Breaking News (Thursday 5 p.m. Eastern time)

NY TIMES Press story with byline : 
Iran plans to release Sarah Shourd, one of the three young American hikers detained and accused of spying last year, Iranian officials said Thursday.

Iran’s ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has invited reporters to witness the release on Saturday morning at a Tehran hotel, the same hotel where the three Americans were allowed to meet with their mothers — their only meeting with family or other Westerners since they were detained after straying across the mountainous border with northern Iraq in July 2009.
The detention of the hikers — Ms. Shourd, 31, and Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 27 — further strained relations between Iran and the United States, which have long been at odds over Tehran’s nuclear program. Earlier this year Washington imposed a new round of sanctions on Iran, as did the United Nations Security Council and the European Union. Iran maintains that it aims only at producing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, but Western powers have long suspected that the Iranian program could be used to produce weapons and fuel a regional nuclear arms race.
American officials have also expressed concern that the hikers could be used as bargaining chips in nuclear negotiations. Iranian officials have suggested repeatedly that the hikers might be traded for Iranians being held by the United States.
Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Muhammad Bak Sahraei, confirmed in an email message that Ms. Shourd would soon be released. Earlier in the day, Iranian officials announced that one of the three would be released without saying who. There was no word on the fate of the other two hikers.
It is traditional in Iran to release prisoners as a gesture of clemency to mark the close of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which ends this week.