The tattoos on Billie Stafford's hands — inspired by street art and full of references to her work helping prevent drug-related deaths — have become an indelible memorial to the friend who inked them and the opioid crisis that killed him in April.

The Wisconsin Legislature's budget committee unanimously approved a spending plan Thursday for $31 million the state expects to receive this year from a multi-state settlement with drug manufacturers over their role in the opioid crisis.

The Legislature's Republican-controlled budget committee objected Wednesday to Gov. Tony Evers' plans to spend $31 million Wisconsin is slated to receive in a multi-state settlement with drug manufacturers over their role in the opioid crisis.

A former opioid manufacturer has agreed in principle to pay up to $2.4 billion in a deal with a dozen states over its marketing and product safety practices, state attorneys general announced Friday.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice has reached an agreement in principle on key financial terms with opioid maker Teva, which would provide up to $4.25 billion to participating states and local governments.

State officials have come up with a list of recommendations on how to respond to the opioid epidemic in Wisconsin after holding a series of listening sessions and hearing from those who have struggled with addiction.

A jury's finding this week that three major pharmacy chains are responsible for contributing to the scourge of opioid addiction in two Ohio counties may be just the beginning of a protracted legal battle that ultimately could leave the communities no better off.

Wisconsin will receive about $400 million as part of a proposed $26 billion national legal settlement over the opioid crisis, Attorney General Josh Kaul announced Wednesday.

The yearslong effort by state and local governments in the U.S. to force the pharmaceutical industry to help pay to fix a nationwide opioid addiction and overdose crisis took a major step forward Tuesday when lawyers for local governments announced they were on the verge of a $26 billion settlement with the nation's three biggest drug distribution companies and the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson.

Gov. Tony Evers has signed a bill that authorizes Wisconsin's participation in a settlement in a prescription opioid multidistrict litigation case.

A Madison doctor has agreed to pay $110,000 to settle allegations that he wrote unnecessary opioid prescriptions.

Purdue Pharma, the company that makes OxyContin, the powerful prescription painkiller that experts say helped touch off an opioid epidemic, will plead guilty to three federal criminal charges as part of a settlement of more than $8 billion, Justice Department officials told The Associated Press.

There have been more than twice as many suspected opioid overdoses in Wisconsin during the coronavirus pandemic than during the same period last year, which likely can be attributed at least partially to the added stress and isolation many are feeling, health officials said Wednesday.

A retired Wisconsin physician has agreed to pay $70,000 to resolve allegations that he improperly prescribed opioids to patients and told them how to successfully fill various opioid prescriptions at once.

A man has been sentenced in Portage County to nine years in prison for his role in a fatal drug overdose.

Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday signed into law four measures designed to combat the misuse of opioids and other drugs and help people who are struggling to recover following an overdose.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul and other state attorneys general have reached a $1.6 billion trust agreement with the largest generic opioid manufacturer in the U.S.

The daughter of a Wisconsin state lawmaker was sentenced Thursday to 13 years in prison for providing drugs that killed a pregnant woman.

The leader of the Forest County Potawatomi Community urged Wisconsin policy makers on Tuesday to work together to fight the scourge of opioid abuse, which he said was hitting the state's tribal populations hard.

Wisconsin insurance companies, healthcare providers and others announced an agreement Tuesday to do away for most patients with authorization requirements that can slow the prescription of drugs to treat people fighting substance abuse.

A doctor and an office manager at a Wauwatosa clinic have pleaded guilty to handing out large doses of painkillers to people who paid for them in cash.

The U.S. Justice Department awarded Wisconsin about $10.5 million to combat the ongoing national opioid epidemic. The grants will help law-enforcement and public-health officials combat substance abuse and respond to overdoses.

Wisconsin is joining a national effort calling for Congress to permanently classify fentanyl and related substances as Schedule I drugs.

The opioid epidemic has hit virtually every pocket of the U.S., from rural towns in deeply conservative states to big cities in liberal-leaning ones. But a curious divide has opened up.

An Oklahoma judge on Monday found Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries helped fuel the state's opioid drug crisis and ordered the consumer products giant to pay $572 million to help abate the problem in the coming years.

The roughly 2,000 state and local governments suing the drug industry over the deadly opioid crisis have yet to see any verdicts or reach any big national settlements but are already tussling with each other over how to divide any money they collect.

A former Aspirus Wausau doctor has pleaded guilty to prescription fraud.

A doctor who now lives in Sheboygan and previously ran a clinic in Queens, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter and other charges in the overdose deaths of three patients who had taken prescription drugs.

An opioid manufacturer has agreed to pay $225 million to resolve federal investigations into allegations that it paid kickbacks and used other illegal marketing tactics to sell a powerful fentanyl spray, authorities said Wednesday.