The spending bill would provide $521 million to reimburse the National Guard, as well as more than $70 million to support more U.S. Capitol Police officers, plus hazard pay, overtime and retention bonuses for the police. The bill also includes $1.1 billion in relief to Afghans who worked with the U.S. during nearly two decades of war in the country.

John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, made the comments as the SIGAR office released its latest quarterly report, which provided a grim outlook on the state of Afghanistan as the U.S. military ends its involvement in the war by Aug. 31.

The beefed-up budget from Senate Armed Services Committee is likely to set up a clash with House Democrats who have backed President Joe Biden’s spending proposal, which was released in early April.

The bill from Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., would streamline the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program by boosting the number of visa slots by an additional 8,000.

Sgt. 1st Class Elizabeth Marks, 30, from Prescott Valley, Ariz., is one of 17 soldiers who are traveling to Japan to compete in the Olympics. Twelve of them are part of the Army’s World Class Athlete Program, a unit that allows participants to fulfill their military responsibilities while training with the goal to qualify for the Olympic and Paralympic games.

An Air Force official said during a subpanel hearing of the House Armed Services Committee that the service has requested $20 million in its fiscal 2022 proposed budget for only one child-care development center to be replaced at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas.

President Joe Biden on Thursday announced the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan will end by Aug. 31 and his administration will start to move thousands of Afghan translators to several other countries as they await visa approval to enter the United States.

Concerns over how Bagram was turned over come as dozens of districts in Afghanistan have fallen to the Taliban since May 1, when U.S. and NATO troops officially began to leave the country.

But the proposal from the committee’s subpanel on defense includes the administration’s request for a 2.7% pay raise for service members, providing a total of $166.8 billion in funding for troops and Defense Department contractors.

In March 2020, the Marine Corps announced its “Force Design 2030” plan that laid out sweeping changes, including cutting overall end-strength numbers from 186,000 in 2020 to 174,000 by 2030, divesting in tanks, as well as investing in rockets instead of conventional artillery.