’s major political parties agreed to respect election results and work together to prevent dictatorship, which had roiled the country in the past.

But when oil prices collapsed in the 1980s, poverty and prices rose, as did discontent with political leaders. At the time, Venezuela had devolved into a “crony democracy” in which the members of the country’s two-party political system mostly served their patrons and themselves, said Phil Gunson, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

People took to the streets to protest the rising cost of living. A series of violent demonstrations that came to be known as the Caracazo were a sign of a rumbling political volcano. By 1992, a young military officer was leading a coup meant to oust President Carlos Andrés Pérez, a symbol of the crony democracy.

The young officer was Mr. Chávez. His effort failed. But after a brief stint in prison, he was released and ran for president. In 1998, he bulldozed the traditional parties, winning 56 percent of the vote.

He was, as the journalist Rory Carroll wrote in his book “Comandante,” an “insurgent candidate, telling Venezuelans their old model of oil dependence and corrupt politics, their mirage of development, was dead.”

One of Mr. Chavez’s rallying cries was to lift up the poor.

It was only later that Mr. Chávez began to call his movement “socialism” and began to shape his revolution around what Mr. Carroll called the “holy trinity” of Jesus Christ, Karl Marx and Simón Bolivar, the revolutionary who fought Spanish colonial rule in South America.

Andrés Izarra, a journalist who later became Mr. Chávez’s communications minister, said that when Mr. Chávez came to power his goal was to bring “democracy closer to the people.”

This meant a new constitution that included new tools, like referendums, which allowed citizens to decide policy. It meant new institutions, called “missions,” that would circumvent longstanding government bodies to bring services to the poor.

And it meant a system in which many people would solve their problems by going directly to the president, writing him letters (known as “papelitos”) begging for favors — a job, a loan, a home — and Mr. Chávez would grant their wishes. Sometimes he did so on his television program, Aló Presidente, in which he would address citizens for hours on end.

Mr. Izarra initially backed this system. But he eventually came to believe that direct democracy was fiction. “It doesn’t exist,” he said. “It’s populism.”

By becoming the only man who could solve the country’s problems, Mr. Chávez had undermined the very state he was supposed to lead.

Mr. Chávez “was a hegemon,” Mr. Gunson said, who built a cult of personality. “He was the messianic leader. He was going to lead them into the promised land, and everything in between was a nuisance to him: any checks and balances, division of powers, any kind of civil society, free press, all the rest of it. It’s just a nuisance, gets in his way.’’

But Mr. Chávez’s project “was a con,” Mr. Gunson said, “because what it was all about was giving Chávez more and more power.”

In 2002, a group of dissident military officers and members of the opposition attempted to oust Mr. Chávez in a short-lived coup. Shortly after, the managers of the country’s powerful state oil company, led a nationwide strike against the government, paralyzing the economy for months.

Concerned about losing power, Mr. Chávez ushered in new measures of control, including the creation of a database of citizens who had signed on to a 2004 effort meant to oust him in a recall. This formed the core of a new surveillance system.

Still, Mr. Chávez remained enormously popular. Oil prices had rebounded and the country was flush with cash. The state expanded free education, grants, scholarships and medical care. Social indicators soared.

He was an icon of what analysts called “the Pink tide,” leftist leaders across South America who wanted to emulate Mr. Chávez.

Mr. Levitsky, co-author of the book “How Democracies Die,” described the years between 2004 and 2016 as a period of “competitive authoritarianism.”

“Government abuses power and violates rights such that the opposition is playing on a tilted playing field,” he said. “But there is a playing field, there is an opposition and there is real competition for power.”

That began to shift when Mr. Chávez died in 2013.

His handpicked successor was Mr. Maduro, his vice president, who lacked the charisma of his predecessor.

But the new president’s biggest problem was that oil prices were plunging, and the economy — extremely dependent on oil and propped up by government subsidies that kept goods cheap — began to spiral.

That year, Mr. Maduro narrowly won a hard-fought presidential election. The next year, his government responded violently to protesters angry over the economic downturn.

The movement started by Mr. Chávez was losing popularity, and Mr. Maduro was going to have its death on his hands. In a 2015 vote, the opposition won control of the legislature, a major threat to the relatively new leader.

But Mr. Maduro found a way to consolidate power. In 2017 he called for the election of a new body that would rival the legislature. The vote for this was viewed by many as a farce, even the company that tallied the votes said the count had been altered by at least one million votes.

Security forces crushed a new round of protests and in the presidential election of 2018, Mr. Maduro’s allies banned the largest opposition parties and major politicians from running. Mr. Maduro won.

“That’s when Venezuela approached dictatorship,” Mr. Levitsky said.

Inflation was soaring, grocery stores were stripped bare and children were dying of malnutrition. Then the United States issued broad sanctions on the country’s oil industry, pushing the economy to the brink of collapse.

Desperate for cash, Mr. Maduro loosened his reins on the economy. Goods began to flow in, and soon the U.S. dollar had replaced the Venezuelan Bolivar as the country’s de facto currency.

But the cost of food and medicine soared and inequality intensified. Mr. Maduro’s inner circle became synonymous with corruption, including a scheme in which a businessman, Alex Saab, was accused of making off with hundreds of millions of dollars meant to feed Venezuela’s hungry.

The shift away from any sort of socialism seemed to be complete.

Like many Venezuelans, Mr. Izarra, the former communications minister, still has affectionate words for Mr. Chávez. But he is a harsh critic of Mr. Maduro.

Today, Mr. Maduro’s concern “is not Venezuela’s poverty, is not Venezuela’s democratization, is not ‘power to the people,’” he said. “It’s ‘power to his kleptocrats.’”

In Venezuela now, he added, “there are more reasons to rebel,” against the ruling party than there were a generation ago when Mr. Chávez became president promising to oust the elite.

Anatoly Kurmanaev and Isayen Herrera contributed reporting from Caracas, Venezuela.

When Iraq’s prime minister traveled to Washington in the spring, he hoped to negotiate a much-needed economic development package and discuss shared strategic interests with the United States, one of his country’s most important international allies.

But the very day he arrived in mid-April, events unfolding at home served as a stark reminder of the competing influences that the Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, is caught between: Iran was sending drones and missiles to attack Israel and at least one Iraqi militia backed by Tehran participated in the attack.

Both the United States and Iran have long held sway in Iraq. But since the war between the U.S. ally Israel and the Iran-backed Hamas broke out in Gaza almost 10 months ago, they are increasingly at odds.

With regards to Iraq, one of the most contentious issues is the continued presence of 2,500 American troops on Iraqi soil. Over the past 20 months, Iran has used its considerable influence to try to persuade the Iraqis to push those forces out, and if it succeeds, it would give Tehran even more say over Iraqi policies.

Last week, in the latest round of discussions in Washington on a reconfiguration of the military relationship, Iraq called for a drawdown of the U.S.-led multinational force within about a year, underscoring its determination to thin out the American presence.

Iran’s clout in Iraq has grown in the past few years as Iraqi Shiite political factions close to Tehran have come to dominate the national government. At the same time, the Iraqi militias that Iran has cultivated over the past 20 years have come to form a growing part of the national security forces since they were folded in a few years ago.

The militias form part of Iran’s network of proxy forces in the Middle East, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. The war in Gaza has escalated tensions regionally, and the American, British and Israeli governments have all noted that Iraqi proxies of Iran joined in the April attack on Israel — in defiance of demands by Prime Minister al-Sudani to stay out of the conflict.

Most recently, a rocket from Lebanon on Saturday killed at least 12 children and teenagers in an Israeli-controlled town in the Golan Heights. The United States and Israel blamed Hezbollah, but the group denied responsibility.

Even before the Iraqi militias participated in the attack on Israel, a senior member of Iraq’s security forces, Abdul Aziz al-Mohammedawi, made no attempt to hide his allegiance to Tehran.

Israeli warplanes hit an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria in April, preceding the Iranian attack on Israel. After the Israeli strike, Mr. al-Mohammedawi said the forces he oversees were awaiting orders from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, while making no mention of Iraq’s prime minister.

Mr. al-Mohammedawi is the chief of staff of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella organization for militias that now encompasses more than 170,000 fighters, including a number of brigades backed by Iran. His announcement suggested that at least some Iraqi forces were ready to attack Israel on Iran’s behalf — a startling proclamation from such a senior Iraqi security official.

Publicly, the Iraqi prime minister said nothing, perhaps suggesting his reluctance to openly confront those closest to Iran.

Iran’s goal is clear, said Sajad Jiyad, an Iraqi analyst and fellow at Century International, a research and policy nonprofit in New York.

“The Iranians always say: ‘This is our region. America doesn’t live here. America is on the other side of the world. What’s it doing here?’”

Still, Iraq is the last Middle Eastern country where there has been something of a balance between Iranian and U.S. interests for many years now. At times, those interests have even converged, for example when both powers supported Iraq’s military offensive to expel the Islamic State terror group.

As prime minister, Mr. al-Sudani has often managed to finesse competing U.S. and Iranian demands. But whether to allow American troops to remain on Iraqi soil is one of the thorniest dilemmas he faces.

In addition to some 2,500 American forces in Iraq, 900 more, most of them Special Operations forces fighting in Syria, are supported by the U.S. contingent in Iraq and pass through Iraq regularly for resupply and training. Those in Syria are fighting alongside Syrian Kurdish forces in an attempt to keep remnants of the Islamic State in check.

U.S. forces have been on the ground in Iraq off and on since the 2003 invasion that ousted the longtime dictator Saddam Hussein. They withdrew completely in 2011. But after the Islamic State invaded Iraq in 2014 and took control of much of the country’s north, the Iraqi government asked the U.S. military to return.

A U.S. troop withdrawal would amplify Iran’s influence over Iraqi foreign policy — much in the way that Tehran influences Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, the other Middle Eastern countries where it has cultivated powerful proxy forces — according to Urban Coningham, a Middle East research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

In some of these cases, the armed groups that Iran fostered in those countries are now so strong they effectively control the governments, making them important vessels for Iran to project its anti-Western agenda across the Middle East.

But Iraq is different.

For one, the United States has had a far greater stake in the country and still wields considerable leverage there, in part because many Iraqis — inside and outside the government — have welcomed it as a counterweight to Iran. But since Iraqi Shiite parties close to Iran gained the greatest share of power after the 2021 parliamentary elections, demands for a speedy drawdown of American forces have moved front and center.

The prime minister and his advisers have tried to take a nuanced position. They are hoping for a reconfiguration that guarantees some continued U.S. military involvement, supplies of much-needed equipment and ongoing training. It would entail some troop withdrawals, which they could present as a drawdown to satisfy the demands of the pro-Iran political factions.

However, Iran is pressing hard for all American troops to leave as soon as possible. Iraqi political leaders close to Iran are backing that position.

Mahmoud Al-Rubaie, a longtime strategist for Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, one of the most influential of the Iraqi political parties close to Iran, said the U.S. image in Iraq had worsened since the 2003 American-led invasion of the country.

“The generation of 2003 had hopes and dreams that the U.S. would change the reality of the country,” he said. But as the U.S. troop presence stretched out over the years, the Iraqi people did not see the transformation they had hoped for, he added.

Those views hardened — especially among the country’s Shiite Muslim majority — in 2020 after the U.S. assassination of a top Iranian general, Qassim Suleimani, in Baghdad, said Mr. Al-Rubaie.

General Suleimani headed the Quds Force, the overseas arms of the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guards. He was the architect of Iran’s regional network of proxy forces, including some of the Shiite militias in Iraq, which he helped to recruit, train and initially finance.

Mr. Jiyad of Century International said one of Iraq’s major weaknesses “is that we do not have a cohesive government or cohesive policies and so that makes our country reactive to outside influence.”

Falih Hassan contributed reporting from Baghdad.

A third child has died after a knife attack in Southport, England, and five children and two adults remain in a critical condition, the police said on Tuesday.

A 9-year-old girl died in the hospital in the early hours of Tuesday, the police said in a statement, while two other girls, age 6 and 7, died on Monday as a result of their injuries.

The attack, which the local police chief, Serena Kennedy, described as “ferocious,” took place at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class for children ages 6 to 11. A 17-year-old boy was arrested and is being questioned by the police.

Ms. Swift said in a statement about the attack on Instagram that she was “completely in shock.”

“The horror of yesterday’s attack in Southport is washing over me continuously,” she wrote, adding: “The loss of life and innocence, and the horrendous trauma inflicted on everyone who was there, the families, and first responders. These were just little kids at a dance class.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited Southport on Tuesday to pay his respects to the victims and their families.

Here’s what we know.

How did the attack unfold?

A group of children were attending a Taylor Swift-themed yoga and dance workshop at a studio in Southport on Monday when the attack took place.

The suspect arrived in a taxi and refused to pay for the trip, according to witnesses. A local businessman, Colin Parry, told the Guardian newspaper that a member of his staff had seen several children running out not long after, all bleeding.

Police officers who arrived at the scene just before noon “were shocked to find that multiple people, many of whom were children, had been subjected to a ferocious attack and had suffered serious injuries,” Ms. Kennedy, the chief constable of the Merseyside Police, said in a press briefing on Monday night.

She added that all those injured had suffered stab wounds during the incident.

What do we know about the victims?

The event, a yoga, dance and bracelet-making workshop, was advertised on social media for children ages 6 to 11. Many schools in Britain started their summer vacation last week, and the event was sold out. “Calling all Swifties!” read a post on Instagram, next to a digital flier with a pink and purple background.

Three girls have died as a result of the attack, while eight other children were injured, five of them critically, the police said.

The police identified the girls who were killed as Bebe King, who was 6; Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7; and 9-year-old Alice Dasilva Aguiar.

In a statement, the King family said, “No words can describe the devastation that has hit our family.”

The Dasilva Aguiar family were also quoted in the statement. “Keep smiling and dancing like you love to do, our princess,” they said in a tribute.

Alice was also a Portuguese national, according to the Portuguese news agency Lusa. Her parents moved to England from the island of Madeira, and their daughter was born there, José Cesário, Portugal’s secretary of state told the agency.

Two adults were also injured at the scene and are in a critical condition.

“We believe that the adults who were injured were bravely trying to protect the children who were being attacked,” Ms. Kennedy, the chief constable, said.

Two Taylor Swift fans from Britain, Cristina Jones and Holly Goldring, started an online fund-raiser to assist the grieving families and injured children. Within hours, their JustGiving page had raised more than 100,000 pounds, about $128,000, from supporters around the world.

According to the organizers, the money will go to Alder Hey Children’s Charity, which raises funds for the children’s hospital in Liverpool where many of the victims were being treated.

“We have no intentions of reaching out to the families ourselves — it will be Alder Hey who will help” get money to families, Ms. Jones told the Press Association news agency. “We will keep a respectable distance,” she added.

What do we know about the suspect?

The police on Monday arrested a 17-year-old boy on suspicion of murder and attempted murder. The suspect lived in Banks, a nearby village, but is originally from Cardiff, Wales, the police said.

The suspect remains in custody and was being questioned on Tuesday. The police said they were still investigating the motive.

“At this moment in time, the investigation is not being treated as terrorist-related,” Ms. Kennedy said.

In the statement on Tuesday, the police also urged people not to speculate on the details of the attack while the investigation continued and said that a name circulated by some users on social media was “incorrect.”

Under British law, young people who are under criminal investigation cannot be named until they turn 18, except in very rare circumstances.

For months, Ukrainian soldiers in southeastern Ukraine were able to fend off Russian assaults.

Even with shortages of artillery shells, the 58th Motorized Infantry Brigade repelled repeated attacks as they fought to defend the limited gains from their counteroffensive last year. The brigade took casualties but thwarted each Russian attack, including one by an elite marine brigade, leaving burned-out Russian armor littering the open steppe.

But at the end of March, Russian troops turned their focus on two small villages: Urozhaine and Staromaiorske. It took the Russians three months, but after occupying Staromaiorske in June they finally broke through the weary Ukrainian defenders and reclaimed Urozhaine on July 14.

An account of the fierce defense and loss of Urozhaine and Staromaiorske was pieced together through conversations with Ukrainian soldiers who served in the villages, as well as through one survivor’s post on social media. Official Russian posts on social media confirmed many of the details.

The loss of the villages was a blow for Ukraine, coming amid recent Russian gains along many parts of the 600-mile front line, and because Ukrainian marine infantry had fought so hard to capture them during the bloody counteroffensive.

For the men of the 58th brigade, who had been defending Urozhaine since October, and units of the National Guard attached to them, it was doubly hard. Up to 100 men were killed or went missing over three months of fighting in the village and commanders were bracing for recriminations from the military high command, which usually demands its soldiers hold their positions to the last.

Soldiers and officers who had been inside the two villages said there were no civilians living there and the houses were so destroyed there was nothing left to defend.

“The battles took place in ruins, from basements,” said Karay, 43, an army major who was inside Urozhaine and saw some of the earlier fighting. “There were a few trenches, but there were no defensive structures, and it was impossible to build them.” He asked that he only be identified by his call sign, Karay, according to military protocol.

Urozhaine consists of just two streets and Russian troops had already occupied half the village in June, Karay said. “For a month and a half, it was like a fight between two packs of dogs,” he said.

“So much was flying around, the wounded could only be evacuated at night,” he said. “So there came a moment when it made no sense to keep people there.”

The end, when it came, was lightning fast and forced a rapid retreat from the village.

Those of the 58th Brigade who survived the final retreat were in the hospital and not available for interviews, officers of the brigade said.

A 40-year-old member of the National Guard, who asked only to be identified by his first name, Mark, posted a dramatic account on the X social media platform. The New York Times was able to verify his identity.

Ordered in to help defend Urozhaine on July 8, his unit “hit the jackpot,” he wrote. Sheltering in the basement of a house, they endured four days of heavy Russian bombardment.

By July 12, their house was being targeted by drones. His commander warned them that the Ukrainian unit in front had retreated and Russians had taken up positions in a house opposite. At first light the men were ordered to pull back to another position, which they did safely as another bombardment began.

Official Russian news reports described the same events. “A motorized rifle unit and tank crews of the Vostok group exhausted the enemy, creating suitable conditions for the final assault,” a journalist with Russian troops reported on First Channel. “Then, armored groups with assault units moved out from three directions.”

Mark, the Ukrainian National Guard member, described three Russian troop carriers racing past his position at 6 a.m., inserting infantry that blocked their retreat. The main assault had begun.

First Channel reported that Russian marines carried out the main assault, using dune buggies for a speedy attack on the village.

“We cleared it so quickly, the guys did not even realize it, in hour and a half, maybe two hours,” a Russian soldier, who gave his call sign, Hors, told the reporter.

Mark’s unit were ordered to withdraw through the fields because the road was under Russian control. That began in orderly fashion but within a few hours, it became a desperate scramble under shellfire with wounded and dead left behind.

“Enemy drones were constantly hovering over the retreating groups, adjusting enemy artillery,” Mark wrote. An hour later he was caught in an explosion and wounded in both legs. “I could not go on,” he wrote. “There was another wounded man with me.”

He applied a tourniquet to his leg and saw groups of retreating soldiers passing by. A National Guard soldier who used the call sign Ruberoid, stopped to help.

Led by Ruberoid, Mark said he crawled through the undergrowth and a minefield to the designated collection point for the wounded. The second wounded man tried to follow but was too weak and told them to leave him.

“The only thing I really feared was that I wouldn’t be able to see my family again,” Mark wrote. “That was my main motivation as I had to crawl across the hot earth and stubble of the Donetsk steppe under the scorching sun and not give up.”

It took him more than 12 hours to reach a medical station.

Members of his company all got out alive, but other companies suffered dead and wounded, he wrote.

The Russians raised their flag over the village that evening, but the most difficult thing was to hold the village as Ukrainian drones began attacking them, the Russian soldier, Hors, said. “They shot from everything they had,” he said of the Ukrainians. “The sky was black from their drones.”

In conversations after the fall of the village, soldiers on the nearby front said they were feeling the strain of three large-scale Russian assaults in October, November and February, and then three months of intense fighting in Urozhaine. They described the Russian assault troops as a determined and motivated force.

Members of the 58th brigade spent a recent day hunkered down in mud trenches on the frontline near Urozhaine, listening for incoming shells and drones, and fending off explosive drones with hand-held electronic jammers. They have rigged up metal fencing and draped carpets over many openings to block the small but lethal exploding aircraft.

There was little sound of Ukrainian artillery fire.

The most dangerous moment for the men is when units swap in and out after several days on the front line and frequently come under shell fire.

On a recent night a squad was hit by mortar fire as it was heading back from the front. Three men — fresh recruits who had recently joined the brigade — were wounded and a fourth was killed, members of the brigade said.

The 58th brigade’s sniper unit has retrained to double as a drone team and has been deployed at Staromaiorske since June.

“We will restrain them as much as we can,” said a 28-year-old sniper using the call sign Sten and now working as a drone pilot.

He showed videos on his phone of his successful drone strikes on Russian vehicles, on a lone motorbike rider and on an ammunition store in the village.

“They are trying to attack our positions constantly, mostly in small groups on motorbikes,” he said of the Russian troops. “They get into the tree lines and dig in there. They spread like cockroaches.”

Oleksandr Chubko contributed reporting from the Donetsk region of Ukraine.