NEW YORK—Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay $230 million to New York state to settle claims that the pharmaceutical giant helped fuel the opioid crisis, Attorney General Letitia James said on Saturday. The drugmaker also agreed to permanently end the manufacturing and distribution of opioids across New York and the rest of the nation, James said in a statement announcing the settlement. The company “helped fuel this fire, but today they’re committing to leaving the opioid business—not only in New York, but across the entire country,” she said. The deal involving a lawsuit brought by James in 2019 removes Johnson & Johnson from a trial that is slated to begin next week on Long Island—part of a slew of litigation over an epidemic linked to nearly 500,000 deaths over the last two decades. In its own statement on Saturday, Johnson & Johnson downplayed the attorney general’s announcement. It said …