Washington ? Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who is fighting thyroid cancer, remained hospitalized Wednesday after having been taken by ambulance to a suburban hospital a day earlier because of a fever.

The 80-year-old chief justice has been undergoing treatment for thyroid cancer since October, but he has refused to disclose details about his health or his plans for the year ahead.

In recent weeks, Washington has been swept with rumors that Rehnquist was about to announce his retirement. But the chief justice himself has said nothing – including to his colleagues – that would either further those rumors or quell them.

When asked recently by a television reporter whether he planned to retire, he said, “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

Lacking news from the court, camera crews and reporters have gathered each morning outside Rehnquist’s home in Arlington, Va. After he leaves in the morning and is driven to the Supreme Court building, they stake out the sidewalk in front of the court’s building.

On Wednesday morning, the crews did not see Rehnquist but watched as one of his aides brought out a cane and some clothes. In midafternoon, the court put out a two-sentence statement explaining that Rehnquist had been taken late Tuesday to Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington.