CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — NASCAR Chairman Jim France had a stronger second day of testimony Wednesday as the final witness called by Michael Jordan’s side in the federal antitrust lawsuit against the racing series, explaining that advice from his late parents helped shape his stance against granting teams permanent charters in the new revenue-sharing model.
NASCAR attorney Christopher Yates opened the eighth day of the trial by asking the soft-spoken France how old he is — 81 — and if he wears hearing aids — he does — as he walked France through a background that included working for the family business in various roles since high school and following a stint serving in Vietnam.
NASCAR, the largest motorsports series in the United States, was founded in 1948 by Bill France Sr. and remains privately owned by the Florida-based France family. Jim France said he was raised with two core principles passed down from his parents.
His mother, credited with helping her husband build NASCAR from nothing, told her two sons to always pay their bills. Bill France Sr. advised them to “do what you say you're going to do.”
It was those two principles that led to France's refusal to budge on permanent charters in the 2025 revenue-sharing agreement.
“I've just seen so much change over the years and things are changing at a fast pace and I don't know how to put something in place — I don't know how we could come to an agreement that covers forever,” he testified.
He later tied it directly to his parents' advice.
“I don't have a sightline for the future and I don't feel comfortable making a promise I can't keep forever,” he testified.
That thinking aligns with Tuesday testimony from NASCAR Commissioner Steve Phelps, who gave NASCAR's version of the chaotic Sept. 6, 2024, final agreements presented to teams late that Friday afternoon with an end-of-day deadline to sign the 112-page document or forfeit their charters.
Phelps testified the delay in sending the final drafts was because France had promised Roger Penske, owner of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, IndyCar and teams in multiple racing series including NASCAR, that France would personally speak to Penske before the agreements were delivered. France tried to call Penske several times that day and Phelps testified that Penske didn't answer.
It wasn't until after the two had finally spoken that the charters were sent to teams, at close to 5 p.m., with a midnight deadline.
“Jim is a man of his word,” Phelps testified.
23XI Racing, which is owned by basketball Hall of Famer Jordan, three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, and Jordan’s financial adviser, Curtis Polk, and Front Row Motorsports, owned by Bob Jenkins, were the only two teams out of 15 organizations that refused to sign. They sued instead.
Multiple team owners have described that day on the opening weekend of the 2024 playoffs as an ultimatum from NASCAR as they found the offers to be “take-it-or-leave-it” and they signed with “a gun to our head.” Hall of Fame team owner Richard Childress testified Tuesday his team would have gone out of business if he didn't sign the agreement.
France had a better showing on the stand Wednesday than he did the day before as plaintiffs' attorney Jeffrey Kessler had to repeat many questions and France said on numerous topics that he was either unable to recall, did not remember or was not sure — even in response to evidence introduced that the France Family Trust received $400 million in distributions from 2021 through 2024 and that NASCAR is valued at $5 billion.
He wasn’t sure of the title his niece, Lesa France Kennedy, holds with NASCAR, or the ownership percentages between the two. Evidence showed Jim France owns 54% of NASCAR, while France Kennedy, the vice chair, owns 36%. France also testified he believes he is paid in “the $3.5 million range” as chairman.
While the extension offer presented in September 2024 did increase annual revenue promised to the teams, it fell short of the team's request for $720 million — a sum Phelps testified would have put NASCAR out of business.
It also fell short of the four “pillars” the teams were demanding. Teams ended up receiving $431 million annually in increased revenue, but were not granted permanent charters, did not get a voice in governance or the terms they sought on new business streams.
France testified Wednesday he did believe the teams received several of their requests.
He was the final witness called as the plaintiffs rested and NASCAR began to present its defense. NASCAR called an executive who testified to the costs of the current race car; its chief financial officer, who claimed NASCAR didn't have the funds to pay the teams the amounts they requested in the charter agreement; and, finally, a renowned accountant.
Evidence has been introduced that shows the top team owners in NASCAR all wrote personal letters pleading for France to make the renewable charters permanent. The plaintiffs also introduced several documents detailing communication between NASCAR executives that showed France was stubbornly opposed to permanent charters throughout the two-plus years of bitter negotiations.
France’s position never changed, even though he received pleas from Hall of Fame team owners Joe Gibbs, Rick Hendrick, Jack Roush and Penske. All four are close personal friends, France said on the stand.
The charter system is equivalent to the franchise model used in other sports. In NASCAR, a charter guarantees cars a spot in the 40-car field each week, as well as specified financial terms.
The nine-person jury will have to decide if NASCAR violated antitrust laws, and if so, what the damages are to 23XI and Front Row. An economist has previously testified that NASCAR owes 23XI and Front Row $364.7 million in damages, and that NASCAR shorted 36 chartered teams $1.06 billion from 2021-24.
On Wednesday, Mark E. Zmijewski, a professor at the University of Chicago School of Business, testified as to why he felt the economist's calculations are wrong. He did not give a figure on potential damages NASCAR might owe, instead testifying that he found the projections incorrect because the model used Formula 1 as a benchmark.
Zmijewski said F1 has a higher growth rate and is more profitable than NASCAR, and that NASCAR does not have the profitability to afford the estimated payments the economist believes are owed to all race teams.
NASCAR is expected to conclude its case Friday.
Should NASCAR lose, it will be up to U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell to unravel the monopoly, and he can make any decisions he chooses. Among the options would be forcing the France family to sell NASCAR or the racetracks they own, and even dismantling or changing the charter system.
A win for 23XI and Front Row does not guarantee the teams will receive a combined six charters from NASCAR. They have both said they will go out of business if they are not chartered teams.
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
FILE - CEO and Chairman of NASCAR Jim France, right, along with the Executive Vice President of NASCAR Lesa Kennedy announce the Landmark Award to Edsel Ford II the Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Charlotte, N.C. Jan. 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Mike McCarn, File)
FILE - Michael Jordan, co-owner of 23XI Racing, sits in his pit box during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Talladega Superspeedway, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024, in Talladega, Ala. (AP Photo/ Butch Dill, File)
NASCAR chairman Jim France enters federal court in Charlotte, N.C., on Wednesday Dec 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Jenna Fryer)
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powellsaid Sunday the Department of Justice has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.
The move represents an unprecedented escalation in President Donald Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he's repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.
The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project Trump has criticized as excessive.
Here's the latest:
The former Justice Department special counsel who investigated Trump and secured two grand jury indictments has opened a law practice with former colleagues.
The firm is called Heaphy, Smith, Harbach & Windom LLP.
Besides Smith, it includes David Harbach and Thomas Windom, two former federal prosecutors who also served on the special counsel team investigating Trump, as well as Tim Heaphy, a former U.S. attorney and chief investigative counsel to a special House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The firm says it will represent individuals, businesses, universities, municipalities and state agencies.
Another Republican is speaking out against the Justice Department’s investigation of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska says that if the DOJ believes an investigation into Powell is warrants based on project cost overruns, which she says are not unusual, then Congress needs to investigate the DOJ.
“The stakes are too high to look the other way: if the Federal Reserve loses its independence, the stability of our markets and the broader economy will suffer,” Murkowski wrote on X.
She also notes that she spoke with Powell on Monday morning, adding “it’s clear the administration’s investigation is nothing more than an attempt at coercion.”
London’s murder rate fell in 2025 to its lowest level in decades, officials said Monday. Mayor Sadiq Khan said the figures disprove claims spread by President Trump and others on the political right that crime is out of control in Britain’s capital.
Police recorded 97 homicides in London in 2025, down from 109 in 2024 and the fewest since 2014. The Metropolitan Police force says the rate by population is the lowest since comparable records began in 1997, at 1.1 homicides for every 100,000 people.
That compares to 1.6 per 100,000 in Paris, 2.8 in New York and 3.2 in Berlin, the force said.
“There are some politicians and commentators who’ve been spamming social media with an endless stream of distortions and untruths, painting an image of a dystopian London,” Khan told The Associated Press. “And nothing could be further from the truth.”
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The Democratic Party regained the partisanship edge when independents were asked whether they lean more toward the Democratic or Republican Party in a new Gallup poll.
Nearly half, 47%, of U.S. adults now identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 42% are Republicans or lean Republican.
This is an indication of how Americans are feeling about their political affiliations, and it may not be reflected in voters’ actual registration.
Independents appear to be driven by their unhappiness with the party in power. That’s a dynamic that could be good for Democrats for now, but it doesn’t promise lasting loyalty. Attitudes toward the party haven’t gotten warmer, suggesting the Democrats’ gains are probably more related to independents’ sour views of President Trump.
That comes a day after President Trump threatened the Caribbean island in the wake of the U.S. attack on Venezuela.
Díaz-Canel posted a flurry of brief statements on X after Trump suggested Cuba “make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” He did not say what kind of deal.
Díaz-Canel wrote that for “relations between the U.S. and Cuba to progress, they must be based on international law rather than hostility, threats, and economic coercion.”
The island’s communist government has said U.S. sanctions cost the country more than $7.5 billion between March 2024 and February 2025.
Díaz-Canel added: “We have always been willing to hold a serious and responsible dialogue with the various US governments, including the current one, on the basis of sovereign equality, mutual respect, principles of International Law, and mutual benefit without interference in internal affairs and with full respect for our independence.”
Cuba’s president stressed on X that “there are no talks with the U.S. government, except for technical contacts in the area of migration.”
About 8 in 10 U.S. adults said the Federal Reserve Board should be independent of political control, according to Marquette/SSRS polling from September, while roughly 2 in 10 said the president should have more influence over setting interest rates and monetary policy. There was bipartisan consensus that the Fed should remain independent. About 9 in 10 Democrats and about two-thirds of Republicans said the Fed should not be subjected to political control.
That poll found about 3 in 10 Americans said they had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in The Federal Reserve Board. Nearly half — 45% — had some confidence, and roughly one-quarter had “very little” confidence or “none at all.”
Stocks are falling on Wall Street after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the Department of Justice had served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony about the Fed’s building renovations.
The S&P 500 fell 0.3% in early trading Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 384 points, or 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.2%.
Powell characterized the threat of criminal charges as pretexts to undermine the Fed’s independence in setting interest rates, its main tool for fighting inflation. The threat is the latest escalation in President Trump’s feud with the Fed.
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She says she had “a very good conversation” with Trump on Monday morning about topics including “security with respect to our sovereignties.”
Last week, Sheinbaum had said she was seeking a conversation with Trump or U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the U.S. president made comments in an interview that he was ready to confront drug cartels on the ground and repeated the accusation that cartels were running Mexico.
Trump’s offers of using U.S. forces against Mexican cartels took on a new weight after the Trump administration deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Sheinbaum was expected to share more about their conversation later Monday.
A leader of the Canadian government is visiting China this week for the first time in nearly a decade, a bid to rebuild his country’s fractured relations with the world’s second-largest economy — and reduce Canada’s dependence on the United States, its neighbor and until recently one of its most supportive and unswerving allies.
The push by Prime Minster Mark Carney, who arrives Wednesday, is part of a major rethink as ties sour with the United States — the world’s No. 1 economy and long the largest trading partner for Canada by far.
Carney aims to double Canada’s non-U.S. exports in the next decade in the face of President Trump’s tariffs and the American leader’s musing that Canada could become “the 51st state.”
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The comment by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson came in response to a question at a regular daily briefing. President Trump has said he would like to make a deal to acquire Greenland, a semiautonomous region of NATO ally Denmark, to prevent Russia or China from taking it over.
Tensions have grown between Washington, Denmark and Greenland this month as Trump and his administration push the issue and the White House considers a range of options, including military force, to acquire the vast Arctic island.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO.
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Trump said Sunday that he is “inclined” to keep ExxonMobil out of Venezuela after its top executive was skeptical about oil investment efforts in the country after the toppling of former President Nicolás Maduro.
“I didn’t like Exxon’s response,” Trump said to reporters on Air Force One as he departed West Palm Beach, Florida. “They’re playing too cute.”
During a meeting Friday with oil executives, Trump tried to assuage the concerns of the companies and said they would be dealing directly with the U.S., rather than the Venezuelan government.
Some, however, weren’t convinced.
“If we look at the commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestable,” said Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company.
An ExxonMobil spokesperson did not immediately respond Sunday to a request for comment.
▶ Read more about Trump’s comments on ExxonMobil
Trump’s motorcade took a different route than usual to the airport as he was departing Florida on Sunday due to a “suspicious object,” according to the White House.
The object, which the White House did not describe, was discovered during security sweeps in advance of Trump’s arrival at Palm Beach International Airport.
“A further investigation was warranted and the presidential motorcade route was adjusted accordingly,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Sunday.
The president, when asked about the package by reporters, said, “I know nothing about it.”
Anthony Guglielmi, the spokesman for U.S. Secret Service, said the secondary route was taken just as a precaution and that “that is standard protocol.”
▶ Read more about the “suspicious object”
Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.
Iran had no direct reaction to Trump’s comments, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to foreign diplomats in Tehran, insisted “the situation has come under total control” in fiery remarks that blamed Israel and the U.S. for the violence, without offering evidence.
▶ Read more about the possible negotiations and follow live updates
Fed Chair Powell said Sunday the DOJ has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.
The move represents an unprecedented escalation in Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he has repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.
The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project that Trump has criticized as excessive.
Powell on Sunday cast off what has up to this point been a restrained approach to Trump’s criticisms and personal insults, which he has mostly ignored. Instead, Powell issued a video statement in which he bluntly characterized the threat of criminal charges as simple “pretexts” to undermine the Fed’s independence when it comes to setting interest rates.
▶ Read more about the subpoenas
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while in flight on Air Force One to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One from Florida, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
