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The Treasury Department's launch of a new advisory committee on racial equity is just one of dozens of ways in which the federal government is working to advance President Biden's sweeping diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) agenda.

"We know that we need to do all we can to build a fairer economy, and that’s why we have put racial equity at the forefront of our agenda at Treasury and across the Biden administration," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Tuesday as she announced the equity committee.

OSLO, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Norway's centre-left government said on Thursday it planned to raise taxes on the country's oil and gas industry by 2 billion Norwegian crowns ($191 million) in 2023 by partly reversing an incentive package introduced during the coronavirus pandemic.

The adjustment to the temporary rules follows a surge in oil and gas prices, the government said.

"When aggregated over the years in which the temporary rules will apply, central government revenues are estimated to increase by 11 billion crowns," Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said in a statement.

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Norway, Europe's number one gas supplier and a major global crude producer, pumps around 4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, ensuring big financial gains from the spike in energy prices.

The proposal reduces the so-called uplift rate, a special tax deduction, to 12.4% from 17.69%, the finance ministry said.

"With the government's proposal, all profitable investments before special tax will also remain profitable after tax," said Vedum, who leads the rural-oriented Centre Party.

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The left-leaning minority government of Labour and Centre said it plans to cut spending in 2023 by the $1.2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, while raising taxes to help combat rampant inflation.

The government proposed withdrawing 316.8 billion crowns from the wealth fund next year, down from a revised 335.1 billion crowns in 2022, and must now negotiate with the Socialist Left Party to pass the budget.

The Treasury committee is a natural extension of the administration’s broad effort to promote "equity" that started with an executive order on advancing racial equity that Biden issued on his first day in office. Yellen said the administration has pursued that goal in bills like the American Rescue Plan, which aspires to build a foundation for an "equitable economic recovery," and the infrastructure bill, which she said will boost investment in communities "that have often been ignored or overlooked."

HERSCHEL WALKER, WHO has vehemently opposed reproductive rights throughout his senatorial campaign in Georgia, denied he had paid for a woman’s abortion in 2009 and also denied he knew who she was. Thing is, she apparently shares a child with him, according to The Daily Beast who first broke the story on Monday about the abortion payment claim.

The White House is unveiling a series of reports on Thursday detailing agencies’ progress in steeling federal government facilities, programs and operations in the face of climate change.

The progress reports come a year after more than 20 agencies released plans to ensure federal facilities and programs are resilient against the climate crisis, including initiatives bumping pay to federal firefighters, electrifying vehicle fleets and pinpointing which military bases are most at risk to climate hazards. The reports were requested by President Joe Biden on his first day in office.

Now, the White House is highlighting examples of progress made across the federal government to ensure climate readiness, CNN has learned. This includes the fortification of federal facilities, the expansion of climate education and training within agency staff, the hiring of climate-focused personnel, the expansion of climate data access, the bolstering of supply chains in preparation for climate disasters and the incorporation of environmental justice into federal adaption efforts.

The Department of Defense, for example, “expanded the number of major installations and sites using the DOD Climate Assessment Tool from 157 to over 1,900,” a White House fact sheet provided to CNN said. The tool “rigorously identifies climate hazards, allows officials to prioritize where best to invest resources and how to mitigate potential harm and security impacts through adaptive solutions.”

Florida’s Tyndall Air Force Base, which suffered billions of dollars in damages when Hurricane Michael struck in 2018, is using the assessment tool to build what the Defense Department calls the “Installation of the Future” that is “resilient to climate change impacts.” The White House says the General Services Administration has also incorporated climate risk requirements into several major federal government contract opportunities “with an approximate combined spending of more than $400 million.”

A large concern, the White House’s federal chief sustainability officer Andrew Mayock told CNN, is understanding how supply chains will still deliver for the US government’s needs amid “hurricanes like Ian and other impacts across the United States.”

On Wednesday, the outlet said they had agreed to not share certain details about the woman’s identity to protect her privacy and over safety concerns. Then, Walker told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade he had “no clue about” her identity and denied the accusation and said it was an attack by “desperate” Democrats looking to keep the senate seat. Some in the GOP have continued to defend him.

“They see me as a big threat, and I know that and I knew it when I got into this race. But they don’t realize that I think they came for the wrong one. They energized me,” Walker said. “They energized me, because I know how they really want to try to keep this seat.

Treasury is one of several federal agencies taking its cue from the White House. In the run-up to the midterm elections, the White House has put up a series of posts about equity as it relates to federal grant funding, federally funded research, stopping the spread of monkeypox and access to infrastructure contracts.

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WANTS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO BE DIVERSITY, EQUITY MODEL FOR THE NATION

Between Biden's executive order and the drumbeat of attention to diversity and equity created by the White House, other major federal departments have taken their own steps to advance DEIA. (Getty Images)

DEIA has also attached itself to other Biden administration priorities, such as climate change. Just last week, Vice President Harris caused a stir when she said assistance to climate-ravaged areas of the country must be distributed with "equity" in mind, which many Republicans interpreted as a sign that relief for Hurricane Ian in Florida might be doled out according to race.

The White House later clarified that Harris was not talking about relief specific to Hurricane Ian when she said low-income communities and communities of color are most vulnerable to climate change, and that the government needs to "address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity."

VICE CHAIR OF TREASURY DEPT'S NEW RACIAL EQUITY COMMITTEE WANTS TO DEFUND THE POLICE, ‘CENTER RACE’ IN ALL POLICY

Between Biden's executive order and the drumbeat of attention to diversity and equity created by the White House, other major federal departments have taken their own steps to advance DEIA:

Agriculture

The U.S. Department of Agriculture launched an Equity Commission at the start of 2022 to advise the secretary on how programs and practices within the department "contribute to barriers to inclusion or access, systemic discrimination, or exacerbate or perpetuate racial, economic, health and social disparities." USDA says the commission will confront the "hard reality of past discrimination and its lingering harm." The group last met in late September, and it hopes to submit a final report on its findings next year.

Commerce

Assistant Commissioner Gough said the man was not suspected of being the individual responsible for the Optus breach but allegedly tried to financially benefit from the 10,200 stolen records that were dumped on an online forum.

She has warned people impacted by the breach to be suspicious of text messages, and not to click on links claiming to be from Optus, banks, police or other organisations offering to help with the data leak.

Assistant Commissioner Gough said the man was the first person who had been arrested under Operation Guardian and suspected it would not be the last.

"We are doing whatever we can working around the clock to protect Australians whose details have been released," she said.Optus given temporary power to share data with banks following hack

Optus will be able to share drivers licences, Medicare and passport numbers with banks and government agencies to assist in fraud detection following the massive data breach.

MILWAUKEE — Republicans have unleashed a barrage of negative ads in the final weeks of the midterms that hammer Democrats on crime.

Four members of a central California family who were kidnapped two days ago have been found dead, the Merced County sheriff said Wednesday night.

“Tonight, our worst fears have been confirmed,” Sheriff Vernon Warnke said at a news conference. “We found the four people from the kidnapping, and they are in fact deceased.”

Authorities had been searching for 8-month-old Aroohi Dheri; her parents, Jasleen Kaur, 27, and Jasdeep Singh, 36; and her uncle Amandeep Singh, 39, since Monday.

The sheriff’s office has said they were taken against their will Monday from a business on South Highway 59. Video released Wednesday appears to shows them being abducted from the family trucking business by a man armed with a gun.

A person taken into custody in connection with the case was unconscious after a suicide attempt, the sheriff’s office said earlier Wednesday.

The sheriff's office was called around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday after a farmworker discovered the bodies, Warnke said.

"There was a farmworker in area and during course of his job duties came across them," he said.

In at least two states, the strategy appears to be taking hold.

Recent polling suggests that after GOP Senate candidates zeroed in on crime in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the trajectory of the races shifted. In Wisconsin in particular, the negative ads have relentlessly targeted Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who is challenging Sen. Ron Johnson.

“They’ve all got the same crib notes: Attack Democrats on crime,” said political science professor Charles Franklin, the director of the Marquette University Law School poll.

“It’s an effective issue here and elsewhere because, simply put, homicide rates are up in most urban centers,” he added, a trend that includes Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Although Republicans have long turned to a playbook of attacking Democrats for not being tough enough on crime, pollsters like Franklin and strategists interviewed by NBC News said the strategy seems particularly effective this year amid rising crime rates across the U.S. and elevated voter concerns about the issue. Some Democrats have argued that Republicans are deploying scare tactics and racist dog whistles on purpose to mislead voters about their rivals.

But some Democrats have also grown alarmed that the attacks are resonating. Several Wisconsin Democrats said in interviews that Barnes knew the attacks were coming and are concerned the campaign hasn’t done more to keep the issue from becoming a defining aspect of the race.

“It’s been frustrating,” said one of Barnes’ primary opponents, Tom Nelson.

Nelson, along with two other Democrats, dropped out of the race early to clear a path for Barnes, who consistently polled ahead of him and other Democrats. “It’s probably frustrating for the other candidates, as well, because we invested so much time, so much money in beating Ron Johnson. If we didn’t have that set of values, if we didn’t have that shared goal of beating Ron Johnson, we wouldn’t have bailed out.”

Another Wisconsin Democrat who asked not to be named for fear of political retribution shared Nelson’s concerns.

“Why has it taken so long to figure out an answer to this crime messaging?” the Democrat said. “Why does it feel like Ron Johnson had like a month to hammer away at Mandela unanswered?”

Many of the pro-Johnson ads have hammered Barnes on the issue of cash bail, calling him a “dangerous Democrat” who supports ending it and making frequent mention of the person who plowed his car through a Christmas parade in Waukesha last year, killing six people and injuring dozens more. The suspect, Darrell Brooks, had been arrested days before the attack on domestic assault charges, but he was free after having posted $1,000 bail, a sum that has drawn criticism for being too low.

Brooks’ trial began this week, putting the issue back in the local news for the foreseeable future.

“These messages work because it’s not just a commercial. [Voters] see the problem every time they turn on the TV,” said a Wisconsin Republican operative with knowledge of Johnson’s campaign strategy.

During the Democratic primary, Barnes said he supported ending cash bail, and Johnson’s ads have noted that Barnes, as a state Assembly member, sponsored legislation they claim would have let criminals like Brooks post “dangerously low” bail. Barnes has said his bill would have required judges to hold defendants in custody if “clear and convincing evidence” existed that they were dangers to the community. Independent fact-checkers have said it’s “mostly true” that Barnes’ bill would have prevented Brooks from being released on bail. Advocates for bail reform have said cash bail discriminates against poor people and people of color, and many plans to reform it, including Barnes’ years-old proposal, target eliminating the practice for nonviolent crimes.

Another Republican ad claims Barnes “stands with ‘defund the police,’” while still others have tied him to “the squad,” a group of progressive lawmakers in Congress, many of whom support the “defund the police” movement, while showcasing an old photo of him holding up an “Abolish ICE” T-shirt. (The Barnes campaign made it clear early in the primary that Barnes didn’t support either movement.)

Yet another ad features an old clip of Barnes saying that “reducing prison populations is now sexy” before he claims that “his administration” paroled hundreds of violent offenders — a misleading accusation that Tim Michels, the Republican nominee for governor, is also wielding against his opponent, Gov. Tony Evers, one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents in the country.

Some of Barnes' allies, however, said Johnson's that allies have used racist dog whistles to describe Barnes, who is Black, in ads and that they sent campaign mailers that appeared to have darkened his skin. That's an accusation that Republicans rejected.

Calena Roberts, a Milwaukee-based organizer with the Service Employees International Union, said the nonstop ads about crime exploit Black neighborhoods for political gain.

"We live in a very racist state. There are people out here who thrive on that kind of nonsense that he’s spewing," Roberts, who is Black, said of Johnson. "We have to be mindful and diligent and be able to push back."

She also lamented that Republicans have gotten away with lobbing attacks without outlining their own plans to combat crime.

“I want to know what he did for the last two terms and what his plan is now," she said of Johnson. "If he were to win, what would he do to curb crime?”

Barnes has put out a series of statements and ads that hit back against the attacks. In one, Barnes slams them as "lies about me meant to scare you." Like other Democrats, Barnes has also hit Johnson and other Republicans for being apologists for those involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. In recent days, however, Barnes has pivoted to attack Johnson on the issue of abortion rights — a move strategists say is designed to appeal to the Democratic base. This week, Barnes launched a “Ron against Roe” tour of the state and began running his first negative attack ad of the race, targeting Johnson’s stance on abortion access.

Barnes campaign spokesperson Maddy McDaniel said the race “remains neck and neck" even though Johnson and outside groups have spent millions of dollars on a "smear campaign." She said the campaign, freshly "armed" with a $20 million fundraising haul in the third quarter, was "taking the fight to Ron Johnson," particularly over his "dangerous" record on abortion.

In Pennsylvania, Republican Senate nominee Meh

She took the opportunity to warn scammers against using the data leaked in the breach.

"Do not test the capability or dedication of law enforcement. The AFP, our state partners and industry are relentlessly scouring forums and other online sites for criminal activity linked to this breach.

"Just because there has been one arrest does not mean there won’t be more.

"Be really, really conscious about suspicious and unexpected messages and activities across online platforms."

woman who said Herschel Walker paid for her 2009 abortion is the mother of one of his children, according to a new report Wednesday, undercutting the Georgia Republican Senate candidate’s claims that he didn’t know who she was.

The Daily Beast, which first reported Monday on the abortion, said it had agreed not to reveal details of the woman’s identity to protect her privacy. But Walker, who has expressed support for a national abortion ban without exceptions, vehemently denied the story, calling the abortion allegation a “flat-out lie,” threatening a lawsuit against the outlet he has yet to file and saying he had no idea who the woman might be.

So on Wednesday night, The Daily Beast revealed that the woman — who was not named — was so well known to Walker that, according to her, they conceived another child years after the abortion. She decided to continue on with the later pregnancy, though she noted that Walker, as he had during the earlier pregnancy, expressed that it wasn’t a convenient time for him, the outlet reported.

The Daily Beast said the Walker campaign declined to comment on Wednesday’s story. Walker is scheduled to make a public appearance Thursday morning in Wadley, Georgia, as part of his Unite Georgia Bus Stop tour across the state.

The latest reporting ensures that abortion will continue to be a central issue in the Georgia race, one of the most competitive Senate contests in the country. Walker and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock are locked in a tight contest that is key to the balance of power in the U.S. Senate.

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Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee for Georgia's U.S. Senate seat, takes questions from the media after a campaign event in Athens, Georgia.

It adds to a series of stories about the football legend’s past that have shaken Walker’s campaign. Walker has been accused of repeatedly threatening his ex-wife’s life, exaggerating claims of financial success and overstating his role in a for-profit program that is alleged to have preyed upon veterans and service members while defrauding the government.

Earlier this year, after a story by The Daily Beast, Walker acknowledged the existence of three children he had not previously talked about publicly.

The woman told The Daily Beast for Wednesday’s story that Walker’s denial of the abortion was somewhat surprising to her.

“Sure, I was stunned, but I guess it also doesn’t shock me, that maybe there are just so many of us that he truly doesn’t remember,” the woman said. “But then again, if he really forgot about it, that says something, too.”

In The Daily Beast report published late Monday, the news outlet said it reviewed a receipt showing her payment for the procedure, along with a get-well card from Walker and her bank deposit records showing the image of a $700 personal check from Walker dated five days after the abortion receipt.

During the Republican Senate primary, Walker openly backed a national ban on abortions with no exceptions for cases involving rape, incest or a woman’s health being at risk — particularly notable at a time when the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court precedent had been overturned and Democrats in Congress had been discussing codifying abortion rights into federal law.

“I’m for life,” Walker has said repeatedly as he campaigns. When asked about whether he’d allow for any exceptions, he has said there are “no excuses” for the procedure.

As the Republican nominee, Walker has sometimes sidestepped questions about his earlier support for a national abortion ban, a tacit nod to the fact that most voters, including many Republicans, want at least some legal access to abortion

The Commerce Department released a 20-page "Equity Action Plan" in April that says officials will work to build "innovation ecosystems in historically underserved communities," expand assistance to minority businesses and make DOC resources more available to underserved communities.

Defense

In late September, the Pentagon announced a new defense advisory committee on diversity and inclusion, which will provide advice and recommendations on "matters and policies relating to the improvement of racial/ethnic diversity, inclusion and equal opportunity within the department." A week later, DOD released a 37-page plan to promote DEIA.

Parts of the Ukrainian government authorised a car bomb which killed the daughter of a key ally of Vladimir Putin in Moscow, the US believes.

Kyiv has always denied responsibility for the attack of Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist, in August.

But US intelligence agencies have now concluded that the explosion was sanctioned by parts of the Ukrainian government in a closely held assessment shared within the US government last week, according to the New York Times.

US officials insisted Washington had no advance knowledge of the attack, nor did it provide intelligence or other assistance that led to it, according to the paper.

In fact, American officials admonished their Ukrainian counterparts in the wake of the assassination.

It is unclear if Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky had signed off on the attack or who in the Ukrainian government America rebuked over the incident.

Ukraine: ‘Someone like Dugina is not a target for us’

A spokesman repeated the Ukrainian government's denial to The New York Times on Tuesday.

Asked about the US intelligence assessment, Mykhailo Podolyak said: “Someone like Dugina is not a tactical or a strategic target for Ukraine."

US officials have speculated that the real target of the assassination was Dugina's father, Aleksandr Dugin, a leading cheerleader of Russia's war in Ukraine known to wield significant influence with Mr Putin.

Mr Dugin was supposed to drive into Moscow with his daughter, but decided at the last minute to travel back in another car.

Ukraine’s security services have proved adept at conducting sabotage operations within Russian territory from the start of the seven-month conflict.

But the assassination of Dugina still represents one of the boldest operations of the war to date, and appears to demonstrate Ukraine's ability to reach prominent Russians.

US fears attack could escalate Russian invasion

The attack is one element of a covert campaign by Ukraine that US officials fear could escalate Russia's invasion.

American officials have reportedly been frustrated with Kyiv's lack of transparency over both its battlefield and covert plans, in particular those actioned on Russian territory.