The Topline: The 2013 National Defense Authorization Act took another step forward Thursday as the Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously passed the bill out of committee. The next step for the Pentagon policy bill is the Senate floor, although it’s unclear still when that will occur.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said the bill is on a “long list” of measures to be considered in June, and that it could slip to July.

While it’s nowhere near being a sure thing just yet — just look at the last two years — if the Senate does pass the defense bill in July it would give the House and Senate a chance to reconcile the two before the November election. Both the House and Senate committee heads indicated they want to do just that because of the so-called “fiscal cliff” that’s already waiting the lame duck — which included the $500 billion in automatic defense cuts through sequestration.

There is much to reconcile between the GOP-led House and the Democratic-led Senate, including the overall topline of the bill itself. Levin said the Senate bill aligns with President Obama’s Pentagon budget request and is about $4 billion lower than the House bill.

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The Senate bill authorizes about $4 billion less than House legislation, setting up a fight in conference. 

After two days of intense negotiations designed to allay fears over Iran's nuclear program, top Western and Iranian diplomats agreed to hold a new round of talks in June. 

The vote is a reaction to a Pakistani court imprisoning a doctor who helped the CIA hunt down bin Laden.

Sen. Mark Udall told The Hill he is bypassing a fight in committee on indefinite detention laws.

New York — White House officials will have a new way to travel when the V-22 Osprey officially becomes part of the presidential helicopter fleet in 2013.

Two female soldiers filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday to end the ban on women in combat.

Command Sgt. Maj. Jane Baldwin and Col. Ellen Harding are suing to put an end to restrictions in combat positions “solely on the basis of sex.”

The women, who are both Army reservists, say their military careers have been hampered by the ban on women in combat, and are asking the court to rule it unconstitutional for violating their equal protection rights under the Fifth Amendment.

The president told cadets the United States was "stronger and safer" with the end of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The topline: Defense and foreign aid spending will take center stage Thursday, when members of the Senate Armed Services and Appropriations committees mark up the fiscal 2013 spending bills for both the Pentagon and State Department. Defense lawmakers have spent most of the week behind closed doors, putting the final touches on their version of the DOD budget bill. 

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) did shed a little light into the ongoing deliberations when she opened the Senate Committee's Readiness subpanel to the public. McCaskill opened the hearing as a way to protest the traditional Senate practice of marking up the defense bill in private. But in the end, aside from announcing $200 million in cuts to operations and maintenance, McCaskill's subcommittee disclosed very little about their markup. 

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