The Senate has given final congressional approval to a scaled-down bill to explicitly ban members of Congress, the president and thousands of other federal workers from profiting from nonpublic information learned on the job.

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President Barack Obama has said he would sign the bill.

In an unusual move, the legislation passed unanimously Thursday without a vote on the measure itself. Passage was automatically triggered by a procedural motion that was approved on a 96-3 vote.

The bill would give the public a more frequent look at financial transactions of government officials. A driving force has been Congress' focus on its own dismal approval ratings.

 

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

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