Sen. Ted Kennedy dies at age 77

HYANNISPORT, Mass. (WPRI) - Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate, has died after battling a b rain tumor. He was 77.

Kennedy's family announced his death in a brief statement released early Wednesday.

For nearly a half-century in the Senate, Kennedy was a dominant voice on health care, civil rights, war and peace, and more. To the American public, though, he was best known as the last surviving brother of a storied political family.

Kennedy was elected to the Senate in 1962, when his brother John Kennedy was president, and served longer than all but two senators in history.

Over the decades, Kennedy put his imprint on every major piece of social legislation to clear the Congress.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid says both the Kennedy family and the Senate have "lost our patriarch."

Reid promised that Congress, while mourning Kennedy's loss, would renew the push for the cause of Kennedy's life, health care reform.

"Ted Kennedy's dream was the one for which the founding fathers fought and for which his brothers sought to realize," Reid said in a statement. "The liberal lion's mighty roar may now fall silent, but his dream shall never die."

Kennedy's funeral will be held Saturday at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston. He will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, near his slain brothers.

In lieu of flowers, the Kennedy family family is asking donations be sent to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. According to its website, the Institute, which is located on the University of Massachusetts campus in Boston, is dedicated to educating the general public, students, teachers, new Senators, and Senate staff about the role and importance of the Senate.

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