CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — NASCAR majority owner Jim France is stepping down as chief executive and will be replaced by president Steve O'Donnell, according to multiple reports.
France will remain as NASCAR's chairman and his majority ownership stake will not change.
Click to Gallery
FILE - In this Feb. 9, 2019, file photo, Jim France, executive vice president of NASCAR, stands on pit road as he watches auto racing at Daytona International Speedway, in Daytona Beach, Fla.. (AP Photo/Terry Renna, File)
FILE - NASCAR CEO Jim France, right, along with the Executive Vice President of NASCAR Lesa France Kennedy announce the Landmark Award to Edsel Ford II at Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in Charlotte, N.C. Jan. 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Mike McCarn, File)
FILE - Steve O'Donnell, executive vice president of NASCAR, talks about the Next Gen Cup Cars that will be used in the 2022 season during the NASCAR media event in Charlotte, N.C., Wednesday, May 5, 2021. (AP Photo/Mike McCarn, File)
FILE - Jim France, right, chairman and executive vice president of NASCAR, talks with sponsors in Victory Lance after the second of two NASCAR Daytona 500 qualifying auto races at Daytona International Speedway, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Terry Renna, File_
O'Donnell will be the first person outside the France family to hold the CEO title of NASCAR. Bill France Sr. founded the United States' most popular racing series in 1948 and always had a family member in the top role prior to the changes expected to be announced at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama on Saturday.
Ben Kennedy, France's great-nephew, will be promoted to chief operating officer.
Jim France had been chairman and CEO of NASCAR since the 2019 resignation of his nephew, Brian.
France took a hardline stance in negotiations for the 2025 revenue-sharing agreement, triggering an anti-trust lawsuit by Michael Jordan's 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports. The sides reached a settlement in December that granted NASCAR teams the permanent charters they had sought.
France was soft spoken, needed several questions repeated and struggled to remember several topics during his first day of testimony in the anti-trust trial before a stronger second day.
NASCAR Commissioner Steve Phelps resigned earlier this year after inflammatory texts he sent during contentious revenue-sharing negotiations were revealed during the trial.
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
FILE - In this Feb. 9, 2019, file photo, Jim France, executive vice president of NASCAR, stands on pit road as he watches auto racing at Daytona International Speedway, in Daytona Beach, Fla.. (AP Photo/Terry Renna, File)
FILE - NASCAR CEO Jim France, right, along with the Executive Vice President of NASCAR Lesa France Kennedy announce the Landmark Award to Edsel Ford II at Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in Charlotte, N.C. Jan. 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Mike McCarn, File)
FILE - Steve O'Donnell, executive vice president of NASCAR, talks about the Next Gen Cup Cars that will be used in the 2022 season during the NASCAR media event in Charlotte, N.C., Wednesday, May 5, 2021. (AP Photo/Mike McCarn, File)
FILE - Jim France, right, chairman and executive vice president of NASCAR, talks with sponsors in Victory Lance after the second of two NASCAR Daytona 500 qualifying auto races at Daytona International Speedway, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Terry Renna, File_
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syrian authorities said Friday they have arrested a former intelligence officer who appeared in a video leaked four years ago that purportedly showed him and his comrades fatally shooting dozens of people during the country’s civil war.
Amjad Yousef was arrested in the central province of Hama, where he had been hiding, the Interior Ministry said, and posted a photo of him in a striped prison uniform.
Since insurgents ousted former President Bashar Assad in December 2024, dozens of members of his security agencies that were blamed for atrocities during the conflict have been arrested. Assad fled to Russia.
The conflict, which began with anti-government protests in March 2011 before turning into a civil war, left half a million people dead and over 1 million wounded.
Yousef was one of several Syrian security agents who authorities said appeared in a video leaked in 2022, in which dozens of blindfolded, bound men were shot and thrown into a trench.
U.S. special envoy to Syria Tom Barrack posted on X that the arrest was "a powerful step away from impunity toward accountability, exemplifying the new paradigm of justice emerging in post-Assad Syria: one rooted in the rule of law, national reconciliation, and the equal application of justice regardless of past affiliations.”
The 6 minute and 43 second clip shows members of Syria’s notorious Military Intelligence Branch 227 with a line of around 40 prisoners in an abandoned building in Tadamon, a suburb of Damascus near the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk. For much of the war, the district was a front line between government forces and opposition fighters.
The prisoners were blindfolded, with their arms tied behind their backs. One after another, the Branch 227 gunmen stand them at the edge of a trench filled with old tires, then push or kick the men in, shooting them as they fall.
In the video, the intelligence agents tell some of the prisoners that they are going to pass through a sniper’s alley and that they should run. The men tumble onto the bodies of those who went before them. As bodies pile up in the trench, some still move, and the gunmen shoot into the pile.
The gunmen later set the bodies on fire, presumably to erase evidence of the massacre.
Last year, security forces in Syria said that they arrested three people involved in the same killings.
The Interior Ministry said in its statement Friday that authorities will go after all those involved in the Tadamon shooting to bring them to justice.
In March 2023, the U.S. State Department banned entry into the U.S. of Yousef, his wife and immediate members of his family.
Protesters and relatives of victims of the killings known as the Tadamon massacre gather to demand the execution of Amjad Yousef, a former intelligence officer allegedly linked to the killings, after the Interior Ministry announced his arrest, in the Tadamon neighborhood of Damascus, Syria, Friday, April 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)
Relatives of victims of the killings known as the Tadamon massacre gather to demand the execution of Amjad Yousef, a former intelligence officer allegedly linked to the killings, after the Interior Ministry announced his arrest, in the Tadamon neighborhood of Damascus, Syria, Friday, April 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)
Protesters and relatives of victims of the killings known as the Tadamon massacre gather to demand the execution of Amjad Yousef, a former intelligence officer allegedly linked to the killings, after the Interior Ministry announced his arrest, in the Tadamon neighborhood of Damascus, Syria, Friday, April 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)
FILE - This frame grab from a 2013 video, shows a Syrian soldier firing into a large pit full of bodies, in the Tadamon neighborhood of Damascus, Syria. (AP Photo, File)
