BAGHDAD (AP) — The governor of an Iraqi province where a fire in a shopping mall killed more than 60 people resigned Wednesday.
The fire last Wednesday tore through a newly opened shopping center in the town of Kut in Wasit province. While an investigation is ongoing, officials and residents have said that lack of safety measures in the building exacerbated the tragedy.
Provincial Gov. Mohammed al-Miyahi said he had resigned “in honor of the blood of the martyrs, as they are in need of a gesture that may soothe part of their deep wounds, and in loyalty to them and to the people of this province.” The provincial council elected a new governor, Hadi Majid Kazzar.
The fire had sparked widespread public anger, with families of the victims demanding the governor’s dismissal and that others responsible for negligence be held accountable. They asserted that the blaze was the result of a long history of administrative corruption and weak oversight.
Iraqi Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani had sent an official request to Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani calling for the governor’s dismissal, and the Cabinet decided in a session Tuesday to refer al-Miyahi to the investigation.
Al-Miyahi previously said that the building owner did not implement fire safety measures and had not applied for required permits, and that legal complaints had been filed against the owner and shopping center owner.
Poor building standards have often contributed to tragic fires in Iraq. In July 2021, a blaze at a hospital in the city of Nasiriyah that killed between 60 to 92 people was determined to have been fueled by highly flammable, low-cost type of “sandwich panel” cladding that is illegal in Iraq.
In 2023, more than 100 people died in a fire at a wedding hall in the predominantly Christian area of Hamdaniya in Nineveh province after the ceiling panels above a pyrotechnic machine burst into flames.
Iraqi people gather in front of a burning hypermarket building in Kut, Iraq, Thursday, July 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
An Iraqi security guard stands in front of a burning hypermarket building in Kut, Iraq, Thursday, July 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two senators from opposite parties are joining forces in a renewed push to ban members of Congress from trading stocks, an effort that has broad public support but has repeatedly stalled on Capitol Hill.
Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Republican Sen. Ashley Moody of Florida on Thursday plan to introduce legislation, first shared with The Associated Press, that would bar lawmakers and their immediate family members from trading or owning individual stocks.
It's the latest in a flurry of proposals in the House and the Senate to limit stock trading in Congress, lending bipartisan momentum to the issue. But the sheer number of proposals has clouded the path forward. Republican leaders in the House are pushing their own bill on stock ownership, an alternative that critics have dismissed as watered down.
“There’s an American consensus around this, not a partisan consensus, that members of Congress and, frankly, senior members of administrations and the White House, shouldn’t be making money off the backs of the American people,” Gillibrand said in an interview with the AP on Wednesday.
Trading of stock by members of Congress has been the subject of ethics scrutiny and criminal investigations in recent years, with lawmakers accused of using the information they gain as part of their jobs — often not known to the public — to buy and sell stocks at significant profit. Both parties have pledged to stop stock trading in Washington in campaign ads, creating unusual alliances in Congress.
The bill being introduced by Gillibrand and Moody is a version of a House bill introduced last year by Reps. Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas, and Seth Magaziner, a Democrat from Rhode Island. That proposal, which has 125 cosponsors, would ban members of Congress from buying or selling individual stocks altogether.
Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida tried to bypass party leadership and force a vote on the bill. Her push with a discharge petition has 79 of the 218 signatures required, the majority of them Democrats.
House Republican leaders are supporting an alternative bill that would prohibit members of Congress and their spouses from buying individual stocks but would not require lawmakers to divest from stocks they already own. It would mandate public notice seven days before a lawmaker sells a stock. The bill advanced in committee Wednesday — which Luna called “a win” — but its prospects are unclear.
Magaziner and other House Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, wrote in a joint statement Wednesday that they “are disappointed that the bill introduced by Republican leadership today fails to deliver the reform that is needed.”
The Senate bill from Gillibrand and Moody would give lawmakers 180 days to divest their individual stock holdings after the bill takes effect, while newly elected members would have 90 days from being sworn in to divest. Lawmakers would be prohibited from trading and owning certain other financial assets, including securities, commodities and futures.
“The American people must be able to trust that their elected officials are focused on results for the American people and not focused on profiting from their positions,” Moody wrote in response to a list of questions from the AP.
The legislation would exempt the president and vice president, a carveout likely to draw criticism from some Democrats. Similar objections were raised last year over a bill that barred members of Congress from issuing certain cryptocurrencies but did not apply to the president.
Gillibrand said the president “should be held to the same standard” but described the legislation as “a good place to start.”
“I don’t think we have to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good,” Gillibrand said. “There’s a lot more I would love to put in this bill, but this is a consensus from a bipartisan basis and a consensus between two bodies of Congress.”
Moody, responding to written questions, wrote that Congress has the “constitutional power of the purse” so it's important that its members don't have “any other interests in mind, financial or otherwise.”
“Addressing Members of Congress is the number one priority our constituents are concerned with,” she wrote.
It remains to be seen if the bill will reach a vote in the Senate. A similar bill introduced by Gillibrand and GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri in 2023 never advanced out of committee.
Still, the issue has salience on the campaign trail. Moody is seeking election to her first full term in Florida this year after being appointed to her seat when Marco Rubio became secretary of state. Gillibrand chairs the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm.
“The time has come," Gillibrand said. “We have consensus, and there’s a drumbeat of people who want to get this done.”
FILE -Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., speaks during the confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee for Kash Patel, President Donald Trump's choice to be director of the FBI, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)
FILE - Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., leaves the Senate chamber after voting on a government funding bill at the Capitol in Washington, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
