On the night of August 15, while the Sicilian city of Messina was lost in the pageantry of the Ferragosto feast, someone slipped into the Accascina Museum and carried away six painted panels by Antonello da Messina, the Renaissance master who is the city’s most honored artistic son. The theft was over in minutes. The alarm had sounded. The cameras had recorded everything. Yet by the time anyone registered what was happening, the thieves had vanished into the holiday darkness. The shock that followed has not subsided. In the days since, investigators have been pulling at every loose thread, and…

In Calbayog City, where the sea winds mingle with the heat of the day, a quiet but urgent battle is unfolding. Health workers carrying vaccine coolers and logbooks move from house to house, their footsteps heavy not only from the heat but from the weight of a worrying number. Since the start of the measles-rubella vaccination campaign, only 3,484 children have been vaccinated out of a target of 19,225. That is 18 percent—a number that has set off alarms among city health officials. The target population is not abstract: these are children aged 6 to 59 months, babies who still…