Mexicans flee north -- to Canada; Walker-Warnock race in Ga. turns bitter; and more news today

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The extended Senate campaign in Georgia between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger, football legend Herschel Walker, has grown increasingly bitter ahead as their Dec. 6 runoff nears. With Democrats already assured control of the Senate, it’s a striking contrast from two years ago, when the state’s twin Senate runoffs were mostly about which party would control the chamber in Washington. Warnock casts Walker as unqualified and unfit for office. Walker mocks Warnock as a hypocrite beholden to President Joe Biden. 

Mexican asylum seekers set their sights north — on Canada

MONTREAL — There has been a surge in the number of Mexicans seeking asylum in Canada this year. The reasons for the big jump include the relative ease for Mexicans to obtain refugee status in Canada compared to the U.S., visa-free travel between Mexico and Canada, and the threat of violence back home. More than 8,000 Mexican nationals have applied for asylum in Canada since the start of the year. That is six times as many as last year and more than twice as many as in 2019, which was the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions that accompanied it. The majority of the asylum seekers are flying into Montreal. 

Hardship and hope: Winter, missile storms show Kyiv's mettle

KYIV, Ukraine — The hard realities of Ukraine’s capital are that a once comfortably livable city of 3 million people is now becoming a tough place to live. But Kyiv has hope, resilience and defiance in abundance. And perhaps more so now than at any time since Russia invaded Ukraine nine months ago. Just this summer, the living was easier. Bathers flocked to Kyiv's beaches on the Dnieper River. But the mood was somber, because news from the front lines of the war against Russia was often grim. Now it's the other way around. The city is increasingly being shorn in winter of power and sometimes water, too, by Russian bombardments. And yet there’s also hope in the air.

Protests of strict lockdown hit Shanghai, other China cities

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Protests against China’s strict “zero-COVID” policies resurfaced in Shanghai and Beijing on Sunday afternoon, continuing a round of demonstrations that have spread across the country since a deadly apartment fire in the northwestern city of Urumqi. People who had gathered in the street in Shanghai shouted, “We don’t want PCR tests, we want freedom!” Since Friday people have held protests across China, where street demonstrations are extremely rare.