Former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton has been charged in a federal investigation into the potential mishandling of classified information. Court documents show he was charged Thursday with 18 counts of retention and transmission of national defense information. Bolton is accused of sharing more than 1,000 pages of information about government activities with relatives in diary-like notes about his time in government. The indictment also alleges that the personal email account Bolton used to share the information was hacked by an entity believed to be associated with Iran. Bolton denies wrongdoing.

Senate Democrats are rejecting for the 10th time a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government. They are insisting they won’t back away from demands that Congress take up health care benefits. The repetition of votes on the funding bill has become a daily drumbeat in Congress. It underscores how intractable the situation has become as the vote has at times been the only item on the agenda for the Senate floor. Senate Republicans also held a vote to proceed to a bill to fund the Defense Department and possibly several other areas of government. But Democrats almost all voted against the procedure. The $6.5 billion tapped to ensure the military is paid covers one pay period.

President Donald Trump says he's speaking with Russia’s Vladimir Putin as he considers Ukraine’s push for long-range missiles. Trump said late Thursday morning he would give an update on what they talked about after the call was over. The call comes ahead of Trump’s Friday meeting at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Ukrainian leader has been pressing Trump to sell Kyiv Tomahawk missiles, which would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deeper into Russian territory. Zelenskyy has argued such strikes would help compel Putin to take Trump’s calls for direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to end the war more seriously.