The killing of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader whose decision to attack Israel more than a year ago set off the ever-widening war tearing up the Middle East, could be the key to ending the bloodshed. Now that Israel has decapitated Hamas in Gaza, the thinking goes, it might be ready to declare victory and move on, while a demoralized Hamas might show greater flexibility in cease-fire talks.

Or, at least, that outcome would most likely be welcomed by most of the countries. Despite their pledges to keep on fighting, Hezbollah, Hamas and other Iranian proxies may also be looking for offramps, analysts say, even if Israel seems not to be displaying much appetite for taking the win.

“All of them are super eager for offramps. They have been from the start,” said Michael Wahid Hanna, a Middle East expert at the International Crisis Group, speaking of the Arab nations. “It’s a difficult situation for the entire region. And there are many ways in which this could get much worse.”

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Israeli bombs have blown up its munitions stores and killed thousands of its fighters, including many seasoned commanders.

And yet, Hezbollah keeps fighting.

Since Israel invaded southern Lebanon nearly three weeks ago, its forces have confronted a flexible enemy that uses the environment to launch complex and sometimes deadly operations.

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Panda exchanges, like the one that sent two bears to Washington’s National Zoo this week, are governed by closely held contracts. In most countries, they are never released.

Lawyers for the Smithsonian, which operates the National Zoo, cited a confidentiality clause and refused to release a 2020 contract. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which regulates the import and export of exotic species, provided a San Diego Zoo contract with key passages blacked out.

But my colleagues and I found full copies of those documents and others in regulatory filings.

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For months, Serhii Hnezdilov, a Ukrainian soldier, pushed for troops exhausted by years of war with Russia to be replaced with fresh conscripts. He expressed his concerns in interviews, on social networks and in a podcast, drawing on his five years of fighting in an infantry brigade.

But Mr. Hnezdilov, 24, said his calls went unanswered. So last month, he took a radical step that he hoped would focus attention on his cause: He deserted and then publicly announced it on social media and in news outlets.

“I was left with no other option but to leave, slam the door very loudly and force people to finally start talking about this problem,” Mr. Hnezdilov said in a video interview with The New York Times on Oct. 1 from a secret location where he was hiding from the Ukrainian authorities.

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Feted by many fellow journalists and Western diplomats as a fearless scourge of corrupt oligarchs, Moldova’s most popular television host torched her soaring career and stellar image three years ago with a startling life choice.

She fell in love and had a child with one of her country’s most notorious and, according to prosecutors, most corrupt oligarchs.

Ostracized by many of her onetime friends and admirers, Natalia Morari, 40, has now caused yet more dismay by refashioning herself into a politician. She no longer works for the independent, award-winning television station she founded in 2006, and is running for president in an election on Sunday against the incumbent, Maia Sandu, the standard-bearer of a pro-European cause for which the journalist was for years a prominent champion.