  We perform a combined analysis of $B \to \pi \pi$ and $B \to \pi K$ decays
with the current experimental data. Assuming SU(3) flavor symmetry and no new
physics contributions to the topological amplitudes, we demonstrate that the
conventional parametrization in the Standard Model (SM) does not describe the
data very well, in contrast with a similar analysis based on the earlier data.
It is also shown that the introduction of smaller amplitudes and reasonable
SU(3) breaking parameters does not improve the fits much. Interpreting these
puzzling behaviors in the SM as a new physics (NP) signal, we study various NP
scenarios. We find that when a single NP amplitude dominates, the NP in the
electroweak penguin sector is the most favorable. However, other NP solutions,
such as NP residing in the QCD-penguin sector and color-suppressed electroweak
penguin sector simultaneously, can also solve the puzzle.
