Category: 5. Entertainment

WASHINGTON — Giraffes are a majestic sight in Africa with their long necks and distinctive spots. Now it turns out there are four different giraffe species on the continent, according to a new scientific analysis released Thursday.

Researchers previously considered all giraffes across Africa to belong to a single species. New data and genetic studies have led a task force of the International Union for Conservation of Nature to split the tallest mammal on land into four groups — Northern giraffes, reticulated giraffes, Masai giraffes and Southern giraffes.

Key studies have emerged in the past decade highlighting significant differences between the four species, said the IUCN’s Michael Brown, a researcher in Windhoek, Namibia, who led the assessment.

Naming different giraffes matters because “each species has different population sizes, threats and conservation needs,” he said. “When you lump giraffes all together, it muddies the narrative.”

Northern giraffes — whose range includes parts of Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Central African Republic – face threats from political instability and poaching. Masai giraffes in Kenya and Tanzania face pressure from habitat loss, as open savannas are converted to cattle pastures and fields.

Considering four giraffe species “is absolutely the right decision, and it’s long overdue,” said Stuart Pimm, a Duke University ecologist who wasn’t involved in the analysis.

While in the past researchers scrutinized giraffes’ spots, the new categories made use of newer methods including extensive analysis of genetic data and studies highlighting key anatomical differences, such as skull shape.

What appear like horns sticking up from the foreheads of giraffes are actually permanent bony protrusions from the skull, different from deer antlers that are shed annually.

Over the past 20 years, scientists have also gathered genetic samples from more than 2,000 giraffes across Africa to study the differences, said Stephanie Fennessy at the nonprofit Giraffe Conservation Foundation, who helped in the research.

It used to cost tens of thousands of dollars to sequence each genome, but advances in technology have brought the cost down to about $100, making it more accessible to nonprofit and conservation groups, she said.

According to population estimates from the foundation, the most endangered giraffe is the Northern giraffe, with only about 7,000 individuals left in the wild.

“It’s one of the most threatened large mammals in the world,” said Fennessy.

Southern giraffes are the most populous species, with around 69,000 individuals. There are around 21,000 reticulated giraffes left in the wild, and 44,000 Masai giraffes, according to the foundation.

“If not all giraffes are the same, then we have to protect them individually,” said Fennessy.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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A fundraiser has been launched to support Utah violinist John Shin, who has been detained by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Shin’s wife, Danae Snow, has described the situation as ’urgent and frightening.’ Shin has a master’s degree in music performance from the University of Utah and has played with the Utah Symphony, Ballet West and in recording sessions.

’John has always worked hard to support our family and his mother, and he is deeply loved by our music community,’ Snow writes. 

’John’s sudden detention has left us scared and overwhelmed. We rely on him every day, and his absence has created a void that is felt by everyone who knows him.

’The legal process is expensive, and we need help to pay the retainer for his legal defense so that he has a fair chance to come home. Your support will help us fight for John’s release and bring him back to the life and community he cherishes.

’If John is able to return home, we can continue our loving, beautiful life together and finally find relief from the fear and stress that has taken over our days. Every contribution brings us closer to reuniting our family and restoring hope. Thank you for standing with us during this difficult time.’

Snow aims to raise $28,000. As of 21 August, $16,653 has been raised.

In 2014, Shin was a victim of theft when his violin, a Stradivari ’Viotti’ model made by Scott Brown in 2011, was stolen from the University of Utah’s School of Music. The violin was recovered two weeks later, in perfect cosmetic condition.

View the fundraiser here.

Jennifer Lopez is having the time of her life following her divorce from Ben Affleck.

The Marry Me star is currently busy with her new movie and Up All Night Tour across the world after she ended her marriage with the Armageddon actor.

A source spilled to PEOPLE that JLo “loved connecting with fans all over the world”.

“The tour was amazing. It’s been a great focus for her,” explained an insider.

The Maid in Manhattan actress, who is also a mother to teenage twins, revealed, “She’s been doing what she really enjoys.”

Besides her tour, JLo is all set for her upcoming movie promotion, titled, Kiss of the Spider Woman.

“This is the movie she filmed last year in New York when she and Ben were going through a difficult time,” disclosed an insider.

The source noted that the songstress has “come a long way since. She’s very happy and just grateful for her life”.

Meanwhile, JLo started this year by attending Variety‘s Creative Impact Awards event in January.

She was presented with the Legend and Groundbreakers award in honour of Unstoppable and for her career achievement.

For the unversed, Jennifer, who filed for divorce from Ben on August 20, 2024, officially finalised her divorce with Ben in early January.

That same month, the actress attended the world premiere of Kiss of the Spider Woman at the Sundance Film Festival, which will now release in theatres nationwide on October 10.

About IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen is a leading Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen in the north-eastern part of Switzerland. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant to sports watches. Founded in 1868 by the American watchmaker and engineer Florentine Ariosto Jones, IWC is known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, combining the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes.

Over its more than 150-year history, IWC has earned a reputation for creating professional instrument watches and functional complications, especially chronographs and calendars, which are ingenious, robust, and easy for customers to use. A pioneer in the use of titanium and ceramics, IWC today specialises in highly engineered watch cases manufactured from advanced materials, such as coloured ceramics, Ceratanium®, and titanium aluminide.

A leader in sustainable luxury watchmaking, IWC sources materials responsibly and takes action to minimise its impact on the environment. Along the pillars of transparency, circularity, and responsibility, the brand crafts timepieces built to last for generations and continuously improves every element of how it manufactures, distributes, and services its products in the most responsible way. IWC also partners with organisations that work globally to support children and young people.

Popular Ghanaian musician Shatta Wale has been detained in a tax investigation linked to his purchase of a luxury car, his management has said.

Wale’s yellow Lamborghini was seized earlier this month at the request of the US, which alleged that the vehicle was tied to the proceeds of a criminal enterprise.

The network allegedly involved another Ghanaian, Nana Kwabena Amuah, who is serving a seven-year jail term in the US for fraud.

Wale’s management did not mention the US’ allegations in their statement, saying instead that the artist was detained over “tax obligations”.

In a statement posted on social media, Wale’s team said he had “presented himself voluntarily” to Ghana’s Economic and Organised Crime Office (Eoco) on Wednesday afternoon.

The Eoco has not yet responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

Wale, real name Charles Nii Armah, is one of Ghana’s best-known stars.

He has built a hugely successful career on Jamaica’s dancehall sound, and boosted his global profile by collaborating with Beyoncé on her 2019 song Already.

After his Lamborghini was seized earlier this month in an investigation linked to Nana Kwabena Amuah, Wale denied knowledge of or connection to the Ghanaian.

He said he was “third-party owner” of the $150,000 (£110,000) car and that he did not know who had shipped it to the country.

Eoco said the car would be returned to the US to aid in the restitution of Amuah’s victims.

Amuah and his co-conspirators had impersonated vendors to defraud nearly 70 public and private organisations across the country, US court records show.

On Wednesday, Wale’s management urged fans to remain calm and avoid speculation while the musician remained in detention.

“We want to assure all fans and the general public that his legal team is fully engaged and actively working with the authorities to resolve this matter,” the statement said.

The seizure of Wale’s Lamborghini is part of a broader operation – Ghana has been working with the US to dismantle an international fraud network that targets Americans.

This month, the FBI and US Justice Department extradited and arrested three Ghanaian nationals alleged to be the masterminds of a $100m fraud scheme, which involved romance scams and phishing attacks.

“As the ship went down, sea water got into the boiler room, there was a huge explosion, and that drew the attention of the fishermen on the island,” Finch tells the BBC. “The explosion had thrown bales of cloth into the sea, and the islanders were an incredibly poor community. They rowed out for the cloth, but when they saw people floating around too, they started picking up people instead. This turned into a professional rescue operation. And there is no doubt, and this is testified by the survivors of the sinking, that once the Chinese fishing fleet appeared and could bear witness, the Japanese army stopped shooting and started picking up the survivors too. Dennis Morley was rescued by the Japanese, but he said he owed his life to those Chinese fishermen.” 

Eight hundred and twenty-eight British servicemen died that day, but the rest were saved. This story, and the role their country played in their rescue, resonated with the Chinese public when the documentary was released there last year, and it made more than $6m at the box office, rare for a factual film. Now the action feature Dongji Rescue also hopes to capitalise on the interest. 

‘A different viewpoint’

The lavish blockbuster, filmed in Imax and costing $80m to make, is co-directed by Guan Hu (who made 2024’s Cannes prizewinner Black Dog) and TV director Fei Zhen Xiang. It takes a different approach to the documentary. While it was filmed in the historical location of the sinking of the Lisbon Maru, with film sets built on Dongji island, nearly half the film was made underwater, and it weaves a fictional story, where the narrative centres on two heroic brothers (played by Wu Lei and Zhu Yilong) one of whom discovers and sets the British prisoners free, and a woman (Chinese actress Ni Ni) who leads the rescue party. None of this happened in reality.

Trinity Filmed Entertainment Limited

“Some of the relatives [of the British troops] I’ve spoken to who saw the film said they were quite upset by the idea that the fishermen opened the hatches, and this was denigrating the courage and efforts of the prisoners themselves,” Finch says. The film also shows the islanders taking revenge against their brutal Japanese occupiers, something that Finch adds also “never happened, those islands weren’t occupied, although I do understand though that Japanese brutality would have been very real in those parts of China under occupation.”

Could Domhnall Gleeson be the savior of local journalism?

OK, maybe that’s a sensational oversell — but his latest character knows that news stories need a hook to draw readers in fast. We’re trying.

The 42-year-old Irish actor has built an impressive and diverse career, often playing people entangled in precarious situations: a young man with the ability to time travel who tries to change his past in hopes of improving his future in the heartfelt and whimsical “About Time”; the leader of a group of fur trappers working in unsettled territory in the Midwest who gets caught up in a gruesome fight for survival in “The Revenant”; or a software programmer selected to be part of an experiment with a female robot with humanlike qualities in “Ex Machina.”

Now, he’s stepping into the turbulent, you-have-to-laugh-to-keep-from-crying experience of being in the newspaper biz.

In Peacock’s “The Paper,” Gleeson plays Ned Sampson, a nerdy, well-meaning and enviably hopeful guy who has just been installed as editor in chief of the Toledo Truth Teller. His qualifications? Well, he used to sell cardboard and toilet paper, and he’s a nepo baby with a journalism degree. And he’s coming in with earnest intentions: to motivate a small staff that has grown restless and dissatisfied with its their profession — succumbing to the unsavory demands of the job in 2025, like selecting a wire story about Elizabeth Olsen’s nighttime skin routine only to discover it exceeds the allotted print space — and revive, or in some cases kick off, their desire to do responsible local journalism that delivers useful and effectual information to the community.

“When I was a kid, I didn’t want to be Superman; I wanted to be Clark Kent,” Ned says in the first episode. “Because to me, Clark is the real superhero. He’s saving the world, too, by working at a newspaper. And that, to me, is much more noble and much more achievable, and I love that.”

It’s a romantic — some might say naive — ideal that hasn’t been squeezed dry by cynicism. And as someone in an industry as handcuffed to budgets and the bottom line as any, Gleeson can relate to that wide-eyed objective to do meaningful work even when it’s been overpowered by economic forces.

“The first time you do something, the wonder of it is huge,” Gleeson says on a recent day. “You only see the good stuff — or I did, at least. Then as you get older, you do get a little more tired. It’s a little harder to get up in the morning. The industry that I’m in, I’m constantly amazed at the people, older than me, who’ve retained their youthful enthusiasm for it. I find that very aspirational. I think, despite some of the cliches that there are around acting — and around journalism — that you’ll find a lot of people who really, really believe in it into their 50s, 60s, 70s.”

But “The Paper” is a spinoff of “The Office” — in the loosest sense — so this isn’t a soapbox. Still, it tugs on a topical issue within its comedy. (We’ll get to that.) First, though, it’s important to understand the connective tissue to its predecessor: the same mockumentary crew that filmed the mundane, silly and often completely relatable 9-to-5 lives of the staff at Scranton’s Dunder Mifflin has now set its sights on a newsroom of uninspired misfits trying to keep the ship above water as it navigates the wrecking waves of modern journalism. And to help bridge “The Office” to this workplace, former Dunder Mifflin accountant Oscar Martinez (played by Oscar Núñez) now works as an accountant at the paper.

As a fan of “The Office,” Gleeson says playing in the mockumentary format brought a unique layer to how he thought about his character: “How does he [Ned] feel about them being in this place where he’s trying to do well as a new boss? You start to think … he’ll want the good stuff on the record. If he does something that he feels is good, he’ll probably want to make sure they got it. And if something’s not going as planned, he will try to hide away. When we were shooting, it was interesting because I’d find myself between our two camera operators and almost looking to them from time to time in a similar way — like, ‘What did they think?’”

Gleeson is beaming in from Scotland, where he’s been for the last month filming an as-yet-unannounced independent film. He quickly apologizes for his hair — in all of its shaggy, slightly curled glory — as he combs his fingers through it: “I’ve got a perm. Life is good.”

He says he wasn’t necessarily looking to do a TV series right now, but when “The Paper” came along, he was eager to dive into its comedic trenches.

But he first made sure to check in with at least two of the original cast members from “The Office” : Steve Carell and John Krasinski. Carell, who played the show’s bumbling boss Michael Scott for seven seasons, starred opposite Gleeson in FX’s 2022 psychological thriller “The Patient,” about a troubled man with homicidal urges (Gleeson) who holds his therapist (Carell) captive. And Krasinski, whose role as the show’s dry-witted paper salesman Jim Halpert propelled him to stardom, starred alongside Gleeson in this year’s heist action-adventure film, “Fountain of Youth,” directed by Guy Ritchie.

“What’s great about both those guys,” he says, “is it wasn’t like, ‘You should do this, you should do that.’ They each said, ‘I think it would be great. I think you would have loads of fun. I think you could do something really good.’ And that was it. I jumped.”

He adds: “And don’t forget, when they did the show, they were under a lot of scrutiny because the U.K. ‘Office’ was such a masterpiece and had been so heralded, and they still found their space. It took a little time, but they found it. I’m just hoping for the same for us — that we find our space.”

Still, he’s aware fans of the U.S. “Office,” which ran for nine seasons and is one of the most streamed series today, might be reluctant to give “The Paper” a try. And that those who do, might be quick to make comparisons or feel the impulse to see whether these new characters fit the archetypes of the original — for example, is Ned more like a Michael or more like a Jim?

“I feel like what we have is different enough to be its own thing,” he says. “My belief is Ned’s different to both of those characters. He is a new boss in a job he is unqualified for to a certain degree, and he carries a different eternal ambition and optimism about it that sets him apart. There will always be overlaps, but it’s different enough that people will, hopefully, take him on his own merits.”

Created by Greg Daniels, who adapted the American version of “The Office,” and Michael Koman (“How to With John Wilson,” “Nathan for You”), the series arrives at a particularly fraught and existential moment in journalism. Each passing week brings a sobering headline about how news organizations are either adapting or shuttering because of rapid economical, technological and cultural shifts, as well as responding to political pressure.

“First and foremost, the show needs to work in terms of comedy,” Gleeson says. “I also think that the press has always been under threat to some degree. There are always people in power who don’t want the thing printed that doesn’t make them look good or they don’t like. But right now feels full-on extreme.”

However, he believes Daniels and Koman care deeply about journalism and journalists. So how do you make something funny without being too satirical or negative?

“They show both sides of it — the idealism and the difficulty to live up to those ideals,” Gleeson says. “If it was a show where everybody did good journalism, I don’t know how funny people are going to find it. I think what’s funny about this is people trying to do good journalism and not really living up to it all the time.”

Daniels and Koman, who spoke together on a separate video call, say that if “The Office” was a story of people who were very uninspired in their work, “The Paper” is a story of how people can be inspired in their work. And the key was finding someone to be the leader of a bleak endeavor who was a decent person and could boost morale.

“To me, he’s in that category of people like Jimmy Stewart — he can be so funny, but he’s brimming with humanity and emotion,” Koman says, pointing to Gleeson’s performance in “Black Mirror” as a man brought back to life as an android using his social media posts. “I just thought, ‘Oh my gosh’ — that he could play the same person basically, but still there are subtle differences between these two people. I have no idea how he does it. But I thought, if he could do that, he can do anything.”

Plus, Gleeson had comedic chops, and you want somebody who is simultaneously funny and emotionally available, Koman says. Daniels adds that he’d be happy to have someone like the actor as a boss.

“I was in a job, at one point, that everybody thought was cool, but it was very dysfunctionally run. I remember telling people that I thought it would have been more fun to work at, say, Enterprise car rental if the boss was fun and the spirit was good,” Daniels says. “We needed someone who seems like a fun guy and a very sincere person and has a sense of mission. And the thing is, it’s a very hard mission — it’s almost impossibly hard to imagine he’s [Ned] going to turn the clock backwards and restore this grand institution. But he’s trying, and it’s a valuable thing to do. When he says, ‘I want to be Clark Kent’ — that was one of his [Gleeson‘s] things; he added that notion when he was thinking about the character.”

Because Gleeson is nothing if not intentional about comedy.

The son of actor Brendan Gleeson, Domhnall describes himself as a shy kid growing up; but seeing people not be shy who could really make him laugh “loudly in a way that was embarrassing,” he says, was a feeling he craved. He names funnymen like Peter Sellers and Jim Carrey and British sketch shows like “Smack the Pony” and all-things “Monty Python” as favorites. His first job as an actor was in Martin McDonagh’s unruly black comedy “The Lieutenant of Inishmore,” with a plot that hinges on a mangled cat. In his 20s, he wrote and starred in the Irish sketch comedy show “Your Bad Self” — one memorable skit involved a group of friends en route to a concert and one guy (Gleeson) in the backseat has drunk too much lemonade. Short on time and believing he only has to pee, a friend hands him a soda bottle mid-drive, only to watch him drop his trousers and squat over the bottle.

“Now, Jim Carrey is a unicorn — I’m aware of my limitations,” he says, quick to let it be known that he is not an improv genius. “That’s not what I’m going for. I remember seeing ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’ and that making me laugh and sort of cry. You’ve got a bunch of amazing actors who do comedy and drama all the time, but then you’ve got Gene Hackman and Anjelica Huston doing something totally different and just full of pathos. That’s a different sort of class of acting that’s also comedic. All those things made me fall in love with it.”

He’s brought that blend of pathos, uniqueness and nerve to the comedy turns he’s taken on over the years — including in the 2013 film “About Time,” HBO’s romance-thriller-comedy “Run” and Prime Video’s “Frank of Ireland,” which he created and starred in with his brother Brian. He approaches “The Paper” with the same level of intrigue for truth. He didn’t do any intensive shadowing of journalists ahead of filming the show, but he did do some shoe-leather reporting — he spoke to and observed young reporters in Cincinnati and Toledo, and he visited a college newspaper in Ohio.

“What I took away from my experience was the fact that young people are still getting into it,” he says. “I found that immensely heartening, even though they know that, not that the odds are stacked against journalism, but that it is a harder business to get into. It’s a harder business to last in. It’s a harder business to make a living in than it used to be and there are fewer positions available. Despite all that, people are still going into it because they care about it — and that vibrancy, despite the odds, I found really cool.”

We’re sure Clark Kent would agree.

On the second harrowing night of the Palisades fire in January, the security cameras surrounding the Eames House went dark.

“It was a long night,” said Eames Demetrios, grandson of designers Charles and Ray Eames and chairman of the board for the Charles & Ray Eames Foundation. “And then later that day the signal came back on.”

The house — a midcentury modern landmark designed and built in 1949, also known as Case Study House No. 8 — was still standing. But Demetrios soon went back to worrying. A neighbor who had stayed to battle the blaze with a garden hose reported that a nearby tree had caught fire.

“I thought, ‘OK, this is it. It’s coming,’” said Eames.

But the water-dropping helicopters came first and then — mercifully — the wind died down.

The Eames House was saved, but it was covered in soot and sustained a substantial amount of smoke damage. The residence, with its 31,000 historic objects, closed for five months while it underwent extensive cleaning and repairs — the most intensive of which involved hiring a disaster recovery team to hand-wipe the fragile structure while wearing protective gear.

The compound finally reopened late last month for tours on an appointment basis — and it unveiled its adjacent studio to the public for the very first time. The two structures are connected by a narrow walkway, and the Eameses often left doors and windows open, creating a natural flow between the spaces. As the creative nerve center of the site, the studio is where the Eameses spent the bulk of their time working on various projects. It will serve as a multipurpose staging ground for exhibitions, workshops and panel discussions, as well as a place for the community to gather and hold events, said Demetrios.

This notable change comes with another major announcement: the launch of a new and expanded Charles & Ray Eames Foundation, which unites the cultural and educational programming formerly done by the Eames Office — run by all five of the Eames grandchildren — with the preservation efforts of the Eames House Preservation Foundation.

The new foundation’s executive director, Adrienne Luce, was in the process of being hired when the fires hit, and she recalled being told before her last interview, “Look, if the house does not survive, they’re still building this new global, international foundation.”

Luce said she sees the new foundation as “the connective tissue between scholars and important collections globally.” Next year she’s planning to host a conference or summit in order to gather “diverse stakeholders from all over the world to advance thinking around the Eames’ design legacy” and to hopefully collaborate on future projects.

What Luce, Demetrios and the board of directors could not anticipate before the fire was how much this new era of the foundation’s — and the house’s — existence would be affected by issues of preservation in the face of mounting ecological and climate disasters, as well as the community engagement that became increasingly urgent and necessary in the wake of the fires.

Luce said there are plans to offer free admission to first responders as well as to residents of Pacific Palisades and Altadena, which was ravaged by the Eaton fire. With the grounds and studio now open, the foundation has invited the Palisades Library to hold family storytimes and book clubs onsite. It has also hosted a wide variety of community-driven events.

Of particular note, the foundation welcomed a gathering for a new nonprofit called Case Study: Adapt, which was co-founded by Dustin Bramell, whose house burned down in the Palisades fire. The organization partnered with Architectural Digest to recruit 10 L.A.-based architecture firms to pair each with one to two families who lost their homes in the fires in order to build inventive houses under 3,000 square feet, surrounded by fire-safe landscaping.

This, of course, mirrors how the Eames House was built. The original Case Study homes were commissioned by Arts & Architecture magazine in the wake of World War II to spark architectural innovation by challenging architects to utilize new materials and technologies to design progressive — but modest — homes in Southern California.

The Eames House is a raised steel-and-glass structure built into a hillside on the edge of a sun-dappled meadow in a eucalyptus grove on North Chautauqua Boulevard, with a view of the Pacific Ocean. The husband and wife duo — architect Charles and painter Ray — approached the project with the holistic, multidisciplinary thinking that they put into all their design work.

“Charles and Ray really felt that the best design addresses real human need,” noted Luce, which is perhaps why their most famous creations are the Eames lounge and dining chairs. But the pair also excelled at photography, film, graphic design and even whimsical toys and sculptures.

In 1957 they created the so-called Solar Do-Nothing Machine, which harnessed solar energy to power an aluminum toy that joyously whirled and spun. They made short films about many of their projects. Demetrios is particularly fond of “Toccata for Toy Trains,” which was created in 1957 and inspired by a toy locomotive gifted to the couple by director and friend Billy Wilder. The film features footage of toy trains running on a track with music by Elmer Bernstein, who frequently collaborated with the couple on their movies.

Demetrios pulled up the video on YouTube. Charles narrates the film in a calm voice tinged with the comforting fuzz of an old recording.

“Most of the trains we have used are old. Some are quite old. The reason for this is perhaps in the more recent years, we seem to have lost the knack of making real toys,” he says. “Most old ones have a direct and unembarrassed manner that give us a special kind of pleasure, a pleasure different from the admiration we may feel for the perfect little copy of the real thing. In a good old toy, there is apt to be nothing self-conscious about the use of materials. What is wood, is wood. What is tin, is tin. What is cast, is beautifully cast.”

That, declared Demetrios, closing out of the video, “is the most Eamesian narration ever.”

The idea raised by the film, he said, is the honest use of materials.

“That’s why they were able to not be too fussy about the past, while at the same time loving it and still embracing the future,” he said. “I mean, they made the first plastic chair. They made the first molded plywood chair. They were the first to use aluminum in a certain way.”

The new foundation seeks to build on the depth and breath of Charles and Ray Eames’ multidisciplinary legacy — and the technically stunning and deeply beautiful home they built. Plus, the couple’s ideas about sustainability — preserving natural landscapes and integrating them into their designs, rather than razing or altering them — have never been more resonant.

“One of the unique things about this place is that the grounds are authentic. Think the contents are authentic. The structure is authentic. The landscape’s authentic,” said Demetrios. “And important people did important work here.”

The Eames House is one of only two heritage sites in North America, along with the Salk Institute in San Diego, that the Getty Conservation Institute has worked with to create a comprehensive preservation plan for the next century — and that work, which is compiled in an extensive book, became crucial to the restoration process after the fire.

“There’s been a lot of rigorous scholarly studies and thinking behind all of the different conservation aspects of the site,” said Luce.

The Eames House has achieved a level of international renown reserved for some of the world’s most revered historic destinations. The scholar who devised the climate control plan for the house did the same thing for King Tut’s tomb.

The obvious fact that Gustavo Dudamel is a hard act to follow is something that has been concerning for the Los Angeles Philharmonic the last two and a half years. Dudamel has but one more season as music and artistic director before moving on to the New York Philharmonic, and the search for a new music director remains ongoing, the L.A. Phil clearly carefully taking the time to get it right.

In the meantime, interesting, predictable and unpredictable, stuff happens as it has lately at the Hollywood Bowl. Dudamel made the hard-act-to-follow business nearly an impossible act to follow during the first of what was supposed to be his two weeks at the Bowl this month. He had to cancel his second week, which was to have featured the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, thanks to new U.S. government travel restrictions for the Venezuelan orchestra.

The L.A. Phil filled in with two talented conductors who were Dudamel fellows and are now enjoying prospering careers, Elim Chan and Gemma New. But there were further disappointments. Yuja Wang, who was scheduled to appear with Bolívars in Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, canceled, and the world premiere of Arturo Marquez Concerto Trumpet No. 2, which the L.A. Phil commissioned, had to be postponed.

But perhaps the greatest challenge of all was living up to Dudamel’s astonishing performance of Mahler’s First Symphony at his second Bowl concert. Dudamel has conducted this symphony many times in L.A., including at his first concert in Walt Disney Concert Hall as the orchestra’s music director. That youthfully exciting and at times wild 2009 performance by the 28-year-old Dudamel attracted international attention and can be revisited on DVD.

At the Bowl this time, Dudamel reached new and surprising interpretive depths. There was a sense of being in the moment in every detail. There was an electric connection between Dudamel, the orchestra and the large audience that expressed its love for Dudamel, chanting “Gustavo! Gustavo!”

The next two evenings at the Bowl, when Dudamel accompanied a screening of “Jurassic Park” with the score performed live by the L.A. Phil, demonstrated just how much John Williams makes the movie. For Dudamel, there is no equal anywhere to this combination of orchestra, audience, opportunities and venue, and he seemed to very much know that during his brief week in town.

For Chan’s program a few nights later, she led a colorful, lively evening of Tchaikovsky (the Violin Concerto with James Ehnes as soloist), Britten (Four Sea Interludes from “Peter Grimes”) and Stravinsky (“Firebird” Suite). For some time, Chan has been rumored to be a candidate in the L.A. Phil’s music director search. She has become a regular guest conductor and opened the Bowl season last summer. Audiences respond to her verve and so do the players. All of that came across at the Bowl. She returns to Disney in January.

Wang’s cancellation, however, meant another hard act to follow. Two years ago, the pianist and Dudamel presented a Rachmaninoff festival at Walt Disney Concert Hall that resulted in a bestselling and well-deserved award-winning recording of the composer’s four piano concertos and “Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini.” The set also proved direct competition with the widely hailed one by the Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

This week at the Bowl is Rachmaninoff week, with Trifonov performing two concertos (Nos. 2 and 3) and British conductor Daniel Harding leading the Second Symphony. A 22-year-old Trifonov made his L.A. debut in 2013 at the Bowl in Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto. A dozen years later the Russian pianist who now lives in New York is a star whose playing can be compared with Rachmaninoff’s own.

Rachmaninoff played his Second Concerto at the Hollywood Bowl in 1942. Suffering poor health, he had moved to Beverly Hills that May and died the following March. Before the concerto, Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” was performed as a “prayer for victory,” the U.S. having entered World War II.

Rachmaninoff, who by many accounts (and backed up by his recordings) was one of finest (some said the finest) pianists of his time, was reported to have been in superb form at the Bowl. His performance of his most famous and most romantic concerto was said to embody the seriousness of the times. Four years earlier, he had recorded with the Philadelphia Orchestra, led by Leopold Stokowski. The sound is rough even for its time, but the playing comes from inside. You barely notice the extraordinary virtuosity, so natural is the sentiment.

I’ve never heard another pianist match that organic quality as closely as Trifonov does, and without ever restraining his own personality. Wang is the spine-tingling opposite, pure electricity, pure Yuja Wang, the closest we have today to Vladimir Horowitz, who happened to be Rachmaninoff’s Beverly Hills neighbor and favorite pianist.

Two weeks after the composer’s appearance at the Bowl, Horowitz played Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto in the amphitheater, and Rachmaninoff famously greeted him afterward backstage by saying that Horowitz played the killer concerto exactly the way he wanted to hear it.

The Rachmaninoff recordings of Dudamel and Wang remain preferable but not for the soloists, both of whom are extraordinary and authentic with no need to compete. Trifonov is undercut, though, by ostentatious conducting, whereas Dudamel and Wang jibe. For what it’s worth, Wang also made her Hollywood Bowl debut with a Rachmaninoff concerto (No. 3) and a famous little orange dress that together helped launch her stellar career.

Tuesday at the Bowl, Harding sensitively supported Trifonov, allowing space for the essence of his playing. A little Stokowski-like pizzazz that accompanied Rachmaninoff’s recording might not have hurt in the long Second Symphony, but even so, this was, like Chan’s concert, a fulfilling Bowl evening.

These concerts give hope and reaffirm that life goes on. All acts, no matter the challenge, must be followed.