The goal is impressive: Hammer out a legal deal that starts guiding the nation out of an epidemic of opioid addiction.
How and when that can happen, if at all, is the subject of talks scheduled to begin Wednesday in a federal courthouse in Cleveland.
The judge is bringing together lawyers for governments across the country, drugmakers, distributors and others to start the conversation. Because the aim is to broker a settlement, the judge has closed the discussions to the public and media.
A look at how the sides got to this point and some of the details they have to work out:
THE EPIDEMIC
Opioid addictions and overdoses are a deepening crisis for the country.
The U.S. Centers of Diseases Control and Prevention says 42,000 people died of overdoses in 2016 from opioids, a class of drug that includes powerful prescription painkillers such as OxyContin and Vicodin; illegal heroin; and fentanyl, a strong synthetic drug sold both through prescriptions and on the street.
