Pope Francis had diagnostic tests in a Rome hospital after his weekly audience

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis was taken briefly to a hospital in central Rome after the papal audience on Wednesday. The Vatican said it was for diagnostic testing without elaborating. The 87-year-old pope, who has been suffering from the flu, made regular appearances to the faithful on Sunday and Wednesday, but has canceled appointments on other days. He arrived at the Gemelli Hospital on Tiber Island in a small white Fiat 500 and left under escort in the same car after a short visit.

Spokesperson: Funeral of Russian opposition leader Navalny will be Friday

(AP) — The funeral of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died earlier this month in a remote Arctic penal colony, will take place on Friday in Moscow after several locations declined to host the service, his spokesperson says. Kira Yarmysh says the funeral will be held at a church in Moscow’s southeast Maryino district on Friday afternoon. The burial is to be at a nearby cemetery. Navalny died in mid-February in one of Russia’s harshest penal facilities. Russian authorities said the cause of his death at age 47 is still unknown. Many Western leaders have said they hold Russian President Vladimir Putin responsible for his death.

ICC awards $56M to thousands of victims of convicted Ugandan rebel commander

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Judges at the International Criminal Court have awarded reparations of more than 52 million euros ($56 million) to thousands of victims of a convicted commander in the shadowy Ugandan rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army. The nearly 50,000 victims covered by the order include former child soldiers and children born as a result of rapes and forced pregnancies. The presiding judge says victims would each receive 750 euros ($812) as a “symbolic award” while other reparations would come in the form of community-based rehabilitation programs. Dominic Ongwen had been convicted of 61 offenses including murders, rapes, forced marriages and recruiting child soldiers.

Turkish drones kill 3 in an attack on a local Christian militia in northeastern Syria

BEIRUT (AP) — Turkish drone strikes in northeastern Syria have killed at least three members of a local Christian force and wounded others. A Kurdish official and a Syrian war monitor say that Wednesday’s attack targeted members of the local Christian Syriac police force, Sutoro, which works under the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. Turkey often launches strikes against targets in Syria that Ankara believes to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party — a banned Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s.