Former senator, astronaut John Glenn dead at 95

Update, 3:40 Thursday: John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, and later a four-term U.S. senator from Ohio, died Thursday at the Ohio State Cancer Center. He was 95.

Earlier reporting: John Glenn, the former U.S. senator and the first American astronaut to orbit Earth, has been hospitalized, a spokesman for Ohio State University said Wednesday.

Glenn, 95, has received treatment for more than a week at the James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State, said Hank Wilson, a spokesman for the university’s John Glenn College of Public Affairs. Wilson said he didn’t know details on Glenn’s condition, illness or prognosis.

A spokeswoman for the Ohio State medical center would not confirm or deny Glenn's presence at the hospital, saying only that he was not listed in the hospital's public directory.

Glenn still is scheduled to be honored Thursday in his childhood hometown of New Concord, at an 11 a.m. Muskingum University event commemorating the Dec. 7, 1941, bombing of Pearl Harbor and the attack's role in Glenn's life.

Pearl Harbor kicked off a lifetime of heroism for Glenn. He flew 149 combat missions as a Marine pilot in World War II and the Korean War before hearing about the opportunity for military test pilots to join the space program. As one of the Mercury Seven – the country's first astronauts, heroes in the space race against the Soviet Union – Glenn spent 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds on a 1962 flight that circled the globe three times.

He returned 36 years later, at age 77, orbiting Earth 134 times on a mission intended to study how space travel affects aging.

In between, he served Ohio as a Democrat in the U.S. Senate for 24 years. As his final term neared its end, he helped create the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at Ohio State University. In 2006, the University founded the John Glenn School of Public Affairs.

Glenn is married his childhood best friend and sweetheart, Annie Castor, who is 96. The couple has two children.

On Wednesday, a statement from Ohio's current Democratic senator emphasized the Glenn family's desire for privacy during Glenn's illness:

“Connie and I ask Ohioans to join us in sending our love to John and Annie Glenn and their children and to respect their family’s privacy at this difficult time," said U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown.

Meanwhile, bipartisan condolences spread.

Pam James of the Zanesville Times Recorder, Deirdre Shesgreen of The Enquirer's Washington bureau, and John Faherty contributed.

Editor's note: Previous versions inaccurately stated Glenn's relationship to New Concord. He grew up there but was born in Cambridge.