Updated: 4:14 p.m.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday said that Sen. Edward Kennedy’s (D-Mass.) cancer is in remission and that he should be back to work after the Memorial Day recess.

Reid also said he expects Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), hospitalized late last week for an infection, to be back in the Senate in the near term.

“Yes, I had a conversation with Mrs. Kennedy in the last couple days. He’s doing fine,— Reid said of Kennedy, who was diagnosed with brain cancer last year.

As for Byrd, the Senate’s longest-serving Member, Reid said he anticipates his colleague could be back at work as early as this week: “We expect him to be out of the hospital today.—

However, Byrd spokesman Jesse Jacobs said later that, “Sen. Byrd is improving. But his doctors, in consultation with his family, have not yet determined when he will be released from the hospital.—

Byrd, 91, was taken to the hospital late last week “as a precautionary measure— after his temperature spiked because of a minor infection, according to a statement released by his office on Monday.

The statement didn’t reveal where Byrd is being treated, nor did it specify the type of infection he is being treated for.

The ailing Democratic Senator has been admitted to the hospital a few times over the past year. In June, he also had been treated for a minor infection.