Can Biden save his agenda with executive action?

House Democrats push Biden to take executive action; Russia's invasion of Ukraine enters its fourth week.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Jariel Arvin.

House progressives urge Biden to take action 

Alex Wong/Getty Images

• Facing an agenda stalled in the Senate, influential House Democrats are urging President Joe Biden to deliver on campaign promises through executive action ahead of November’s midterm elections. [Politico / Sarah Ferris and Nicholas Wu]
• Thursday, the 98-member Congressional Progressive Caucus released a list of executive actions Biden could take to achieve Democrats’ domestic agenda on issues like health care, student debt, criminal justice reform, and climate change. [Business Insider / Ayelet Sheffey, Joseph Zeballos-Roig, and Juliana Kaplan]
• The list comes as Democrats struggle to revive their Build Back Better bill, a massive social and climate spending initiative killed in late 2021 by the GOP and moderate Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin. The outlook for rebooting that bill isn’t good, so Democrats are now looking for an alternative. [Vox / Li Zhou]
• Progressives aren’t the only ones pushing Biden to go it alone: The Congressional Black Caucus wants executive orders protecting voting rights and the Hispanic Caucus is seeking changes to immigration policies. [Washington Post / Marianna Sotomayor]
• Executive action has its limits, and can be undone by subsequent presidents. But with Democratic lawmakers unable to pass party priorities, they’re looking to Biden to make policy for them (while also giving them election year wins). [Associated Press / Farnoush Amiri]

Russia's invasion of Ukraine enters its 4th week

• Russia’s ground forces appears to be stalling — and suffering huge losses — as the war in Ukraine enters its fourth week. However, devastating air attacks on civilian area continue. [New York Times / Marc Santora, Michael Schwirtz and Shashank Bengali
• Thursday, 21 people were killed, and dozens more injured, under heavy gunfire in Merefa, a town northeast of Kharkiv in a region that has seen extensive destruction since the invasion began. [Vox / Li Zhou]
• That attack followed an assault in the southern city Mariupol, where more than a hundred survivors have so far emerged from the basement of a theater the day after the building, reportedly marked with the word “children,” was leveled by Russian missiles. [CNN / Victoria Butenko, Olga Voitovych, Andrew Carey, James Frater and Jeevan Ravindran]
• For days, Mariupol has been a focus of Russian aggression, and now thousands of people, under the constant threat of bombardment, are sheltering in basements with little food, water, or electricity. [Reuters / James Mackenzie, Natalia Zinets and Oleksandr Kozhukhar]
• The UK, France, Albania, Ireland, and Norway joined President Biden in accusing Putin of committing war crimes before a UN security council meeting on Thursday. The US is collecting a list of Putin’s alleged crimes, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. [Guardian / Daniel Boffey and Dan Sabbagh]

Some of Bernie Sanders’s former campaign officials are quietly pushing California Rep. Ro Khanna to run for president in 2024 — if Biden doesn’t. [Politico / Holly Otterbein]

• Kanye West was suspended for Instagram for 24 hours on Thursday for using a racial slur against comedian Trevor Noah. [Guardian / Ben Beaumont-Thomas]
• Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel has sold over $400 million in company stock since its successful vaccine rollout began. [CNBC / Spencer Kimball]
• Facing a severe drought likely made worse by climate change, 4 million Somalians face severe hunger and starvation should spring rains again fail to materialize. [Reuters / Feisal Omar]

“Executive action, it’s a last resort. This is a legislative body.”

[Rep. John Larson (D-CT) explains his preference for passing legislation, as liberal lawmakers urge more executive actions / Politico]

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