The Pentagon will begin furloughing most of its nearly 800,000 civilian employees on July 8.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) is weighing possible amendments to the Pentagon's fiscal year 2014 budget plan as a vehicle to change the rules governing U.S. counterterrorism operations. 

Defense giant Lockheed Martin is looking outside the United States for new business as it scrambles to make up millions of dollars in lost sales from sequestration.

The American weapons maker wants to bolster its international sales portfolio up to 20 percent over the next fiscal year, Lockheed Martin President and CEO Marillyn Hewson said Tuesday.

"The global security map is being redrawn ... [and] we recognize that we are in an intense budget environment," she said.

The move is part of Lockheed's strategy to mitigate damage to its bottom line from the budget cuts under sequestration and from the overall reduction in military spending since the post-9/11 boom.

Four American soldiers were killed in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday as U.S. and coalition forces dig in for the final fighting season of the over decade-long war. 

The State Department is refuting a new federal audit that found U.S. firms improperly paid almost $1 billion in Afghan taxes, calling its conclusions “not supported” and claiming its recommendations “may undercut” bilateral negotiations.

Tuesday's report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found that Afghanistan over the past five years has levied more than $921 million in business taxes and penalties on 43 U.S. reconstructions contractors, in violation of agreements between the two countries. The report urges the State Department and Congress to take action, if need be by penalizing taxation of U.S. foreign assistance funding to the war-torn country.

“It's disturbing that the Afghan government is targeting American contractors with unjust taxes and intimidation,” Special Inspector General John Sopko said in a statement accompanying the report. “It's even more disturbing that US agencies are letting it happen – all at the expense of American taxpayers, who have already shouldered a heavy burden on Afghan reconstruction. This needs to end.”

President Obama will announce in the coming weeks the number of combat troops that will be withdrawn from Afghanistan next year, Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday in Stockholm.

"Very shortly, not too long from now, the president does intend to make public what his plans are for post-2014," Kerry told reporters, according to Reuters.

Earlier this year, Obama announced that he would bring home some 34,000 troops by next February, effectively halving the American military presence in Afghanistan. But the administration has not yet said  how many troops will remain at the end of 2014; as many as 15,000 service members could stay behind to provide training and support to Afghan security forces.

When sequestration took effect in March, the Pentagon had warned it would furlough civilians as many as 22 days.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is raising her profile as a leading advocate for changing the way the military prosecutes sexual assault cases.

The Topline: Repeated GOP attacks claiming the White House covered up the truth about the September attack in Benghazi, Libya, are nothing more than a politically motivated “side-show," President Obama said Monday.

“The whole issue of talking points, frankly, throughout this process has been a side-show,” Obama said during a press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron. “The fact that this keeps getting churned out, frankly, has a lot to do with political motivations.”

His comments come just a few days after it was revealed that State Department officials removed references to al Qaeda and CIA warnings about security threats to the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi in talking points shared with the public. 

Republican lawmakers have charged that the administration sought to downplay the terrorist attack in the weeks before last November’s presidential election.

Obama sought to paint accusations as a partisan fight during Monday's press conference. 

“We don't have time to be playing these kinds of political games here in Washington. We should be focused on what are we doing to protect them,” Obama said. “We dishonor them when we turn things like this into a political circus.”

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