An omnibus spending bill introduced by congressional appropriators would fund the modernization and procurement of AH-64 Apache helicopters for the U.S. Army to address recommendations from the National Commission on the Future of the Army, Defense News reported Monday.

Jen Judson writes the proposed bill allocates $262 million for seven new AH-64s and covers the annual operating costs of four attack helicopter battalions.

NCFA recommended that the Army National Guard maintain four Apache battalions amid a dispute between the active Army and Guardsmen over a 2013 decision to transfer all Apaches from the National Guard to active units.

The commission’s suggestions to retain an 11th Combat Aviation Brigade in South Korea and maintain a total force of at least 980,000 troops are also reflected in the spending package, Judson reported.

The bill would provide funds to upgrade existing Army Apaches; sustain a CAB in South Korea; and increase the military branch’s force size by up to 3,000 active soldiers, Guardsmen and reservists, according to the report.

House and Senate leaders on Sunday reached a $1 trillion budget deal to fund the government operations for the remaining months of its 2017 fiscal year.

U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Darrell Williams, commanding general of the Army Combined Arms Support Command and Sustainment Center of Excellence at Fort Lee, will take over as director of the Defense Logistics Agency at Fort Belvoir.

DLA said Tuesday the Senate confirmed Williams’ new assignment as well as promotion to the rank of lieutenant general as he succeeds U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Andy Busch, who will retire May 4.

The new DLA director returns to the agency where he served as commander of the land and maritime group based in Ohio from September 2010 to July 2012.

He has also held assignments as deputy chief of staff for Army Materiel Command at Redstone Arsenal, director of logistics for engineering and security assistance at the U.S. Pacific Command headquarters, executive officer to the Army deputy chief of staff and deputy commander of the Coalition Forces Land Component Command at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.

Williams has master’s degrees from the National Defense University, Army Command and General Staff College and Pennsylvania State University.

An annual report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence says the National Security Agency gathered at least 151 million phone call records of U.S. citizens in 2016 despite a congressional restriction on the collection of such data, Reuters reported Tuesday.

Mark Hosenball writes the report also showed that NSA made the records collection despite Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court-issued warrants that call for the agency to conduct surveillance operations on only 42 suspects who may have links to terrorism.

ODNI issued the report as Congress considers whether to renew NSA’s application for the reauthorization of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

FISA section 702 allows NSA and other Intelligence Community agencies to conduct surveillance operations on foreign individuals outside the U.S. in order to gather intelligence on cybersecurity and terrorism activities.

The ODNI report came days after NSA decided to end some of its “upstream” surveillance activities under section 702 following a review of privacy issues, mission needs, technological difficulties and implementation challenges.

NSA said it will no longer collect “upstream internet communications” between U.S. individuals who talked about a foreign intelligence target and will delete previously acquired upstream digital records “as soon as practicable.”

The Defense Department‘s inspector general has called on the chief of the U.S. Army aviation center of excellence to update the draft document for capability production of the Common Infrared Countermeasure system in order to include the threshold requirement of 214 flight hours prior to full-rate production.

The aircraft survivability equipment project manager should update the master plan for the test and evaluation phase of the CIRCM system and report developments on efforts to achieve system reliability, DoD IG said in a report published Wednesday.

The IG made the recommendations after it found that the Army failed to define test planning and system capability requirements for CIRCM as well as report efforts to meet maintainability and reliability requirements associated with the system.

The Defense Contract Management Agency failed to monitor subcontractor efforts and that the Army project manager was not able to include in the Defense Acquisition Executive Summary the challenges experienced during the reliability testing phase of the CIRCM system, according to the report.

The IG also recommended that the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should modify the document with regard to the CIRCM system capability development.