Australia has closed its main military base in Afghanistan and its last combat troops have withdrawn from Uruzgan province, officials have announced.

The Australian military has maintained a permanent presence at Tarin Kot base in the province since 2005.

But officials announced on Monday that the final batch of troops to leave the base were now on their way home.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott paid tribute to the Australian troops who had served in Afghanistan since 2001.

"We know that they've paid a high price, 40 dead, 261 seriously wounded," he said.

"But that sacrifice has not been in vain. Uruzgan today is a very significantly different and better place than it was a decade ago."

Afghans have been in charge of security in Uruzgan for over a year.

From 2014, the Australian military presence will be down to around 400 people who will train and advise Afghan security forces, Australia's Minister for Defence Senator David Johnston said in a statement.

The previous Labor government announced in March that the Tarin Kot base would be closed by the end of 2013.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is trying to make small business owner Braulio Castillo one of the last of his kind.

Castillo, president and chief executive officer of Strong Castle, an information technology company, came to national attention in June for a tongue-lashing he received at a House hearing because his company received preferential treatment in getting government contracts set aside for disabled veterans.

Castillo never served on active duty, but he receives veterans disability compensation as result of a foot injury he received at the U.S. Military Academy Preparatory School.

It was Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who questioned Castillo at a June hearing about how his disability, rated at 30 percent by the Veterans Affairs Department, compares with the disabilities she suffered as a result of combat injuries in Iraq.

Duckworth is a disabled Iraq veteran who lost both legs and the use of an arm after a helicopter crash. “My right arm was essentially blown off and reattached,” she said, noting she has no feeling in three fingers.

Her disability rating for her arm is 20 percent, less than the rating for Castillo’s ankle.

“Shame on you,” Duckworth said to Castillo at the June hearing. “You may not have broken any laws. But you certainly broke the trust of this great nation and you broke the trust of veterans.”

An investigation by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee found Castillo was recruited in 1984 to play football at the U.S. Military Academy but was first enrolled in the preparatory school, a common practice. He injured his left foot during an “orienteering exercise” and was discharged from the school.

Despite going on to play football at the University of San Diego, Castillo applied for and was awarded a service-connected disability from VA in 2012, just as he was creating a information technology company.

The committee report says Castillo was never on active duty but was considered a veteran because of his injury.

Duckworth and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the House are the chief sponsors of a bipartisan bill introduced Nov. 13 to change that by redefining the definition of a veteran to exclude people like Castillo. The bill, HR 3469, has 58 cosponsors

The bill would specifically prevent someone who attended a service academy preparatory school from being treated as a veteran or disabled veteran for the purposes of receiving veterans’ disability compensation and being considered a veteran when applying for a small-business contract.

Cash America International, a major owner of U.S. pawn shops and payday loan shops, has agreed pay $19 million in consumer refunds and fines for robo-signing documents used in debt collection, issuing improperly high loans to military members and destroying records sought by a federal regulator.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau imposed the penalties Wednesday under a consent order with the Fort Worth-based company. The penalties marked the agency's first enforcement action against a payday lender, one of the industries the regulator has examined since its 2010 creation under the Dodd-Frank financial reform act.

"If the bureau had not gone on site at Cash America, these problems might never have been uncovered," said CFPB Director Richard Cordray, who said the case highlighted the watchdog agency's mandate to oversee non-bank firms that affect millions of Americans "and make sure they're following the law."

Cash America CEO Daniel Feehan said the firm cooperated with examiners. "Now that we have completed the initial CFPB review process and entered into this settlement, we will continue to focus on serving our customers while working to develop additional compliance programs," he said.

According to the consent order, workers in Cash America's Ohio-based collections department improperly stamped their manager's signature on loan collection affidavits for nearly five years "without the manager's prior review of the affidavits or supporting documentation." An unidentified in-house collection attorney also directed workers to stamp the lawyer's name on Ohio court pleadings that had not been reviewed, the order said.

More than 14,000 Ohio consumers targeted in debt-collection lawsuits from 2008 to Jan. 2013 were affected, said Cordray. Cash America has already started repaying $6 million to the consumers, and will pay an additional $8 million in refunds, he said. The company also worked with the consumer watchdog to cancel improper Ohio debt-collection judgments.

Separately, investigators found that Cash America's online payday loan subsidiary in Chicago for nearly a year gave active-duty service members loans above the 36% annual interest rate maximum allowed by the Military Lending Act. More than 300 military members or their dependents received the loans.

Cash America has refunded $33,550 in loans and related fees to those customers, according to the order.