Side Effects Send Charles to Hospital

Britain's King Charles III entered a hospital briefly for observation on Thursday while dealing with what Buckingham Palace called "temporary side effects" from treatment for cancer. "His majesty has now returned to Clarence House," the statement said, adding that the king's engagements for Thursday afternoon and Friday had been canceled on doctors' advice, the AP reports. Charles, 76, announced last year that he was diagnosed with cancer but didn't say what kind.

The palace said he was working on state papers later in the day in his study and making phone calls. Three meetings with ambassadors planned for Thursday were called off, as were four events scheduled for Friday in Birmingham. A trip the king and Queen Camilla were to make to Italy next month to see Pope Francis, who was discharged this week from a Rome hospital, was postponed earlier this week. The BBC reported a Buckingham Palace insider called Thursday's hospital trip at "most minor bump in a road that is very much heading in the right direction." (More King Charles III stories.)