Kennedy remains hospitalized

BOSTON - Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., remained in the hospital yesterday, awaiting test results that could explain why the 76-year-old Democrat suffered a seizure a day earlier.

Doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital said it would be today at the earliest before the tests were complete, and the hospital and Kennedy's office released no new information about his condition yesterday.

Kennedy was resting, eating and watching the Boston Red Sox and Boston Celtics games on television yesterday afternoon, said a top aide who requested anonymity because the family had asked that details of the senator's hospital stay not be released.

Kennedy's wife, Vicki, was seen walking into the hospital early yesterday morning. The aide said his daughter, stepdaughters and sister Jean Kennedy Smith also visited during the day.

It was a smaller crowd than on Saturday, when members of his family, including his sons and niece Caroline Kennedy, and Sen. John Kerry went to the hospital.

Kennedy was flown Saturday morning to the hospital from the emergency room of Cape Cod Hospital, near his home in Hyannisport. Doctors originally suspected he had had a stroke, but his physician, Dr. Larry Ronan, later said it had been a seizure and that the senator was "not in any immediate danger."

In October, Kennedy had surgery to remove a blockage in his left carotid artery, which supplies blood to the face and brain.

After the surgery, he resumed his schedule on Capitol Hill and across Massachusetts.

Kennedy is the second-longest serving member of the Senate and a dominant figure in national Democratic Party politics.

He was elected in 1962, filling out the term of his brother, John F. Kennedy, who was elected president in 1960.

His eldest brother, Joseph, was killed in a World War II airplane crash.

President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and a third brother, Robert, was assassinated while campaigning for president in 1968. *