English

Manchester United has become the first sports team in the world with a $3-billion valuation, Forbes.com reported. Shares of the English soccer team, which were offered to the public in August at $14, did poorly at first but have soared the last few days. Last seen at just under $17, Manchester United's stock has outperformed the S&P 500 since its initial public offering and made the controlling Glazer family and legendary investor George Soros, who bought a big stake in the team shortly after it went public, wealthier.

More than 20,000 California students struggling with English are not receiving any legally required services to help them, setting them up for academic failure, according to a recent report by two civil rights organizations. The study compiled 2010-2011 state data showing that students of all ages in 261 state school districts were receiving no specialized support to help them acquire English, as required under both state and federal law. The districts with the largest number of students receiving no aid included Los Angeles Unified with 4,150, Compton Unified with 1,697 and Salinas Union High with 1,618, according to the report by the American Civil Liberties Union of California and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.

Unknown Pleasures Inside Joy Division Peter Hook It Books: 416 pp., $27.99 In the three decades since he committed suicide, singer Ian Curtis has become both a symbol and a caricature. Curtis' seemingly tortured life as a member of the English post-punk band Joy Division and early death in 1980 have been transformed into myth and Curtis into a modern-day Thomas Chatterton or Sylvia Plath. His life offers a perfect narrative for disaffected, sun-averse souls the world over: a young genius too pure to live.

PARK CITY, Utah - Writer Doris Lessing was 92 years old when French filmmaker Anne Fontaine met her last year, and she made quite an impression. "She's wild," Fontaine says. "She has a look I'd never seen before: eyes that go into your head, like a fakir, so intense, not hiding anything. " The two women were speaking because Fontaine was going to turn Lessing's novella "The Grandmothers" into a film and the Nobel Prize-winning author had some unexpected advice for adapting her story of two women looking back on their lives.

Prolific filmmaker Hong Sang-soo's latest experiment in form, "In Another Country," is a beguiling set of variations on a theme, a gossamer-light étude composed for delight rather than dissection. The movie comprises a triptych of vignettes, each about half an hour long and centering on a French woman, played by Isabelle Huppert, who's visiting a seaside town in South Korea. The three scenarios are presented as the creations of a young screenwriter (Jung Yumi) who's at loose ends.

The state's top education official has proposed reducing the number of standardized tests that students must take next year as California moves to a new testing system. Under a plan put forward Tuesday by state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, second-graders would not be tested in math and English next year. Most high school tests would also be dropped. If lawmakers approve the plan, schools would be evaluated on a narrower range of test data for a period of one year, before a new system is put in place.

BERKSHIRE, England - It's a midsummer afternoon in the English countryside, and a parade of aristocrats is gliding up a grassy hill toward Downton Abbey. There is Lord Grantham, in his crisp dinner suit, followed by his daughters Lady Edith and Lady Mary. And here comes Lady Cora a few paces behind, talking on her... iPhone. The fantasy is further shattered on closer inspection: Mary's and Edith's beaded gowns peek out from beneath white puffy coats that are distinctly 21st century.

Actor Ethan Suplee has sold his Studio City house for $1.6 million. Once home to Jane Fonda , the country English-style residence of 3,787 square feet was built in 1951 and sits on nearly an acre of wooded grounds with a detached office/guesthouse, a gym and a swimming pool. There are three fireplaces, seven bedrooms and three bathrooms. Suplee, 36, appeared in the action-adventure film "Unstoppable" (2010) and starred in "My Name Is Earl" (2005-09). He starred last year with Mariel Hemingway in "Rise of the Zombies" and appeared in the series "Men at Work" and "Raising Hope.

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown will push this year to upend the way schools are funded in California, hoping to shift more money to poorer districts and end requirements that billions of dollars be spent on particular programs. Brown said he wants more of the state's dollars to benefit low-income and non-English-speaking students, who typically are more expensive to educate. "The reality is, in some places students don't enjoy the same opportunities that people have in other places," the governor said in an interview.

Although summer claims many of the sexiest, most attention-grabbing vegetables, such as eggplants, tomatoes, peppers and zucchini, in Southern California the vegetables that thrive in winter are equally abundant and alluring. Roots, crucifers and peas may be available year-round, but winter is their time to shine. In the spirit of the many award ceremonies held in this season, here are some of my favorite early winter vegetables and producers who do an extraordinary job with them, based on notes, photos and tastings over the last 14 years.