A federal judge blocked the extradition of a man Wednesday accused of killing a police officer and injuring two others in the Dominican Republic in 2013 and ordered him released. U.S. District Court Judge for Rhode Island John McConnell ruled that extraditing Cristian Aguasvivas, a Dominican national, would violate the United Nations' Convention Against Torture, which prohibits the extradition of a person to a country where they are likely to be tortured.

LOS ANGELES/JEDDAH, Sept 18 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday there were many options short of war with Iran after U.S. ally Saudi Arabia displayed remnants of drones and missiles it said were used in a crippling attack on its oil sites that was "unquestionably sponsored" by Tehran. Trump, who earlier said on Twitter that he had ordered the U.S. Treasury to "substantially increase sanctions on the country of Iran!" told reporters the unspecified, punitive economic measures would be unveiled within 48 hours.

While the country's Jewish majority is largely secular, parties representing the ultra-Orthodox minority have traditionally wielded considerable political power. Acting as coalition kingmakers, religious parties hold a monopoly on many areas of daily life, from the closure of stores and public transport on the Sabbath to Jewish burial and marriage rites. Israel has granted the ultra-Orthodox community sweeping exemptions from the country's mandatory military draft.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's long grip on power appeared in jeopardy on Wednesday after elections left him tied with his main challenger Benny Gantz raising the prospect of tough negotiations to build a unity government or even the end of the Israeli premier's record long rule. In a sign of the demanding negotiations to come, sources in Netanyahu's office told AFP he was cancelling a planned trip next week to the UN General Assembly in New York due to the "political context" in Israel. With more than 95 percent of ballots counted, Netanyahu's right-wing Likud had 32 seats, while Gantz's Blue and White took 33 places in Israel's 120-member parliament.

The US central bank cut its benchmark interest rate for the second time this year on Wednesday, and Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell vowed to do whatever is needed to keep the economy growing. The Fed's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) lowered the policy interest rate by 25 basis points to a target range of 1.75 to 2.0 percent, as expected. With that second rate cut, it has now pulled back on half of the four interest rate increases it implemented in 2018.

(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump may have lost faith in Jerome Powell but the stock market hasn’t.Minutes after being ridiculed by the president as having “no guts” despite unveiling a second interest rate cut, the Fed chief squelched a mini revolt in markets, telling by investors he wasn’t abandoning the economy to itself.Stocks fell as much as 1% after updated Fed forecasts showed officials split over the need for further cuts this year, spooking equity investors convinced the Fed would ease at least once more and drawing the rebuke from Trump. Powell sparked the biggest rebound in six weeks when he said the economy needed only moderate easing and that the Fed is “prepared to be aggressive” if growth were to falter.“He had a good day,” Kirk Hartman, chief investment officer of Wells Fargo Asset Management, said on Bloomberg TV. “The Fed chairman signaled that the Fed was going to be very supportive of the markets, which is what the markets wanted to hear.”It was a welcome performance for stock bulls who haven’t always been receptive of Powell’s message. The S&P 500 had finished lower after 10 of the prior 12 Fed meetings, and looked on its way to an 11th slide before Powell left the door open to “a more extensive sequences of cuts” if needed.For bulls convinced the economy won’t need more juice form the Fed, Powell’s comments only reinforced the message from recent data. Home construction, consumer sentiment, retail data and jobless claims have all exceeded expectations, while the labor market remains tight, indicating that recession signals emanating from the bond market may be misfiring.“The data in the United States economy has been better over the last couple of weeks,” said Ed Keon, chief investment strategist at QMA, the $128 billion quantitative arm of PGIM. “I would much rather have a strong economy that doesn’t need assistance as opposed to a weak economy that has to be propped up by the Fed.”Performance among the S&P 500’s sectors reflected the growing confidence in the economy. As the S&P 500 plunged on the initial hawkish read, financial stocks rallied and defensive stocks like consumer staples and utilities held in. Technology and economically-sensitive industrials stocks then led the rebound as investors grew more confident the Fed was ready to act if any cracks in the economy widened.“The economy is steady as a rock and as long as that remains the case the odds of a third rate cut this year start to shrink dramatically,” said Chris Rupkey, the chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank in New York. “They are done for now unless the trade war uncertainty raises its ugly head again.”\--With assistance from Lu Wang.To contact the reporters on this story: Vildana Hajric in New York at vhajric1@bloomberg.net;Sarah Ponczek in New York at sponczek2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Jeremy Herron at jherron8@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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