Confession could be bad for Lance Armstrong's bank account

Now that Lance Armstrong has finally admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs during his storied athletic career, the shamed cyclist could be pulled into courtrooms around the globe for legal battles with people seeking millions of dollars.

That's one of the many downsides to the confession of a once-adored athlete who for more than a decade not only denied doping but aggressively counterattacked his accusers.

But a significant question remains about whether there is an upside to his coming clean in an interview with Oprah Winfrey scheduled to air later this week.

The confession potentially represents a first step in trying to rebuild his tarnished public image. It might also help in persuading sports officials to reduce his lifetime ban so that the 41-year-old might someday compete in sanctioned triathlons and marathons.

Armstrong faces an uphill climb.

"For him to chart a course to redemption is really complicated and would take a lot of time," said Adam Hanft, a branding and crisis communications strategist. "It's not going to be reversed with a TV appearance."

In his 21/2-hour interview at a downtown Austin, Texas, hotel, Armstrong was forthcoming about the doping allegations that dogged him during a career that included seven Tour de France victories, Winfrey told "CBS This Morning" on Tuesday.

"I don't think 'emotional' begins to describe the intensity or the difficulty he experienced in talking about some of these things," she said, declining to provide further details.

Armstrong has come under increasing pressure in the months since the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency enforced the ban and issued a 1,000-plus-page report that accused him of leading "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."

With 11 former teammates providing depositions, he was stripped of his Tour championships and lost several big-money sponsors, including Nike, that had made him one of the sporting world's richest endorsers.

Now, Armstrong stands to lose a large chunk of his personal wealth, reported at about $100 million.

His most pressing concern appears to be a federal whistle-blower lawsuit filed by former teammate Floyd Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping. The suit accuses Armstrong of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service, which sponsored his racing team for a number of years.

Armstrong's attorneys have met with government officials to discuss, among other things, how much the Postal Service was actually damaged by his misconduct, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who is not authorized to speak publicly.

During those talks, settlement figures were discussed, the person said.

A lengthy federal investigation into Armstrong and his team was dropped early last year without charges being brought. It remains to be seen whether the criminal statute of limitations has elapsed, but the Department of Justice could join in the civil suit.

The False Claims Act, the basis of whistle-blower suits, carries heavy penalties, including triple damages and fines, said Mike Morse, a Philadelphia-based lawyer who specializes in such cases.

"Violations of the federal False Claims Act can expose him to some really significant monetary damages," Morse said. "There could also be a whole host of private lawsuits."

Reacting to early allegations of Armstrong's doping, a Dallas-based promotional company declined to pay him a $5-million bonus for winning the 2004 Tour de France. He sued and received a $7.5-million settlement.

Now SCA Promotions plans to sue Armstrong to get its money back. "We do expect to file soon," said Jeffrey Dorough, the company's in-house counsel. "We don't know what impact the interview will have until we see it."

The government of South Australia state has said it will seek to recoup several million dollars in appearance fees paid to Armstrong for competing in the Tour Down Under from 2009 through 2011.

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Here They Are — The Best Comic Books of 2013!

Okay, fine: Comic books aren’t the most predictable things ever. We've seen fantastic comics take a sudden turn and become all but unreadable, and seen comics no one heard of until two seconds ago skyrocket to greatness. But we can still make some pretty good guesses about the most promising comics, graphic novels, and collected editions on the horizon -- or even if we can’t, we’re about to give it a shot. Whether you’re a long-time reader of the sequential arts or just looking for some titles to try out, here are the comics to keep your eye on in 2013.

Above:

FF, by Matt Fraction and Mike Allred (Marvel, ongoing)

It’s been a rough couple of years for superhero comics—thanks to Marvel charging as much as they can for endless “event” books, and DC still stumbling through their clumsy “New 52” reboot, it’s hard to find superhero books that are as much fun as they should be. But here’s one! Teaming up with Madman genius Mike Allred, Casanova and Invincible Iron Man writer Matt Fraction digs into the bizarre, poppy, retro fun that the Marvel Universe can still provide—what begins as just one more book about the Fantastic Four soon heads into territory that’s a lot more fun. (If FF doesn’t sate your superhero hunger, Fraction’s got another great ongoing, too: With Hawkeye, Fraction and artist David Aja have somehow given the crappiest Avenger a way better book than any of his teammates have.)

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A Minute With: Patti Smith on her photography show

TORONTO (Reuters) – Singer Patti Smith is best known for her rock ‘n’ roll songs from the punk era of the 1970s, but visitors to a new photo exhibition will see a different side of the musician, poet and artist.

The 70 photos in Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) “Camera Solo” show, which runs from February 9 to May 19, include poetic images of gravestones, religious iconography and objects that belonged to dead writers and artists.

“The show expresses a lot about my inner life — about a certain vision I have of the world, my travels, my aesthetic vision and some of the wonderful things I’ve seen, the people I’ve met,” Smith said in an interview.

“Hopefully, it will inspire people to learn more about some of the artists or places I’ve shown, or to embark on their own studies or adventures.”

The 66-year-old artist, whose songs include her rendition of “Gloria” and “Because the Night,” hopes the Polaroid snapshots will rekindle a sense of appreciation for the commonplace.

The show includes photographs of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe‘s slippers, author Virginia Woolf’s bed, writer Susan Sontag’s grave and poet Arthur Rimbaud’s fork and spoon.

In a 2010 memoir “Just Kids” Smith wrote about her love affair and friendship with Mapplethorpe, which lasted until his death from AIDS-related complications in 1989 at age 42.

Smith, a mother of two was married to guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith who died in 1994. She released the album “Banga” last year and will begin a music tour in Japan.

She spoke to Reuters about the show and Polaroid photography, a pre-digital technique that produces an instant print.

Q: What inspires you as a photographer?

A: “Truthfully, I don’t really think of myself as a photographer. I don’t have all the disciplines and knowledge of a person who’s spent their life devoted to photography. I’ve been taking pictures most of my life, but more seriously in the last decade …

“Light inspires me. I’m drawn to architecture — often graves, statues, trees — things usually that are quite still … I’ve been taking pictures continuously since 1995 until the end of Polaroid film. I’m taking very few pictures now because I have very little film left, most of it expired.

Q: Are your pictures about nostalgia or trying to hold on and remember that person?

A: It’s not nostalgia. I’m not really a nostalgic person. I’m memory-oriented, so a sense of remembrance … All of these things are to bring all these people and things up to date, to walk with us. These are artists, family, people that we love — people that pass away. We can keep them with us always.

Q: So you aren’t out there snapping everything — you are being quite selective?

A: I never snapped everything. Polaroid by its nature makes you frugal. You walk around with maybe two packs of film in your pocket. You have 20 shots, so each shot is a world.

Q: Was there anything that you learned from Mapplethorpe in doing your photography?

A: “The one thing that we had in common is that both of us had a very good sense of composition. It’s the same type of work ethic but I work quite differently. The atmosphere of my pictures is different. I drew a lot from 19th-century photographers and I don’t really strive for the things that Robert strived for — the deepest blacks and the most radiant whites.

“Robert was a real photographer. He was an artist, but he also really immersed himself in every aspect of how to project light in his work. In any event, we had a different eye, but we understood each other.

Q: How would you say photography intersects with your other creative work?

A: I think of myself really as a writer. So perhaps the pictures are somewhat literary, but I think they also stand on their own.”

Q: Do you identify with the punk scene, a romantic tradition or is it more organic?

A: “I was involved in the pre- and post-punk scene in the 1970s … I’m where I am today. I have two grown children, I’ve experienced a beautiful husband. I’m a widow. I’m doing my work. I feel unfettered by any scene. I feel like I’ve moved through many scenes, scenes before the punk movement and scenes after the punk movement, and the punk movement is in flux. It’s still going on and it was going on before it had the name “punk movement.”

Q: How do you reflect on the fact that you not only pushed music forward, but you also pushed things forward for women in the music scene?

A: “I think I work in two worlds. I’ll always try to kick through a wall. I did that when I was younger and I still have my way of doing that … People have said that I’ve opened up things for women, but look what they’ve done.”

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Paul Casciato)

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The New Old Age Blog: In Flu Season,Use a Mask. But Which One?

Do face masks help prevent people from getting the flu? And if so, how much protection do they give?

You might think the answer to this question would be well established. It’s not.

In fact, there is considerable uncertainty over how well face masks guard against influenza when people use them outside of hospitals and other health care settings. This has been a topic of discussion and debate in infectious disease circles since the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, also known as swine flu.

As the government noted in a document that provides guidance on the issue, “Very little information is available about the effectiveness of facemasks and respirators in controlling the spread of pandemic influenza in community settings.” This is also true of seasonal influenza — the kind that strikes every winter and that we are experiencing now, experts said.

Let’s jump to the bottom line for older people and caregivers before getting into the details. If someone is ill with the flu, coughing and sneezing and living with others, say an older spouse who is a bit frail, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the use of a face mask “if available and tolerable” or a tissue to cover the nose and mouth.

If you are healthy and serving as a caregiver for someone who has the flu — say, an older person who is ill and at home — the C.D.C. recommends using a face mask or a respirator. (I’ll explain the difference between those items in just a bit.) But if you are a household member who is not in close contact with the sick person, keep at a distance and there is no need to use a face mask or respirator, the C.D.C. advises.

The recommendations are included in another document related to pandemic influenza — a flu caused by a new virus that circulates widely and ends up going global because people lack immunity. That is not a threat this year, but the H3N2 virus that is circulating widely is hitting many older adults especially hard. So the precautions are a good idea, even outside a pandemic situation, said Dr. Ed Septimus, a spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

The key idea here is exposure, Dr. Septimus said. If you are a caregiver and intimately exposed to someone who is coughing, sneezing and has the flu, wearing a mask probably makes sense — as it does if you are the person with the flu doing the coughing and sneezing and a caregiver is nearby.

But the scientific evidence about how influenza is transmitted is not as strong as experts would like, said Dr. Carolyn Bridges, associate director of adult immunization at the C.D.C. It is generally accepted that the flu virus is transmitted through direct contact — when someone who is ill touches his or her nose and then a glass that he or she hands to someone else, for instance — and through large droplets that go flying through the air when a person coughs or sneezes. What is not known is the extent to which tiny aerosol particles are implicated in transmission.

Evidence suggests that these tiny particles may play a more important part than previously suspected. For example, a November 2010 study in the journal PLoS One found that 81 percent of flu patients sent viral material through air expelled by coughs, and 65 percent of the virus consisted of small particles that can be inhaled and lodge deeper in the lungs than large droplets.

That is a relevant finding when it comes to masks, which cover much of the face below the eyes but not tightly, letting air in through gaps around the nose and mouth. As the C.D.C.’s advisory noted, “Facemasks help stop droplets from being spread by the person wearing them. They also keep splashes or sprays from reaching the mouth and nose of the person wearing them. They are not designed to protect against breathing in the very small particle aerosols that may contain viruses.”

In other words, you will get some protection, but it is not clear how much. In most circumstances, “if you’re caring for a family member with influenza, I think a surgical mask is perfectly adequate,” said Dr. Carol McLay, an infection control consultant based in Lexington, Ky.

By contrast, respirators fit tightly over someone’s face and are made of materials that filter out small particles that carry the influenza virus. They are recommended for health care workers who are in intimate contact with patients and who have to perform activities like suctioning their lungs. So-called N95 respirators block at least 95 percent of small particles in tests, if properly fitted.

Training in how to use respirators is mandated in hospitals, but no such requirement applies outside, and consumers frequently put them on improperly. One study of respirator use in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, when mold was a problem, found that only 24 percent of users put them on the right way. Also, it can be hard to breathe when respirators are used, and this can affect people’s willingness to use them as recommended.

Unfortunately, research about the relative effectiveness of masks and respirators is not robust, and there is no guidance backed by scientific evidence available for consumers, Dr. Bridges said. Nor is there any clear way of assessing the relative merits of various products being sold to the public, which differ in design and materials used.

“Honestly, some of the ones I’ve seen are almost like a paper towel with straps,” Dr. McLay said. Her advice: go with name-brand items used by your local hospital.

Meanwhile, it is worth repeating: The single most important thing that older people and caregivers can do to prevent the flu is to be vaccinated, Dr. Bridges said. “It’s the best tool we have,” she said, noting that preventing flu also involves vigilant hand washing, using tissues or arms to block sneezing, and staying home when ill so people do not transmit the virus. And it is by no means too late to get a shot, whose cost Medicare will cover for older adults.

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DealBook: Analyst Sentenced to 4 Years in a Turbulent Insider Case

For two years, John Kinnucan waged a nasty battle with the Justice Department, mocking F.B.I. agents and threatening prosecutors as they investigated him for insider trading.

On Tuesday, the government secured a victory in its war with Mr. Kinnucan when a judge sentenced him to four years and three months in prison. He appeared in Federal District Court in Manhattan before Judge Deborah A. Batts, who also ordered him to forfeit $164,000 in illegal profits.

“Today’s sentence of John Kinnucan is a fitting conclusion to a criminal odyssey that began with the buying and selling of inside information and evolved into a vile and very public campaign to threaten public servants and obstruct the federal investigation,” said Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, in a statement. “Mr. Kinnucan will now pay for both crimes with his liberty.”

Mr. Kinnucan, 55, who ran Broadband Research in Portland, Ore., pleaded guilty last July to leaking secret information about technology companies to hedge funds. On Tuesday, the once-defiant Mr. Kinnucan expressed remorse. “I’d just like to say I’m sorry to everyone involved for all the trouble I’ve caused,” he said.

The case against Mr. Kinnucan has been among the more bizarre strands of the government’s broad crackdown on criminal activity at hedge funds.

His name first emerged in November 2010, when The Wall Street Journal reported that the F.B.I. had tried to persuade him to record telephone calls with his clients, including SAC Capital Advisors. He rebuffed the request and boasted about his recalcitrance in an e-mail to his hedge fund customers.

“Today two fresh faced eager beavers from the F.B.I. showed up unannounced (obviously) on my doorstep thoroughly convinced that my clients have been trading on copious inside information,” the e-mail said. Mr. Kinnucan added that he “declined the young gentleman’s gracious offer to wear a wire and therefore ensnare you in their devious web.”

He then went on something of a publicity campaign, appearing on CNBC and writing a commentary for DealBook titled “Why I Chose Not to Wear a Wire.” In interviews and writings, he argued that he had not violated the law because the information he provided clients was publicly available.

As the investigation wore on, Mr. Kinnucan grew more belligerent. He made nearly 25 threatening telephone calls to F.B.I. agents and prosecutors, many of them laced with repeated references to sexual and other forms of violence, the government said.

“Too bad Hitler’s not around,” Mr. Kinnucan said in one voice message left for a prosecutor. “He’d know what to do with you. You should be in a gas chamber.”

The government charged Mr. Kinnucan last February. He admitted to supplying customers with confidential data about companies including SanDisk and Flextronics. Prosecutors said Mr. Kinnucan had built a deep network of sources at public companies by paying them cash and providing them with illegal tips.

“Insider trading is a serious crime,” Judge Batts said during sentencing, “and obstruction of justice by threatening personally the government authorities who are doing their jobs by investigating and prosecuting insider trading cannot be tolerated.”

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SoCal Edison destroyed downed poles before inspection

A state probe into the widespread power outages caused by a furious 2011 windstorm was unable to determine whether toppled utility poles met safety standards because Southern California Edison destroyed most of them before they could be inspected.

The winds that roared through the San Gabriel Valley knocked down hundreds of utility poles, snapped cables and uprooted scores of trees, leaving nearly a quarter of a million Edison customers without power, some for a full week.

In a report released Monday, the California Public Utilities Commission found that at least 21 poles were unstable because of termite destruction, dry rot or other damage before tumbling over in wind gusts of up to 120 mph on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, 2011.

But more than 75% of the 248 Edison poles that were knocked down in the storm were destroyed by the utility before they could be inspected, a violation of commission rules.

"At the onset of [power] restoration efforts, preservation of failed poles was not made a priority by Southern California Edison," the report says.

Of the 248 poles that failed, partial segments of only about 60 poles were collected and delivered for analysis by commission engineers — the remaining poles were "discarded by SCE staff," according to the report.

Efforts to reconstruct downed poles, many of them sliced into segments smaller than 10 inches, "were immensely hindered by the nature of SCE's collection and cataloging methodology," investigators reported.

Edison workers scattered small pole segments in various collection bins, "making it nearly impossible to determine which failed pole they belonged to," according to investigators.

A spokesman for the utility declined to comment on the report, saying the utility was in the process of formulating a statement.

Commission investigators also found that at least 17 wire pole support systems did not meet safety standards.

The report calls on Edison to update its emergency response procedures and test them on a yearly basis.

Officials will consider formal enforcement actions, including financial penalties, if Edison does not comply.

In a statement Monday, U.S. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) — who represents Pasadena, South Pasadena, San Marino and other San Gabriel Valley cities — called for "immediate action" to ensure the issues raised in the report would not recur.

"This report confirms that by following such regulations and by asking for mutual assistance, power could have been restored more quickly," Chu said.

Former Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, who until recently represented part of the affected area, said the report "confirms what everyone who lived through the windstorm knew from personal experience, that Edison was not prepared and public safety and consumers suffered as a result."

State Sen. Carol Liu (D-La Cañada Flintridge) said the report raises fears that Edison equipment might sustain similar damage in future disasters.

"I am concerned that service and safety doesn't seem to be their priority," said Liu, who is married to California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey.

The report comes less than a year after an Edison-commission study determined the utility had inadequate plans in place for emergencies and communicating with the public. The study, by Maryland-based Davies Consulting, also said the utility could have shortened power restoration time by one day or more by doing a better job of tracking and preparing for bad weather.

At the same time, the consultant commended Edison for having adequate staffing and managing a response that left no workers or customers injured.

joe.piasecki@latimes.com

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Vintage Manuals Reveal The DIY Ethos of Classic Gear

We love to fix things. And we figured we're not alone. It's a habit of the inquisitive mind — see how something works, learn its quirks, and figure out why it's busted and what to do about it. Sometimes you need a little help, though, and an instruction manual can go a long way.

Yeah, yeah, manuals are all PDFs now. But there's nothing like an old, preferably grease-stained instruction book. You can break the spine, lay it flat on your workbench, and get to work. No scrolling, no greasy touch-screen. Yeah, we still like paper.

So we collected 10 old, classic, and even rare instruction manuals from the good fixers in the Wired office. We got cars, electronics, games, and Legos — so many Legos — and picked our favorites.

But we know you've got more. So one-up us and send us photos of your favorite old instruction books, whether they're from long-lost or long-discarded tools, toys, gadgets, gizmos, products, or appliances. Maybe it's a classic camera. Maybe it's a sweet car. Remember when computers came with manuals? We'll publish the best in a follow-up gallery.

ICOM recommends you take its IC-M80 to a dealer or authorized service center if you have any problems. But what fun is that when they also include a full schematic diagram? There's not a lot of explanation, though, so you better have a good grasp on circuits. And if you want to use it after you fix it, an operator’s license.

Photos: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

Nathan Hurst is learning how to make some things, knows how to fix some others, and is already pretty good at breaking everything else. He has written for Outside and Wired, traveled in Africa, and tweets as @NathanBHurst.

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Follow @NathanBHurst on Twitter.

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Variance Films Picks Up Jay-Z Produced ‘An Oversimplification of Her Beauty’

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Variance Films has acquired North American distributions rights to “An Oversimplification of Her Beauty,” Terence Nance‘s debut film executive produced by Jay-Z, Dream Hampton, Joy Bryant and comedian Wyatt Cenac.

Variance will release the movie in theaters April 12 while Cinema Guild handles downstream releases, such as DVD and digital.

Nance’s film explores the relationship between a young man and woman, as the man divines whether it is romantic or platonic. Nance stars alongside Namik Minter.

Mixing live action and animation, the film debuted at Sundance in 2012 and went on to screen at film festivals across the country.

“I know it’s a bit cliché to say ‘you’ve never seen anything like this before’, but if you’ve caught the film, I think you’ll agree that you’ve never seen anything like this before,” Variance Films founder Dylan Marchetti said in a statement. “Somehow, Terence has managed to blend documentary, narrative, ten different styles of animation, and a short film while telling a story that is immediately relatable to anyone who has ever loved someone who didn’t love them back, and frankly, that’s just about everyone.”

Founded in 2008, Variance is a New York-based independent distributor that released Spike Lee’s “Red Hook Summer” and will release Dave Grohl’s upcoming documentary “Sound City.”

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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The New Old Age Blog: Study: More to Meal Delivery Than Food

What’s a simpler idea than Meals on Wheels? Older, lower-income people who have trouble driving, cooking or shopping — or paying for food — sign up with a local agency. Each day, volunteers or paid staff come by and drop off a hot lunch. Federal and state dollars and local charities foot the bill.

At the Mobile Meals of Essex headquarters in my town in New Jersey on a recent morning, staffers were stuffing slices of whole wheat bread, pints of low-fat milk and containers of sliced peaches into paper bags. Next, they would ladle the day’s entree — West Indian curried chicken with brown rice and broccoli — onto aluminum trays.

Drivers in vans would fan out through the county, from downtown Newark through the sprawling suburbs, delivering the meals to 475 clients.

The benefit goes beyond food, of course. When his clients answer the door, often using walkers and canes, “I ask them how their morning’s going,” said a driver, Louis Belfiore, who would make 31 stops this day. “I give them their meal, I say, ‘Have a good day.’ They tell me, ‘You have a nice day, too.’”

This may represent the only face-to-face social interaction some homebound people have in the course of a day. And if they don’t come to the door, a series of phone calls ensues. “We’ve had people yell back, ‘I’m on the floor and I can’t get up.’ It doesn’t happen only in commercials,” said Gail Gonnelli, the program’s operations director.

Meals on Wheels advocates have always believed that something this fundamental – a hot meal, a greeting, another set of eyes – can help keep people in their homes longer.

But they didn’t have much evidence to point to, until a couple of Brown University health researchers crunched numbers — from Medicare, states and counties, the federal Administration on Aging and more than 16,000 nursing homes — from 2000 to 2009, publishing their findings in the journal Health Services Research.

The connection they discovered between home-delivered meals and the nursing home population will come as welcome news (though not really news) to Meals on Wheels believers: States that spent more than the average to deliver meals showed greater reductions in the proportion of nursing home residents who didn’t need to be there.

The researchers call these people “low-care” residents. Most people living in nursing homes require around-the-clock skilled care, and policymakers have been pushing to find other ways to care for those who don’t. Still, in 2010 about 12 percent of long-term nursing home patients — a proportion that varies considerably by state — didn’t need this level of care.

“They’re not fully dependent,” explained a co-author of the study, Vincent Mor. “They could be cared for in a community setting, whether that’s assisted living or with a few hours of home care.”

That’s how most older people prefer to live, which is reason enough to try to reserve nursing homes for those who can’t survive any other way. But political budget cutters should love Meals on Wheels, too. For every additional $25 a state spends on home-delivered meals each year per person over 65, the low-care nursing home population decreases by a percentage point, the researchers calculated — a great return on investment.

“We spend a lot on crazy medical interventions that don’t have as much effect as a $5 meal,” Dr. Mor concluded. With this data, “we’re able to see this relationship for the first time.”

(Co-author Kali Thomas — herself a volunteer Meals on Wheels driver in Providence, R.I. — has compiled a state by state list, posted on the Brown University LTCfocus.org Web site, showing how much states could save on Medicaid by delivering more meals.)

Sadly, though, appropriations for home-delivered meals are not increasing. The program served more than 868,000 people in 2010, the latest numbers available. But federal financing through the Older Americans Act has been flat for most of the decade, while food and gas costs — and the number of older people — have risen.

Given current budget pressures, advocates hope they can just hold the line (the “sequester” cuts to the federal budget are still looming unless Congress and the White House can reach agreement on the debt limit and a spending plan). Already, “we’ve seen millions and millions fewer meals,” said Tim Gearan, senior legislative representative at AARP. “Cuts from five-day service to three-day service. A lot more frozen food, which can be inappropriate for people who can’t operate ovens and microwaves. It’s been hard to watch.”

My urban/suburban county, Ms. Gonnelli said, maintains a waiting list: There are always about 65 seniors who qualify for Meals on Wheels, but there is no money to provide the food.

It can be a big step for an older person or his family to acknowledge that they need this kind of basic help and apply. It must be difficult, I said to Ms. Gonnelli, who has run the program for 15 years, to tell applicants she can’t help feed them.

“You have no idea,” she said.

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Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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California to Give Web Courses a Big Trial

A plan to offer an array of online college classes at a California state university could, if the students are successful, open the door to teaching hundreds of thousands of California students at a lower cost via the Internet.

Udacity, a Silicon Valley start-up that creates online college classes, will announce a deal on Tuesday with San Jose State University for a series of remedial and introductory courses.

Because the courses are intended to involve the classroom instructor, it could also help to blunt professors’ unease with the online classes. 

The state university’s deal with Udacity is also the first time that professors at a university have collaborated with a provider of a MOOC — massive open online course — to create for-credit courses with students watching videos and taking interactive quizzes, and receiving support from online mentors.

Eventually, such courses could be offered to hundreds of thousands of students in the state.

California Gov. Jerry Brown, who has been pushing state universities to move more aggressively into online education, approached the company to come up with a technological solution for what has become a vexing challenge for the state.

Ellen N. Junn, provost and vice president for academic affairs at the university in San Jose, said the California State University System faces a crisis because more than 50 percent of entering students cannot meet basic requirements.

“They graduate from high school, but they cannot pass our elementary math and English placement tests,” she said.

The Udacity pilot program will include a remedial algebra course, a college-level algebra course and introductory statistics.

For the pilot project starting this month, however, the courses will be limited to 300 students — half from San Jose State University, and half from local community colleges and high schools — who will pay lower than usual tuition. The cost of each three-unit course will be $150, significantly less than regular San Jose State tuition. Sebastian Thrun, one of the founders of Udacity, would not disclose how much the company would be paid for its participation.

San Jose State will receive funds from the National Science Foundation to study the effectiveness of the new online classroom design.

Open online courses exploded in American higher education in 2011 after Mr. Thrun, a nationally known artificial-intelligence researcher at Stanford, and Peter Norvig, Google’s director of research, offered to teach an introductory artificial-intelligence course online. More than 160,000 students initially registered for the class.

After two other Stanford courses each attracted more than 100,000 students, Dr. Thrun started his venture. Two other Stanford computer scientists, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, also established a competing private company, Coursera, to develop technologies necessary to change the reach and effectiveness of online education.

The courses have rapidly moved from the periphery to the center of higher education policy as a growing number of schools have begun experimenting with ways to offer the courses for credit toward a degree.

EdX, a university collaboration initiated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard last year, this month will begin offering some of its courses at two Massachusetts community colleges, in a blended format.

Recently edX completed a pilot offering of its difficult circuits and electronics course at San Jose State to stunning results: while 40 percent of the students in the traditional version of the class got a grade of C or lower, only 9 percent in the blended edX class got such a low grade.

Last fall, for the first time, Udacity’s courses were tried on a small group of struggling high school students, at the Winfree Academy Charter School system, a cluster of schools near Dallas-Fort Worth created to help struggling students and reclaim dropouts.

“I was a little scared to put our kids, who are struggling and at risk of dropping out, into a class written by a Stanford professor,” said Melody Chalkley, Winfree’s founder. “But of the 23 students who used Udacity, one withdrew from the school, and the other 22 all finished successfully. And two young women got through the whole physics course in just two weeks.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 15, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the name of a California university faculty group. It is the California Faculty Association, not the California Teachers Association. The article also misstated the nature of the courses that San Jose State University will offer with Udacity. The courses will involve students watching videos and taking interactive quizzes; they will not be blended courses with students first watching videos on their own, and then coming to class to work on assignments with a professor.

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