Saberi was jailed on April 18 on charges of spying for the United States, Iran's arch foe. The case could complicate Washington's efforts toward reconciliation with the Islamic Republic after three decades of mutual mistrust.

Her father said the 32-year-old was "very weak" after refusing food for two weeks in Tehran's Evin prison in protest at the verdict. Reza Saberi said his daughter fainted a few days ago and had been given intravenous fluid.

Judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi said he had no information about this. He denied that Saberi was on hunger strike and said she was in good health.

The U.S. administration of President Barak Obama, who has offered a new beginning of engagement with Iran if it "unclenches its fist," says the espionage charges against Saberi are baseless and has demanded her immediate release.

Reid on Tuesday paid tribute to Obama's past experience as a law professor and said he's confident he'll send a very qualified nominee to the Senate. The Nevada Democrat also said he doesn't expect Republicans to filibuster Obama's choice.

He said he hopes Obama goes outside the existing legal system and finds a former governor or senator, or someone who has "real life experiences."

Reid said that "I feel comfortable that his choice will be as good as his Cabinet choices."

Obama's two-part plan, which he will announce later Monday at the White House, also embraces 800 additional federal agents to enforce the tax code.

The president's proposal would eliminate some tax deductions for companies that earn profits in countries with low tax rates, as well as consider U.S. citizens who use tax havens in the Bahamas or Cayman Islands guilty of violating U.S. tax laws. If Obama wins congressional approval for the changes — and he faces a challenge on Capitol Hill — the new enforcement initiative could yield $210 billion in tax revenue over the next decade.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was to join Obama for the comments. The White House released details of the plan earlier Monday.

White House officials acknowledged the political challenges facing the plan. The administration won't seek a complete repeal of overseas tax benefits and, although the rule changes are narrower than some anticipated, business leaders still oppose them as a tax hike. Obama aides countered that the plan is a step toward the massive overhaul of international financial regulations that the president has promised.

In exchange, Obama said he was willing to make permanent a research tax credit that was to expire at the end of the year and is popular with businesses. Officials estimate that making the tax credits permanent would cost taxpayers $74.5 billion over the next decade.

The privately held company also reached a deal that will allow a Crown Acquisitions affiliate to buy 17 of its 25 stores, including its flagship locations in Boston and New York. The agreement is subject to a bankruptcy court auction, which is expected in about five weeks.

The auction will allow other companies to submit bids for the 17 stores, as well as for the rest of the Filene's Basement locations and the chain's other assets.

New York-based Crown, a real estate and asset management company, plans to continue running the 17 stores under the Filene's Basement name.

Buxbaum Group, a California-based liquidator, acquired Filene's last month through an affiliate company, FB II Acquisition Corp. The sale came after the previous owner, Retail Ventures Inc., said the chain was experiencing "significant liquidity problems."

Filene's Basement, known for its "Running of the Brides" wedding gown sale, was founded more than a century ago in Boston.

Lawyers for John Odgren say he was legally insane when he fatally stabbed 15-year-old James Alenson at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in January 2007.

A judge ruled last year that prosecutors improperly obtained more than 30 hours of Odgren's jailhouse conversations.

But prosecutors say they obtained the recordings lawfully. They want to play the recordings at Odgren's trial because they believe the conversations show a lucid boy who was not in the throes of mental illness.

The Supreme Judicial Court will hear prosecutors' appeal on Monday.

Trustee Irving Picard says in a complaint filed Friday in Bankruptcy Court that Stanley Chais and his family made more than $1 billion in false earnings off Madoff's scheme. He claims the money came from the pockets of burned investors. He wants the money back.

Chais lawyer Eugene Licker says the Chais family has suffered "astounding and ruinous losses from the Madoff scheme."

Madoff pleaded guilty in March to charges his secretive investment advisory operation was a pyramid scheme. He faces up to 150 years in prison.

Picard is overseeing the liquidation of Madoff's assets. He says he plans to use sale proceeds to pay Madoff's victims.

Critics of the prosecution of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman of the American Israel Public Afffairs Committee had accused the federal government of trying to criminalize the sort of back-channel discussions between government officials, lobbyists and reporters that are commonplace in the nation's capital. AIPAC is an influential pro-Israel lobbying group.

Acting U.S. Attorney Dana Boente said the government moved to dismiss the charges in the drawn-out case after concluding that pretrial rulings would make it too difficult for the government to prove its case.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III had made several legal rulings that prosecutors worried would make it almost impossible to obtain a guilty verdict. Among them was a requirement that the government would have to prove that Rosen and Weissman intended to harm the United States by trading in sensitive national defense information.

The trial had been scheduled to start June 2 in a case that has dragged on for four years.

Rosen and Weissman had not been charged with actual espionage, although the charges did fall under provisions of the 1917 Espionage Act, a rarely used World War I-era law that had never before been applied to lobbyists.

A former Defense Department official, Lawrence A. Franklin, previously pleaded guilty to providing Rosen and Weissman classified defense information and was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison.