What Happened When Oregon Decriminalized Hard Drugs

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2 years ago

July 27, 2023

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This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.

Updated at 11:25 a.m. ET on July 20, 2023

Three years ago, while the nations attention was on the 2020 presidential election, voters in Oregon took a dramatic step back from Americas long-running War on Drugs. By a 17-point margin, Oregonians approved Ballot Measure 110, which eliminated criminal penalties for possessing small amounts of any drug, including cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine. When the policy went into effect early the next year, it lifted the fear of prosecution for the states drug users and launched Oregon on an experiment to determine whether a long-sought goal of the drug-policy reform movementdecriminalizationcould help solve Americas drug problems.

Early results of this reform effort, the first of its kind in any state, are now coming into view, and so far, they are not encouraging. State leaders have acknowledged faults with the policys implementation and enforcement measures. And Oregons drug problems have not improved. Last year, the state experienced one of the sharpest rises in overdose deaths in the nation and had one of the highest percentages of adults with a substance-use disorder. During one two-week period last month, three children under the age of 4 overdosed in Portland after ingesting fentanyl.

For decades, drug policy in America centered on using law enforcement to target people who sold, possessed, or used drugsan approach long supported by both Democratic and Republican politicians. Only in recent years, amid an epidemic of opioid overdoses and a national reconsideration of racial inequities in the criminal-justice system, has the drug-policy status quo begun to break down, as a coalition of health workers, criminal-justice-reform advocates, and drug-user activists have lobbied for a more compassionate and nuanced response. The new approach emphasizes reducing overdoses, stopping the spread of infectious disease, and providing drug users with the resources they needcounseling, housing, transportationto stabilize their lives and gain control over their drug use.

Oregons Measure 110 was viewed as an opportunity to prove that activists most groundbreaking ideasharply reducing the role of law enforcement in the governments response to drugscould work. The measure also earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars in cannabis tax revenue for building a statewide treatment network that advocates promised would do what police and prosecutors couldnt: help drug users stop or reduce their drug use and become healthy, engaged members of their communities. The day after the measure passed, Kassandra Frederique, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, one of the nations most prominent drug-policy reform organizations, issued a statement calling the vote a historic, paradigm-shifting win and predicting that Oregon would become a model and starting point for states across the country to decriminalize drug use.

Sam Quinones: Americas approach to addiction has gone off the rails

But three years later, with rising overdoses and delays in treatment funding, even some of the measures supporters now believe that the policy needs to be changed. In a nonpartisan statewide poll earlier this year, more than 60 percent of respondents blamed Measure 110 for making drug addiction, homelessness, and crime worse. A majority, including a majority of Democrats, said they supported bringing back criminal penalties for drug possession. This years legislative session, which ended in late June, saw at least a dozen Measure 110related proposals from Democrats and Republicans alike, ranging from technical fixes to full restoration of criminal penalties for drug possession. Two significant changestighter restrictions on fentanyl and more state oversight of how Measure 110 funding is distributedpassed with bipartisan support.

Few people consider Measure 110 a success out of the gate, Tony Morse, the policy and advocacy director for Oregon Recovers, told me. The organization, which promotes policy solutions to the states addiction crisis, initially opposed Measure 110; now it supports funding the policy, though it also wants more state money for in-patient treatment and detox services. As Morse put it, If you take away the criminal-justice system as a pathway that gets people into treatment, you need to think about what is going to replace it.

Many advocates say the new policy simply needs more time to prove itself, even if they also acknowledge that parts of the ballot measure had flaws; advocates worked closely with lawmakers on the oversight bill that passed last month. Were building the plane as we fly it, Haven Wheelock, a program supervisor at a homeless-services provider in Portland who helped put Measure 110 on the ballot, told me. We tried the War on Drugs for 50 years, and it didnt work It hurts my heart every time someone says we need to repeal this before we even give it a chance.Workers from the organization Central City Concern hand out Narcan in Portland, Oregon, on April 5. (Jordan Gale)

Measure 110 went into effect at a time of dramatic change in U.S. drug policy. Departing from precedent, the Biden administration has endorsed and increased federal funding for a public-health strategy called harm reduction; rather than pushing for abstinence, harm reduction emphasizes keeping drug users safefor instance, through the distribution of clean syringes and overdose-reversal medications. The term harm reduction appeared five times in the ballot text of Measure 110, which forbids funding recipients from mandating abstinence.

Matt Sutton, the director of external relations for the Drug Policy Alliance, which helped write Measure 110 and spent more than $5 million to pass it, told me that reform advocates viewed the measure as the start of a nationwide decriminalization push. The effort started in Oregon because the state had been an early adopter of marijuana legalization and is considered a drug-policy-reform leader. Success would mean showing the rest of the country that people did think we should invest in a public-health approach instead of criminalization, Sutton said.

To achieve this goal, Measure 110 enacted two major changes to Oregons drug laws. First, minor drug possession was downgraded from a misdemeanor to a violation, similar to a traffic ticket. Under the new law, users caught with up to 1 gram of heroin or methamphetamine, or up to 40 oxycodone pills, are charged a $100 fine, which can be waived if they call a treatment-referral hotline. (Selling, trafficking, and possessing large amounts of drugs remain criminal offenses in Oregon.) Second, the law set aside a portion of state cannabis tax revenue every two years to fund a statewide network of harm-reduction and other services. A grant-making panel was created to oversee the funding process. At least six members of the panel were required to be directly involved in providing services to drug users; at least two had to be active or former drug users themselves; and three were to be members of communities that have been disproportionately impacted by drug criminalization, according to the ballot measure.

Backers of Measure 110 said the law was modeled on drug policies in Portugal, where personal drug possession was decriminalized two decades ago. But Oregons enforcement-and-treatment-referral system differs from Portugals. Users caught with drugs in Portugal are referred to a civil commission that evaluates their drug use and recommends treatment if needed, with civil sanctions for noncompliance. Portugals state-run health system also funds a nationwide network of treatment services, many of which focus on sobriety. Sutton said drafters of Measure 110 wanted to avoid anything that might resemble a criminal tribunal or coercing drug users into treatment. People respond best when theyre ready to access those services in a voluntary way, he said.

Almost immediately after taking effect,Measure 110 encountered problems. A state audit published this year found that the new law was vague about how state officials should oversee the awarding of money to new treatment programs, and set unrealistic timelines for evaluating and funding treatment proposals. As a result, the funding process was left largely to the grant-making panel, most of whose members lacked experience in designing, evaluating and administrating a governmental-grant-application process, according to the audit. Last year, supporters of Measure 110 accused state health officials, preoccupied with the coronavirus pandemic, of giving the panel insufficient direction and resources to handle a flood of grant applications. The state health authority acknowledged missteps in the grant-making process.

The audit described a chaotic process, with more than a dozen canceled meetings, potential conflicts of interest in the selection of funding recipients, and lines of applicant evaluations left blank. Full distribution of the first biennial payout of cannabis tax revenue$302 million for harm reduction, housing, and other servicesdid not occur until late 2022, almost two years after Measure 110 passed. Figures released by the state last month show that, in the second half of 2022, recipients of Measure 110 funding provided some form of service to roughly 50,000 clients, though the Oregon Health Authority has said that a single individual could be counted multiple times in that total. (A study released last year by public-health researchers in Oregon found that, as of 2020, more than 650,000 Oregonians required, but were not receiving, treatment for a substance-use disorder.)

From the May 2020 issue: Americas other epidemic

Meanwhile, the new laws enforcement provisions have proved ineffectual. Of 5,299 drug-possession cases filed in Oregon circuit courts since Measure 110 went into effect, 3,381 resulted in a recipient failing to pay the fine or appear in court and facing no further penalties, according to the Oregon Judicial Department; about 1,300 tickets were dismissed or are pending. The state audit found that, during its first 15 months in operation, the treatment-referral hotline received just 119 calls, at a cost to the state of $7,000 per call. A survey of law-enforcement officers conducted by researchers at Portland State University found that, as of July 2022, officers were issuing an average of just 300 drug-possession tickets a month statewide, compared with 600 drug-possession arrests a month before Measure 110 took effect and close to 1,200 monthly arrests prior to the outbreak of COVID-19.

Focusing on these tickets even though theyll be ineffectiveits not a great use of your resources, Sheriff Nate Sickler of Jackson County, in the rural southern part of the state, told me of his departments approach.

Advocates have celebrated a plunge in arrests. For reducing arrests of people of color, its been an overwhelming success, says Mike Marshall, the director of Oregon Recovers. But critics say that sidelining law enforcement has made it harder to persuade some drug users to stop using. Sickler cited the example of drug-court programs, which multiple studies have shown to be highly effective, including in Jackson County. Use of such programs in the county has declined in the absence of criminal prosecution, Sickler said: Without accountability or the ability to drive a better choice, these individuals are left to their own demise.

The consequences of Measure 110s shortcomings have fallen most heavily on Oregons drug users. In the two years after the law took effect, the number of annual overdoses in the state rose by 61 percent, compared with a 13 percent increase nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In neighboring Idaho and California, where drug possession remains subject to prosecution, the rate of increase was significantly lower than Oregons. (The spike in Washington State was similar to Oregons, but that comparison is more complicated because Washingtons drug policy has fluctuated since 2021.) Other states once notorious for drug deaths, including West Virginia, Indiana, and Arkansas, are now experiencing declines in overdose rates.

In downtown Portland this spring, police cleared out what The Oregonian called an open-air drug market in a former retail center. Prominent businesses in the area, including the outdoor-gear retailer REI, have announced closures in recent months, in part citing a rise in shoplifting and violence. Earlier this year, Portland business owners appeared before the Multnomah County Commission to ask for help with crime, drug-dealing, and other problems stemming from a behavioral-health resource center operated by a harm-reduction nonprofit that was awarded more than $4 million in Measure 110 funding. In April, the center abruptly closed following employee complaints that clients were covering walls with graffiti and overdosing on-site. A subsequent investigation by the nonprofit found that a security contractor had been using cocaine on the job. The center reopened two weeks later with beefed-up security measures.

Portlands Democratic mayor, Ted Wheeler, went so far as to attempt an end run around Measure 110 in his city. Last month, Wheeler unveiled a proposal to criminalize public drug consumption in Portland, similar to existing bans on open-air drinking, saying in a statement that Measure 110 is not working as it was intended to. He added, Portlands substance-abuse problems have exploded to deadly and disastrous proportions. Wheeler withdrew the proposal days later after learning that an older state law prohibits local jurisdictions from banning public drug use.

Despite shifting public opinion on Measure 110, many Oregon leaders are not ready to give up on the policy. Earlier this month, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek signed legislation that strengthens state oversight of Measure 110 and requires an audit, due no later than December 2025, of about two dozen aspects of the measures performance, including whether it is reducing overdoses. Other bills passed by the legislatures Democratic majority strengthened criminal penalties for possession of large quantities of fentanyl and mandated that school drug-prevention programs instruct students about the risks of synthetic opioids. Republican proposals to repeal Measure 110 outright or claw back tens of millions of dollars in harm-reduction funding were not enacted.

The fallout from Measure 110 has received some critical coverage from media outlets on the right. It is predictable, a scholar from the Hudson Institute told Fox News. It is a tragedy and a self-inflicted wound. (Meanwhile, in Portugal, the model for Oregon, some residents are raising questions about their own nations decriminalization policy.) But so far Oregons experience doesnt appear to have stopped efforts to bring decriminalization to other parts of the United States. Well see more ballot initiatives, Sutton, of the Drug Policy Alliance, said, adding that advocates are currently working with city leaders to decriminalize drugs in Washington, D.C.

Read: An anti-overdose drug is getting stronger. Maybe thats a bad thing?

Supporters of Measure 110 are now seeking to draw attention to what they say are the policys overlooked positive effects. This summer, the Health Justice Recovery Alliance, a Measure 110 advocacy organization, is leading an effort to spotlight expanded treatment services and boost community awareness of the treatment-referral hotline. Advocates are also coordinating with law-enforcement agencies to ensure that officers know about local resources for drug users. People are hiring for their programs; outreach programs are expanding, offering more services, Devon Downeysmith, the communications director for the group, told me.

An array of services around the state have been expanded through the policy: housing for pregnant women awaiting drug treatment; culturally specific programs for Black, Latino, and Indigenous drug users; and even distribution of bicycle helmets to people uable to drive to treatment meetings. People often forget how much time it takes to spend a bunch of money and build services, said Wheelock, the homeless-services worker, whose organization received more than $2 million in funding from Measure 110.

Still, even some recipients of Measure 110 funding wonder whether one of the laws pillarsthe citation system that was supposed to help route drug users into treatmentneeds to be rethought. Perhaps some consequences might be a helpful thing, says Julia Pinsky, a co-founder of Maxs Mission, a harm-reduction nonprofit in southern Oregon. Maxs Mission has received $1.5 million from Measure 110, enabling the organization to hire new staff, open new offices, and serve more people. Pinsky told me she is proud of her organizations work and remains committed to the idea that you shouldnt have to go to prison to be treated for substance use. She said that she doesnt want drug use to become a felony, but that some people arent capable of stopping drug use on their own. They need additional help.

Brandi Fogle, a regional manager for Maxs Mission, says her own story illustrates the complex trade-offs involved in reforming drug policy. Three and a half years ago, she was a homeless drug user, addicted to heroin and drifting around Jackson and Josephine Counties. Although she tried to stop numerous times, including one six-month period during which she was prescribed the drug-replacement medication methadone, she told me that a 2020 arrest for drug possession was what finally turned her life around. She asked to be enrolled in a 19-month drug-court program that included residential treatment, mandatory 12-step meetings, and a community-service project, and ultimately was hired by Pinsky.

Since Measure 110 went into effect, Fogle said, she has gotten pushback from members of the community for the work Maxs Mission does. She said that both the old system of criminal justice and the new system of harm reduction can benefit drug users, but that her hope now is to make the latter approach more successful. Everyone is different, Fogle said. Drug court worked for me because I chose it, and I wouldnt have needed drug court in the first place if I had received the kind of services Maxs Mission provides. I want to offer people that chance.

This article originally suggested that REIs store in Portland had closed; it is scheduled to close early next year.

Entertainment

Saturday Night Live announces creative team ahead of UK launch

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2 hours ago

November 13, 2025

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Saturday Night Live announces creative team ahead of UK launch

Saturday Night Live UK has announced its top creative team ahead of the series launching next year.

An American pop culture institution, SNL launched the careers of stars including Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Eddie Murphy, Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell – and now a “new generation” of British comedians is set to be cast in the first UK spin-off on Sky.

While the show’s stars are yet to be revealed, details of the creative team behind it have now been announced.

Two-time Emmy winner James Longman will serve as lead producer, BAFTA winner and live broadcast specialist Liz Clare will direct the series, while writer, comedian and composer Daran Jonno Johnson takes on the role of head writer.

Longman’s credits include The Late Late Show With James Corden, for which he produced famous sketches with stars and notable figures including Sir Paul McCartney, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise and then president Joe Biden.

He also worked on the Friends reunion special in 2021 and hit UK shows such as Never Mind The Buzzcocks, Alan Carr: Chatty Man, The F Word and The Friday Night Project.

Clare’s directing credits include An Audience With Adele, The Brits and MTV awards ceremonies, Glastonbury, the BAFTAs and shows such as The Voice UK and Britain’s Got Talent, while Johnson, who is part of the acclaimed sketch group SHEEPS, has written for shows including Wedding Season for Disney+, Siblings for the BBC and Rose d’Or winner Parlement for France.TV.

Saturday Night Live UK marks the first time the US producers have adapted the show, which celebrated 50 years on air earlier this year, for a British audience.

Channel 4 ran several series of a similar programme on Saturday and Friday nights in the 1980s, featuring comedians like Ben Elton and Harry Enfield, but it was domestically produced.

‘A lot of big US comedy is stolen from the UK’

Comedian Pete Davidson, another SNL star, told Sky News he’s excited about the UK version – and that it is about time the UK is able to take from US comedy, rather than the other way round.

Speaking in the summer during promotion for The Pickup, Davidson said: “I think it’s a smart idea to have SNL over there because… not that it’s a different brand of comedy, but it is a little bit.

“A lot of the biggest stuff that’s in the States is stuff that we stole from you guys, like The Office or literally anything Ricky Gervais does… there’s just tonnes of great comedy over there. Jimmy Carr is a great stand-up.”

Also highlighting Jack Whitehall, he continued: “I think anything that’s great over there, we just kind of steal… and it doesn’t seem like the other way around. This is the first time I’ve ever heard anything American going to the UK, so I think it’s great.”

Read more from Sky News entertainment:
Dua Lipa backs ticket resale cap
Sam Fender donates Mercury Prize cash

Producers say the UK series will follow the same format as the original, featuring “a new generation of comedy players in the core cast, alongside guest hosts and musical performances”.

The UK show will be overseen by US producer Lorne Michaels. Along with his production company Broadway Video, which has made The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and 30 Rock, the show will be led by UK production team Universal Television Alternative Studio.

Saturday Night Live UK will be broadcast on Sky Max and streaming service NOW in 2026.

Sports

Why not Virginia? How Tony Elliott weathered tragedy and built a winner

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2 hours ago

November 13, 2025

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Why not Virginia? How Tony Elliott weathered tragedy and built a winner

Andrea AdelsonNov 13, 2025, 07:00 AM ET
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- ACC reporter.
- Joined ESPN.com in 2010.
- Graduate of the University of Florida.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — When Tony Elliott walked into his first team meeting at Virginia in late 2021, he promised to develop the model program, one built on excellence in the classroom and on the field. He did it while looking at a representation of all he and his team would have to overcome: His players were sitting on white plastic folding chairs inside the indoor practice facility, because its outdated football building did not have a meeting room big enough to fit everyone.

Elliott came from Clemson, where the football facility, which opened in 2017, featured everything from a king-sized weight room to an in-house barber shop to state-of-the-art training tables and recovery areas. But when he arrived at Virginia, the facility he inherited had no modern amenities. Every meeting room was too small. There was no nutrition space — meals were handed out of a trailer after practice. No players lounge, either, nor space for support staff. It looked and felt every bit like something from 1991, which is, in fact, the year it was built.

That, however, did not stop Elliott from selling his vision. Forget about the folding chairs. Forget about having no place to eat. Forget about what you thought about Virginia football. This would be a new era. He wholeheartedly believed. So did the players who opted to stay and play for him.

Players like Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry. Players like Devin Chandler, who transferred in from Wisconsin.

Today, everything Elliott spelled out in those early days is on full display. No. 19 Virginia (8-2) is off to its best start since 1990. Despite losing to Wake Forest last week after quarterback Chandler Morris was knocked out of the game, the Cavaliers are still in the mix in the ACC championship race. They face a must-win game Saturday against Duke (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2) and are hopeful Morris will be able to play.

A new $80 million, 93,000-square foot football operations center opened last year, with spacious team meeting rooms and a large dining room featuring a chef who worked at a Michelin-rated restaurant in London. The 14,000-square foot weight room is nearly as large as the old 15,000-square foot facility.

Displayed prominently as you enter the building are the Nos. 1, 15 and 41 jerseys that belonged to Davis, Chandler and Perry, who were shot and killed on a charter bus after returning home from a class field trip to Washington, D.C., three years ago.

When Elliott walks past those jerseys, he thinks about what could have been. Some days he thinks about their funerals. He thinks about their families. He thinks about the lives they should be living.

Elliott thinks about Chandler, who would have been in his sixth season this year, living out everything that was promised on his recruiting visit, celebrating a magical season with his fellow seniors.

He thinks about where Davis and Perry would be in pursuing their post-collegiate dreams, perhaps standing on the sideline in Scott Stadium rooting on their former teammates, maybe storming the field when they beat Florida State in September.

What would they think of their team?

Would they be proud?

In a recent sit-down interview with ESPN, Elliott acknowledged for the first time that he seriously considered retiring after their deaths, unwilling to accept burying three young men, unsure how to lift his team when he had no idea how to lift himself.

“There were days that I wanted to be like, ‘I can’t do it anymore.’ I don’t have to do it,” he says now.

Elliott knew he would be navigating a path no other coach had ever charted: Keeping his promise to build that model program amid unprecedented tragedy. He had unwavering support from the school administration. But more than that, he had its promise to finally invest in Virginia football.

Three years after losing Chandler, Davis and Perry, Elliott is well on his way to delivering on the promises he made.

“It’s a beautiful thing to watch, and it is inspirational,” Virginia athletic director Carla Williams said. “I’m inspired to see how they have shown up every day since the tragedy. It’s very rewarding to see the success, and it just adds to the determination to see it through.”

AT THE TEAM’S first meeting in January, Elliott had all the new players go around the room, introduce themselves and explain why they chose Virginia. When it was Morris’ turn, he got up and bluntly said, “I came here to win a conference championship.”

“That’s the type of leader you want, and that’s when the majority of the room realized if we have a leader who’s that vocal, it’s time to do our part,” said senior kicker Will Bettridge, who has been with the program since 2022.

A few weeks later, Morris reiterated that sentiment in his first interview with reporters at Virginia. “I didn’t come all the way to Virginia as a Texas boy to win five, six games,” Morris said. “I want to win the conference championship.”

Reflecting on those comments, Morris told ESPN: “Talking to everyone affiliated with the program, you saw buy-in, a hungry program, everyone wanting to get this thing turned around. I knew there was a lot of support there, and we’d be able to go out and get the playmakers and people that we needed.”

Elliott and his players had no problem with Morris being so bold in the media. They all agreed with him.

Williams and Elliott had been working for years to incentivize investment in football. Bronco Mendenhall, who was the head coach at Virginia from 2016 to 2021, said during his time there that Virginia had the worst facilities in the ACC. He was not wrong. The small building was a hindrance on the recruiting trail. Getting a new facility funded was paramount. Once it was built, Williams and Elliott moved on to objective No. 2: financial investment in the program itself, going all-in on revenue sharing, NIL and enhancing the support staff.

Revenue sharing opened up a new world for Virginia. With athletic departments able to pay student athletes up to $20.5 million, Williams and Elliott set out to convince donors how important it was for Virginia to play the game its blue-blood football counterparts would be playing. The results soon followed.

Virginia made its strongest portal push under Elliott in the December 2024 window, armed with a large financial investment that it did not have previously, thanks in large part to a multimillion-dollar transformative gift from an anonymous donor. The school called the donation “the largest one-time cash contribution and the largest non-capital gift to Virginia football in program history.”

That allowed the Cavaliers to sign Morris and 16 other players, bolstering talent and depth at quarterback, receiver, defensive back and the offensive and defensive lines. Williams said Virginia was strategic in its build toward this moment: First the football operations center, then support for building the roster and support staff.

“Fortunately, we had several key donors who believe in the same things we believe in,” Williams said. “They believe in the way that we try to do things. They believe in long-term, sustainable success … the resources are massive. The folks who have been central to supporting the program did that before they saw the results, and that’s important.”

Though Elliott had posted three losing records in three seasons at Virginia, everybody inside the building knew that the foundation of the program was being reinforced. The future could really be different. Across the country, programs such as Indiana and Vanderbilt were holding their own against the blue bloods.

Why not Virginia?

“How did the football schools become football schools?” Elliott asks. “They made a decision, and then people bought in, and they created a culture. That’s really what it takes. Virginia has everything that it needs.”

TONY ELLIOTT’S MOTHER died in a car accident when he was just 9. He was riding in a van with her, his sister, stepbrother and stepfather when it hit another car and flipped over. Tony, his sister, stepbrother and stepfather survived. He found his pregnant mother motionless next to the van in a pool of blood. Elliott compartmentalized what happened. He was still just a kid. He didn’t fully comprehend that he would never see his mom again.

He poured everything he had into football, a place where he could forget about not having his mom, and eventually became a wide receiver at Clemson. After graduating, he spent two years as an engineer at Michelin North America. But he missed being around the game, and he started work as a volunteer coach at a local high school. He believed that the best way he could help others was through football.

Elliott eventually became one of the best assistants in the nation as the co-offensive coordinator and playcaller at Clemson, helping the Tigers win national titles in 2016 and 2018.

As the Tigers kept winning, Elliott kept getting calls about open head coaching jobs. For years, he turned them down. He wanted to wait for the school that felt right: a school with a strong academic profile that would also give him the ability to build a program the way he wanted and a chance to settle down and raise his family. And that’s what Virginia offered.

Then, 11 months into the job, Davis, Chandler and Perry were killed. Running back Mike Hollins was shot trying to help his teammates and was hospitalized. This time, Elliott had no choice but to confront the tragedy. It took decades for him to fully grasp losing his mother, which he described as “a gift and a curse,” in an interview with ESPN in 2015.

“I was hearing a lot of, ‘Everything you went through in your past, dealing with your mom and the adversity of your childhood, this is why you’re here,” Elliott said. “I didn’t want to hear that in the moment. That was 30 years ago. I’ve already done what I needed to do with that. I’m on the other side.

“I would get upset at times when people would say that, because it’s not what I wanted to hear. I want to be like everybody else. I wanted to hear the easy thing, like, ‘Hey, it’s not your fight. You don’t have to do this. Go start over. Go do something different.'”

He seriously thought about walking away. It was not the first time the thought crossed his mind. In 2018, former Clemson running back CJ Fuller died at age 22 from complications related to a blood clot. Then, after former Clemson running back Tyshon Dye drowned the following year at the age of 25, Elliott considered leaving the profession. Losing Davis, Perry and Chandler in the middle of their college careers, with so much life left to live, sent him spiraling. Too many young men lost too young.

“I just kept thinking, ‘I can’t invest in these young men and visualize what their lives could be like when they’re 30 years old, and then, boom, they’re gone. It’s too hard,” Elliott said. “Even in those moments when you’ve got to speak at those funerals, you don’t know what to say, and now you’re doing it again.

“It was not necessarily running from the situation as much as, ‘I just don’t know if I can do this anymore.'”

Elliott and Williams talked at length in the weeks and months that followed.

“He’s not the only one that contemplated that, and when you care deeply about young people, and something like that happens, it’s normal and human to fight the urge to walk away,” Williams said. “That’s where for me, and I’m sure for Tony, too, faith kicks in because there is a bigger picture. There is a purpose.”

Virginia canceled its final two regular-season games in 2022. Players began to hit the transfer portal. But others opted to stay, including Bettridge, offensive linemen Noah Josey, Jack Witmer and McKale Boley and defensive tackle Jahmeer Carter — all starters today. In all, 24 players on the 2022 team remain a part of the program.

“A lot of guys maybe thought that we were broken, and thought that it was going to affect us, but it actually brought us together, and it made us even stronger,” Bettridge said. “I want to be known as someone who carried that legacy, and not someone who jumped ship when things got hard. Because hard times don’t last, but strong people do.”

The months passed, and Elliott tried to build a roster, while figuring out his own path forward. Soon, it would be time to return to practice, to establish a new normal. That first day back on the field was hard. But he got the confirmation he needed as he watched his players return to football for the first time in four months when spring practice started the following March.

“If God asked us on the front end: This is what you’re walking into. Do you still want to go through that door? Nobody would sign up for that,” Elliott says. “So, God has to put you in that situation.

“I did choose to come here. When we pray for things, we’ve got to take everything that comes with it, and that’s when I got it. When we got back on the grass, that’s really when it hit me like, ‘All right, this is right where you’re supposed to be.’ Now, get out of your feelings and go focus on what you need to do for everybody else.”

The self-reflection also changed Elliott as a person and as a coach. He says he is more empathetic, a better husband and a better father. After the tragedy, Elliott made sure to open up with his players more. There was no shame in talking about feelings.

“My method of dealing with the things that I dealt with when I was younger, it’s probably not the most healthy and the most productive, but it was what you did,” Elliott said. “You didn’t talk about it much, you just sucked it up and you went through it. But times are different. I’m trying to find that balance of old-school/new-school just to be able to reach and help.”

Nor was there shame in admitting the way he approached his job in Year 1 was simply not going to work.

“When I first came in, young, overzealous, not understanding the job, just trying to do everything so fast, and not really recognizing where everybody else was at, just trying to tell everybody to come meet me where I am,” Elliott said. “I now meet them where they are, and say, ‘Let’s elevate together.'”

ELLIOTT HAD A quote from Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh placed on the wall in the weight room of the new football facility:

Champions behave like champions before they’re champions; they have a winning standard of performance before they are winners.

At Clemson, Elliott saw a program transform from an underachiever to a perennial national title contender. But he and Williams both knew the fix at Virginia would not be quick; the Cavaliers hadn’t won a conference title since 1995.

Elliott refused to run players off. Anybody on scholarship who has wanted to stay with the program has always been allowed to stay.

There were glimmers of hope in the first couple of years: a ranked win over North Carolina in 2023; another over Pitt in 2024. One-score losses often bled into more losses. Last season felt like Virginia was on the verge of a breakthrough after a 4-1 start, but the Cavaliers finished with losses in six of their final seven games to finish 5-7. Outsiders may have thought that was enough to put Elliott on the hot seat. But Williams never considered making a change. She knew Elliott was trying to do something more difficult than just winning football games.

“When you see people who care deeply showing up every day, when everything around them is pushing them to not show up, for me — that requires patience,” she said. “I understand how difficult it is to focus on a game when you’re traumatized by tragedy.”

All the while, Elliott was helping build a foundation for what was to come. So when offseason workouts began in January, the seniors who had been through the ups and the downs, and the loss of their teammates, took ownership. The transfer players came in and fit in so well that it was hard to tell who had been at Virginia for a few months, and who had been there for a few years.

“Everyone we brought in from the transfer portal, they had the same goal coming here — to win a championship,” said Carter, a sixth-year senior. “I think that showcases the culture change of the program.

“Because maybe a few years ago, you probably wouldn’t have heard that coming from somebody from UVA. Now here we are. That can actually be accomplished.”

The turning point came on a Friday night at home against Florida State. Walking into the stadium, Elliott felt at home, playing in a big national spotlight game, the stakes high. It was just like things were seven years prior at Clemson.

Virginia pulled out a 46-38 double-overtime victory, the fans storming the field almost instantly after the final play ended. Virginia had lost so many close games since he arrived, but Elliott never lost faith that night that his team would win.

Bettridge sat on a bench with his parents and girlfriend and allowed himself a moment to take in the scene.

“It was emotional just to realize what we’ve been through in four years here, and just to see what’s capable, and to know that there’s more,” Bettridge said.

The following week, Virginia played another overtime game, this time beating Louisville thanks to two defensive scores. Elliott texted Perry’s mom, Happy, after the game. “We had a little special help,” he said.

Maybe so. But Virginia is also helping itself this season, making plays when they matter most to pull out three overtime wins, becoming one of only eight teams in college football history with three overtime victories in the same season.

“There’s been teams in the past here that I’ve been a part of that found ways to lose,” Josey said. “This team is different. This team finds ways to win. This team finds ways to grind it out, tooth and nail, whatever it has to be. When we’re in those moments where in past years we might have faltered, we’re not this year. That’s the big difference.”

Now that Virginia has made the investment, there is no turning back. Over the last two months, the school has received one $1 million donation and another anonymous multimillion-dollar commitment.

Says Williams: “You’ve improved the personnel, you’ve improved the operating budget, you’ve improved the facilities. You’ve committed to rev share and NIL. If you stop, then you’ve wasted years of building.”

There is no stopping as far as Elliott is concerned. With each day and each win, there are always reminders about how far they have come, and how much they have lost. Elliott has made it a point to tell all incoming players about Davis, Chandler and Perry.

The three players are honored every year at a home game designated “UVA Strong Day.” This year, on that day, Virginia beat William & Mary 55-16. In his postgame news conference, Elliott noted the 55 points are the most Virginia has scored in a game since a 55-15 rout of Abilene Christian in November 2020. Davis and Perry each scored a touchdown in that game.

Josey thinks about them every time he runs out of the tunnel. He drops to a knee and prays for them and their families. When Bettridge lines up to kick toward the closed side of Scott Stadium, he sees a more permanent reminder: 1-15-41 on the video ribbon board. He uses that as his target point as he lines up to kick, a reminder he is playing for something bigger than himself.

“I’m hopeful that we are bringing joy and hope and a little bit of peace to their families,” Elliott said. “I believe that when we have success, they’re right there with us.”

Technology

Musk’s xAI raises $15 billion in latest funding round

Published

2 hours ago

November 13, 2025

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Musk's xAI raises billion in latest funding round

Elon Musk announced his new company xAI, which he says has the goal to understand the true nature of the universe.

Jaap Arriens | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Elon Musk‘s artificial intelligence company xAI has raised $15 billion from investors, sources familiar with the matter told CNBC’s David Faber.

The funding adds another $5 billion to the $10 billion round CNBC reported on in September that valued the startup at $200 billion. Sources told CNBC that a lot of the money will fund graphic processing units that underpin large language models.

Artificial intelligence startups have reached sky high valuations in recent months as they raise massive amounts of capital to power seemingly endless demand for foundational models.

In September, AI startup Anthropic closed a $13 billion funding round that roughly tripled its valuation from March. Sam Altman’s OpenAI in October closed a $6.6 billion share sale at a $500 billion valuation.

Last last week, Tesla shareholders voted to approve Musk’s massive pay package worth nearly $1 trillion, and voted on a proposal for the company to invest in xAI.

Brandon Ehrhart, general counsel at Tesla, said there were more votes for than against, but noted the abstentions and said the company is considering next steps on the issue.

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