Russia was handed a four-year ban from all major sporting events by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada). It means the Russia flag and anthem will not be allowed at events such as the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics and football's 2022 World Cup in Qatar. But athletes who can prove they are untainted by the doping scandal will be able to compete under a neutral flag.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the ban was part of "chronic anti-Russian hysteria". Wada's executive committee made the unanimous decision to impose the ban on Russia in a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland. It comes after Russia's Anti Doping Agency (Rusada) was declared non-compliant for manipulating laboratory data it had to hand to Wada as a condition of its controversial reinstatement in 2018 after a three-year suspension for a vast state-sponsored doping scandal.

An aviation student from Saudi Arabia opened fire in a classroom at the Naval Air Station Pensacola, killing three people in an attack the Saudi government quickly condemned and that U.S. officials were investigating for possible links to terrorism. The assault, which ended when a sheriff's deputy killed the attacker, was the second fatal shooting at a U.S. Navy base in a week and prompted a massive law enforcement response and base lockdown.

Twelve people were hurt in the attack, including the two sheriff's deputies who were the first to respond, Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said. One of the deputies was shot in the arm and the other in the knee, and both were expected to recover, he said. The shooter, identified as Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, was a member of the Saudi military who was in aviation training at the base, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference.

North Korea insulted U.S. President Donald Trump for the second time in recent weeks, calling him a "heedless and erratic old man" after he tweeted that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wouldn't want to abandon a special relationship between the two leaders and affect the American presidential election by resuming hostile acts. Former nuclear negotiator Kim Yong Chol, said in a statement that his country wouldn't cave in to U.S. pressure because it has nothing to lose and accused the Trump administration of attempting to buy time ahead of an end-of-year deadline set by Kim Jong Un for Washington to salvage nuclear talks.

Trump had tweeted: "Kim Jong Un is too smart and has far too much to lose, everything actually, if he acts in a hostile way. North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, has tremendous economic potential, but it must denuclearize as promised."

Deaths among journalists killed in the line of duty have been lower this year, but a journalism advocacy group said that one reason appears to be that media workers are refraining from going to the most dangerous areas. The International Federation of Journalists said that 49 journalists have been killed so far this year, down from 95 deaths last year.

The group said that even if journalists are showing more caution, it also means the public is less informed about some of the most deadly conflicts and human rights abuses. Another reason for the lower number of deaths is decreased fighting in Iraq and Syria. The figures may still slightly rise in the last weeks of the year, but will likely remain the lowest year since 2000 when 37 media staff were killed.