Danny Puff

NEW YORK (AP) The great comedian W.C. Fields is credited with the line, "Never work with children or animals." He would have had trouble on Broadway this season.

There were kids at every turn "Motown: The Musical," ''Kinky Boots," ''Annie," ''Matilda the Musical," ''A Christmas Story, the Musical" and "Pippin." And animals? Dogs in "Annie," ''Pippin" and "A Christmas Story, the Musical," a cat in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," a dead crow in "Macbeth" and even a live vulture in "The Testament of Mary."

But now that it's Tony Awards time, it's the moment for the adults to shine. No kids or pets made it through the nomination process, so only grown-ups will emerge victorious Sunday night.

BEST MUSICAL

Will win: "Kinky Boots." Should win: "Matilda the Musical."

Though it's been a horse race between "Kinky Boots" and the import "Matilda the Musical" both coincidentally having actors adopting British accents and both featuring men in dresses the consistently high marks for all aspects of "Matilda" should sweep it to victory, but won't. "Kinky" is unabashedly sentimental with a classic message of acceptance, while "Matilda" is rebellious and edgy, a place Tony voters don't naturally feel comfortable.

BEST PLAY

Will win: "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike." Should win: "The Assembled Parties."

Christopher Durang's comical "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike," which takes characters and themes from Anton Chekhov and sets them in present-day Pennsylvania, is sly and funny and lovely. But Richard Greenberg's "The Assembled Parties," a meditation on time and family, leaves a lasting impression.

REVIVAL-PLAY

Will win: "The Trip to Bountiful." Should win: "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf."

The Cicely Tyson-led revival of Horton Foote's play is lovely and well done. You walk out hopeful and sunny the opposite of what the revival of Edward Albee's play felt like. Superbly acted and directed, it was a cage-match with intellectuals. But Tony voters like sunny and inspirational.

REVIVAL-MUSICAL

Will win: "Pippin." Should win: "Pippin."

"Annie" is pretty good, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" was rollicking, "Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella" is sweet and smart, but "Pippin" is thoroughly thrilling, rebuilt with a circus inside. Diane Paulus rides the Big Top theme fire jugglers, teeterboards, knife throwing and contortionists but she also teases out the wandering nature of the mysterious players and zooms up the physicality of the story. Magic.

ACTOR-PLAY

Will win: Tom Hanks. Should win: Tracy Letts.

Everybody loves Tom Hanks. He is just so darn lovable. In "Lucky Guy," he gets to be funny and poignant and noble while dying. What kind of monster are you if you don't like Tom Hanks?

But, speaking of monsters, Tracy Letts showed a hint of one in the seemingly weak-willed history professor George in Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" ''He was savage and sad, allowing years of pain and frustration to seep out of a semi-broken man." Hanks, David Hyde Pierce and Nathan Lane turned in fine performances, but nothing touched Letts, an actor at the top of his game.

ACTRESS-PLAY

Will win: Cicely Tyson. Should win: Laurie Metcalf.

Cicely Tyson's return to Broadway for the first time in 30 years to be in Horton Foote's "The Trip to Bountiful" has been met by deserved high praise. But Laurie Metcalf was simply astonishing as she went from a snippy, bossy scientist to a broken, confused intruder wolfing down Chinese food on the floor in "The Other Place." The other three women in this category Amy Morton, Kristine Nielsen and Holland Taylor also are admirable, but Metcalf was soul-stirring.

ACTOR-MUSICAL

Will win: Bertie Carvel. Should win: Billy Porter.

Both men are deserving of the honor and, believe us, both actors look sensational in skirts, but Billy Porter in "Kinky Boots" bares his heart a little more and pushes his poor body a little more than his rival in "Matilda the Musical." Bertie Carvel won the Oliver Award Britain's equivalent of the Tony in the role of Miss Trunchbull and brought his terrifying skill to Broadway without being cartoonish, but Porter can make tears fall down your cheeks.

ACTRESS-MUSICAL

Will win: Patina Miller. Should win: Patina Miller.

While Laura Osnes from "Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella" is perfectly cast as a princess-to-be and sings beautifully, Patina Miller is a muscular creature with a hat and cane, a grimace plastered to her face, who dances tough Bob Fosse steps and does tricks on a trapeze while singing in Diane Paulus' retelling of "Pippin." Miller is fierce and that always beats cute.

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Mark Kennedy can be reached at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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by Virginia Heffernan | @YahooTechI've been wearing Google Glass, Google's wearable Internet contraption, since Friday. (You can read the first entry in my Glass Menagerie journal here, the second entry here and the most recent entry here.)So far, groovy Brooklynites seem to see Google's pricey headgear the way they see Gucci loafers like something for showoffs and chumps. It's sorta pathetic. I was hoping we could share in some good old American excitement over new technology. But they're ignoring me. Anyway, Glass wasn't a hit when I wore it to Smith Canteen, my usual coffee shop, so yesterday I decided to go somewhere seemingly more hospitable to technology: Momofuku Milk Bar. Hip people love cookies? Maybe I was grasping at straws. I definitely was grasping at straws. So here's the video I made, from my head, when I cravenly sought attention yesterday at Momofuku Milk Bar. Watch especially the snub by the cool-looking chick at the end. Sigh.

Transcript: "Since the people are using technology here, like a laptop, maybe they won't really hate this thing because they're not quite as steampunk as they are at Smith Canteen. But I'm still alone. And I'm still talking to myself. So let's face it. Oh, and I still have this hair. . .[unintelligible]. They have yoga mats and instruments. They're just like healthy, hearty people. Brooklynites. Without a care in the world. No straws, though. Ah, straws! That's like a person that would work at Momofuko. They just don't say anything. I feel like I'm a really low-level forgotten has-been reality contestant? who everyone just wants to avert their eyes from. Well, at least I found a straw. I can't believe I used to fit in here."

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by Rob Walker | @YahooTechWhat does the digital revolution mean to photography? The question can be or rather, has already been answered in myriad ways. The most recent high-profile excuse to wrestle with the issue: The Chicago Sun-Times decision to do away with its photo staff. One of the affected photojournalists reacted to being replaced by a reporter with an iPhone by starting a Tumblr. Laidofffromthesuntimes.tumblr.com, created by Rob Hart, promptly attracted a swarm of online attention.

So is that a story about a digital threat or a digital opportunity? Or both?

Just as I was chewing over this question, I had a chance to check out A Different Kind of Order, the International Center of Photography s fourth triennial exhibition aiming to offer a picture of the most compelling contemporary photo work.

While I d stopped by out of idle curiosity, what I got was a major jolt to my thinking about technology and the making (and consuming) of images today.

Sure, the smartphone revolution has extended the long history of photography s democratization. But A Different Kind of Order repeatedly reminded me that there are photographers, artists, photojournalists and other image-makers whose work rises far above the crowd. The best of this work both uses and critiques technology in ways that disturb, inspire awe, and generally blow your mind.

Here are five of my favorite pieces from from the show:

1. A chilling piece by Rabih Mour collects images and videos made with mobile devices in war-torn Syria. In one, a shaky video settles on a hiding soldier. Suddenly this blurry figure seems to notice the camera-holder, and raises his rifle. The image spins to the ground. Has this citizen documentarian just been shot? There is no way of knowing for sure: a grim reminder of how the explosion of visual information still resolves in maddening uncertainty.

2. Trevor Paglen s large prints resemble pleasing abstractions or luscious sksyscapes. But study them very closely and you will see a tiny blemish here or there and that speck is a Predator or Reaper military drone, flying over a test site that of course a non-military photographer cannot get near. Apart from forcing the viewer to stare intently, searching a large physical image for its subject (the pictures wouldn t translate well to a computer screen), Paglen s approach comments on the conundrum of these hulking and influential weapons that are, by design, invisible to their victims and to most of the rest of us, too.

3. A.K. Burns Touch Parade addresses something I had never heard of: highly specialized fetish videos found on YouTube. How specialized? Evidently these videos depict such actions as crushing vegetables with one s foot, or inflating a balloon until it pops. To most people, of course, such a video would just seem pointless and strange but to some small community they read as erotic. Burns reenacts five examples, which run simultaneously on five TVs. Apart from being freaky and creepy, the videos offer a vivid example of subversive imagery that hides in plain sight and a jarring variation of the familiar clich s about connecting over shared interests online. If YouTube understood what such videos were about, would it force them off the platform? And what does it mean to watch something that switches from inexplicable to disturbing once you understand its intent?

Touch Parade (crush), 2011 / excerpt from A.K. Burns on Vimeo.



4. Mishka Henner s images are documentation of counter-documentation. The satellite imagery on Google Maps turns out to include some interesting anomalies: governments demand that certain territories of military or other significance be kept obscured. As it happens, the Dutch method of censorship entails aesthetically engaging abstractions, plopped right into satellite pictures. In a sense these are found images but found in the digital world rather than the physical. Interestingly, while I d seen these pictures previously, online, they looked terrific in the form of physical prints.

5. Finally, there s Touching Reality, by Thomas Hirschorn. This meta-examination of the way we consume images now is short but incredibly affecting: A video shows a hand swiping and pinching an iPad, viewing a series of extremely graphic photos of war casualties. Such gory evidence of violence would likely be kept off the front page or evening news, but is now routinely documented by citizen photojournalists with camera phones, and easily found online. The hand flicks through these images, pausing now and again to zoom in on some horrifying detail. The viewer empathizes (this way of taking in pictures is now familiar) yet feels frustrated by the lack of control and vaguely judgmental of the hand, even while consuming exactly the same images its owner is consuming. It s disorienting. And for me, it was actually just too gruesome to watch all the way through. But with that warning in mind, you can see a short excerpt of the piece below.

Touching Reality, Thomas Hirschhorn from Anouli Patchouli on Vimeo.



None of this makes me think any less of services like Instagram and Flickr and the exploding range of work, from the casual to the serious, that emerges there. But A Different Kind of Order is a powerful reminder that the far edges of image-making are still being explored, with rewarding results. If you have a chance to see this show in person, do it. It will change the way you see.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) A judge said Thursday he was inclined to unseal portions of a choreographer's court filings alleging he was abused by Michael Jackson.

However, personal details and psychiatrist reports would likely not be released.

Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff said he needed to address which records should remain sealed before he can deal with whether Wade Robson, a choreographer and television personality, can pursue his claim.

Robson requested on May 1 that Beckloff allow him to file a late creditor's claim against Jackson's estate nearly eight years to the day after he testified in Jackson's defense at the singer's molestation trial.

Jackson was acquitted after Robson told jurors the entertainer never touched him inappropriately. Henry Gradstein, an attorney for Robson, said a breakdown last year prompted Robson to address the abuse.

Howard Weitzman, an attorney for Jackson's estate and Thomas Messereau, the lawyer who successfully defended Jackson, have attacked Robson's credibility and noted his repeated defense of the singer.

Weitzman has called the accusations "outrageous and pathetic."

"We are confident that the court will see this for what it is" he said at the time the allegations were first made.

On Thursday, Beckloff presented attorneys with possible redactions of Robson's sworn declaration and said it should serve as a roadmap for what information can be made public.

The judge believes some of the material could be made public, even though attorneys on both sides would like the case sealed in its entirety.

Some of Robson's private and personal information, including a paragraph that detailed his allegations of abuse by Jackson, should be sealed, Beckloff said.

He also said portions of the records that deal with mental health issues also should not be released.

"There aren't a lot of redactions," Beckloff said of his suggestions.

Attorneys for Robson and Jackson's estate will review the suggestions by the judge and report back at a hearing on June 25, the fourth anniversary of Jackson's death.

Beckoff, who is overseeing the probate case involving Jackson's massive estate, said he will also handle a separate lawsuit filed by Robson against Jackson and two other defendants listed as "Doe 2" and "Doe 3" that includes allegations of abuse by the entertainer. That lawsuit also remains sealed.

Robson, 30, has worked with Britney Spears and numerous other stars. He was 22 at the time he testified, telling jurors in Jackson's criminal case that he met the pop star when he was 5 and spent the night at Jackson's Neverland Ranch more than 20 times, sleeping in the singer's bedroom on most visits.

During the trial, Robson bristled at testimony by other witnesses that they had seen Jackson molest him.

"I'm telling you nothing happened," Robson testified when a prosecutor challenged his account in 2005.

Gradstein previously issued a statement saying, "Last year, on a career trajectory that was off the charts, (Robson) collapsed under the stress and sexual trauma of what had happened to him for seven years as a child."

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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

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LOS ANGELES (AP) Russell Brand has a "Messiah Complex," and he's taking it on the road.

The British comedian announced Thursday that he's launching a world comedy tour focusing on Che Guevara, Gandhi, Malcolm X and Jesus Christ. Brand says the show examines "the importance of heroes in this age of atheistic disposability."

The 38-year-old says he plans to perform in theaters as well as "prisons, drug rehabs ... nationalist organizations, Mosques, foreclosed houses, protest sites, Synagogues and in people's private homes."

The "Messiah Complex" tour is set to begin Aug. 15 in Abu Dhabi and wrap up Dec. 9 in Iceland.

Brand's FX show, "Brand X," concluded last month.

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Online:

www.russellbrand.tv

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by Rob Walker | @YahooTechSo it s been about a month since I betrayed Apple, one of my longtime favorite brands as mentioned here earlier by buying an HTC One smartphone instead of an iPhone. How s that working out?

Pretty great, actually. I m feeling no pangs of regret. Every app I really use works as well as the iOS versions, and I positively love some of the HTC One s features. But best of all, it s made it easier for me to recognize that the iPhone is, in fact, a totally bourgeois device: The iPhone has become, in its six short years, the technological equivalent of a Polo shirt.

Toting a non-Apple device around the world, for the first time in ages, has made me see the Apple-toters with new eyes. If you ll allow me to be totally and arbitrarily judgmental for a moment: It struck me just how common the iPhone has become. And I mean that in the sense of not distinguished; not of superior excellence; ordinary, per definition 4 in my Webster s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary: Deluxe Second Edition. (I ll stop short of citing definition 7: not refined; low; coarse. )

Before everyone gets upset, I would actually draw a distinction between Apple in general and the iPhone in particular. The latter has become a brand unto itself, one that has long since crossed over from cool (meaning something embraced by a minority that thinks of itself as having elite taste) to acceptable, meaning it s a sort of cultural default, like a Polo shirt or Nike sneakers or, for that matter, Windows (in its heyday at least).

It s the brand for people who don t want to think all that hard about what brand they are buying, and just want whatever everybody else will accept without question. It s bourgeois.

There s nothing wrong with that, per se. Nike sneakers and Polo shirts are acceptable for a reason: They are perfectly fine. And to state the obvious, producing an acceptable default product is an excellent position for a business to occupy. (This is why trendmongers yammering about what a disaster it is for a brand to lose its cool so often miss the point.)

But what I'm getting at isn't business. It's personal. Personally, I don't go for Polo ponies and Nike swooshes. I'm not interested in mindlessly signaling that I have bought in to whatever the market has decided is "acceptable." Maybe you've had the same feeling: It's precisely the fact that the iPhone has attained this status in popular culture that made me curious about alternatives.

By now the (perhaps justifiably) offended iPhone loyalists among you would surely like to point out to me that the HTC One, despite plenty of nice reviews, is not exactly setting the world on fire. The product is a minor sideshow in press coverage of the Apple-Samsung battle; the company seems to be flailing; and its marketing has been a disaster. I wouldn t be surprised if most iPhone owners don t even know what an HTC One is.

This doesn t bother me in the least. First, I like an underdog. Second, any time a brand emerges as a default, I get suspicious: Surely I can do better than whatever the majority thinks is acceptable. I think with my HTC One I ve done exactly that. And this is not dissimilar from my insistence on sticking with Apple s computers when their market share compared to Windows alternatives had shrunk to practically nothing. As long as I could identify what made my choice better, I had to. And that, as you know, worked out just fine.

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NEW YORK (AP) U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg's nearly three decades in office and the causes he championed will be remembered at a funeral service in New York.

A service was set for 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at Park Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan.

The liberal Democrat from New Jersey died Monday after suffering complications from viral pneumonia. At 89 he was the oldest member of the Senate and the last of 115 World War II veterans to serve there.

Vice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and members of Lautenberg's family were set to deliver eulogies.

A color guard ceremony was also scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at the Frank Lautenberg Rail Station in Secaucus, N.J., where his casket was to be put on an Amtrak train to Washington.

Lautenberg was an ardent defender of Amtrak and worked to secure hundreds of millions of dollars for mass transit projects.

His casket was set to arrive at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday and lie in repose in the Senate chamber, on the Lincoln Catafalque, a bier that was built for the coffin of Abraham Lincoln.

Lautenberg, who served in the Army Signal Corps during World War II, will be buried Friday at Arlington National Cemetery.

A multimillionaire businessman, he was first elected to the Senate in 1982 and went on to serve nearly 30 years there in two stints.

He won his last race in 2008 at age 84, becoming the first New Jersey politician ever elected to five Senate terms. He had announced earlier this year he would not seek another term in 2014.

Early in his political career, he was a driving force behind the laws that banned smoking on most U.S. flights and made 21 the drinking age in all 50 states.

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By Diane Bartz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics scored a point on Tuesday over global rival Apple Inc in their long-running battle over mobile device patents.

A U.S. trade body found the Silicon Valley giant had infringed on a patent owned by the Korean company and slapped a ban on the sale of certain older iPhone and iPad models sold by AT&T Inc.

The U.S. International Trade Commission, an independent federal agency, issued a limited order stopping all imports and sales for AT&T models of the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G. The versions targeted are more than a year old but are still solid sellers.

All such exclusion orders are sent to President Barack Obama, who has 60 days to review them. If he does not veto the order, it goes into effect.

"We are disappointed that the commission has overturned an earlier ruling and we plan to appeal. Today's decision has no impact on the availability of Apple products in the United States," Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said in a statement.

Designed to be a trade panel, the ITC has become a popular venue for patent lawsuits because it acts relatively quickly and it can order import bans, which are more difficult to get from district courts.

Samsung said in a statement that the ITC decision "confirmed Apple's history of free-riding on Samsung's technological innovations."

"Our decades of research and development in mobile technologies will continue and we will continue to offer innovative products to consumers in the United States," it said.

Tuesday's ruling overturned a decision by ITC Judge James Gildea, who ruled in September that Apple did not violate patents at issue in the case, which was filed in mid-2011.

Apple was found to infringe on a patent that relates to 3G wireless technology and the ability to transmit multiple services simultaneously and correctly. It is essential to ensuring that the devices are interoperable.

The U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and the Patent and Trademark Office have all said that infringement of these "standard essential patents" should mostly be punished by monetary charges, not sales bans.

An exception would be in the rare instances where the infringer refuses to negotiate a license or to pay.

The usual expectation among companies has been that standard essential patents will be inexpensively licensed to anyone.

Samsung, which is battling Apple in court in some 10 countries, had also accused Apple of infringing on three other patents, but the ITC found that Apple did not infringe these.

Apple has a parallel complaint filed against Samsung at the ITC, accusing Samsung, an Apple chip provider, of blatantly copying its iPhones and iPads. An ITC judge in that case found that Samsung had violated one patent but not a second one. A final decision is due in August.

Apple has waged an international patent war since 2010 as it seeks to limit the growth of Google's Android system. The fight has embroiled Samsung, HTC and others that use Android.

The ITC's decision came on the same day that President Barack Obama weighed in on curbing a totally different type of patent lawsuit - those brought by companies called "patent trolls." The disparaging name is because these companies make or sell nothing, but they specialize in suing others for infringement. Obama asked for new federal regulations on these concerns and action from Congress.

The offensive - announced before Obama makes a fundraising trip this week to California's Silicon Valley - came as U.S. lawmakers and courts are seeking ways to reduce the number of unwarranted patent lawsuits.

Samsung did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The case at the International Trade Commission is No. 337-794.

(Additional reporting by Poornima Gupta in San Francisco.; Editing by Ros Krasny, Bob Burgdorfer and Christopher Wilson)

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CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) A judge accepted James Holmes' long-awaited plea of not guilty by reason of insanity Tuesday and ordered him to undergo a mental evaluation an examination that could be a decisive factor in whether the Colorado theater shooting suspect is convicted and sentenced to die.

The judge also granted prosecutors access to a hotly contested notebook that Holmes sent to a psychiatrist shortly before the July 20 rampage, which left 12 people dead and 70 injured in a bloody, bullet-riddled movie theater in suburban Denver.

Taken together, the three developments marked a major step forward in the 10-month-old case, which at times has inched along through thickets of legal arguments or veered off on tangents.

Holmes faces more than 160 counts of murder and attempted murder, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

He will now be examined by the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo, but it's not certain when the evaluation will begin or how long it will take. Hospital officials have said that before they meet with Holmes, they want to review evidence in the case, which prosecutors said totals nearly 40,000 pages.

Judge Carlos Samour Jr. set a tentative date of Aug. 2 for the exam to be complete but said he would push that back if hospital officials request more time. Samour indicated he still hopes to begin Holmes' trial in February.

Holmes, 25, shuffled into court with his wrists and ankles shackled, wearing a long, bushy beard and dark, curly hair that was slicked back.

Samour read Holmes a five-page list of consequences of the insanity plea and asked if he had any questions.

"No," Holmes answered in a clear, firm voice. It was only the second time since his arrest that he has spoken in court, other than occasional whispered exchanges with his attorneys.

The findings of the mental evaluation will become evidence in Homes' trial, but they are not the final word on whether he was legally insane at the time of the shootings. The jurors will determine that.

If their verdict is not guilty by reason of insanity, Holmes would be committed to the Mental Health Institute indefinitely. He could theoretically be released one day if doctors determine his sanity has been restored, but that is considered unlikely.

If their verdict is guilty, jurors would then decide whether Holmes will be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Colorado law defines insanity as the inability to distinguish right from wrong caused by a diseased or defective mind.

Marcus Weaver, who was wounded and lost his friend Rebecca Wingo in the shooting, doesn't believe Holmes is insane but is grateful the case is moving forward.

"As we've seen evidence and seen the case unfold, it's become more evident that Mr. Holmes did what he did, and it had nothing to do with his mental state," he said.

The insanity plea is widely seen as Holmes' best chance of avoiding execution, but his lawyers delayed it for weeks, saying Colorado's laws on the insanity plea and the death penalty could work in combination to violate his constitutional rights.

The judge overruled their objections last week, but on Tuesday he conceded one point: Neither Holmes nor his lawyers had to sign a statement or say in court that they understood the five-page list of consequences of the insanity plea.

Samour originally planned to require Holmes and the defense to acknowledge they understood those consequences before he accepted the plea. But Samour said Tuesday he had determined that wasn't required by law.

Holmes needed Samour's approval to enter the insanity plea because a judge had entered a standard not guilty plea on Holmes' behalf in March.

Prosecutors first sought access to the notebook when its existence was made public days after the shooting. Holmes had mailed it to Dr. Lynn Fenton, a University of Colorado, Denver psychiatrist who had treated Holmes. Holmes had been a graduate student in neuroscience at the university.

The notebook's contents have never been officially made public, but media reports have said it contains drawings depicting violence.

The defense argued the notebook was protected by doctor-patient privilege. But Samour ruled Tuesday that under Colorado law, Holmes waived that privilege when he entered the insanity plea.

Prosecutors said Tuesday that in addition to reviewing the contents of the notebook, they would ask police to do unspecified "additional processing" of it.

Court officials also released nearly 100 pretrial motions Tuesday, most of them from the defense.

One signaled that Holmes will seek a change of venue because of pretrial publicity. Others challenged the admissibility of ballistics, handwriting and mountains of other evidence and demanded that prosecutors hand over as many as 2,000 pieces of physical evidence.

Holmes' lawyers appear to be trying to humanize their client, who made his first court appearances with a mop of dyed orange hair. They filed motions asking that he be allowed to appear before jurors in civilian clothes, instead of a jail uniform, and without shackles. They also asked that authorities ratchet back courthouse security, including armed guards on the roof.

Defense lawyers want Holmes' parents to be allowed to witness the entire trial in support of their son and not be sequestered like other possible witnesses.

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Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this report.

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Follow Dan Elliott at http://twitter.com/DanElliottAP

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PALMDALE, Calif. (AP) All that was left of his two-story home with a stunning panoramic view was black twisted metal and ashes.

On Monday afternoon, Gregg Johnson surveyed the damage along with the nearly 3,000 others allowed to return to their homes in the rural communities threatened by a massive Southern California wildfire.

Johnson, 59, left his home Saturday with his wife and 12-year-old son after watching the fire race down around Lake Hughes below them and then surround their mountaintop home.

"At that point, you know, the deal was done," Johnson said. "Of course I was holding out hope ... maybe the people who told me my house had burned down were wrong."

The remnants of the fire's destructive path left charred hillsides speckled with white ash over 50 square miles in northern Los Angeles County as residents returned to 700 homes they had fled in the rural communities 45 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

The Powerhouse Fire was 60 percent contained Monday evening as firefighters finally gained the upper hand on a blaze that had doubled in size over the weekend and spread rapidly through more than 32,000 acres of old, dry chaparral with the help of gusty winds and triple-digit temperatures.

Cooler, moist air on Monday helped thousands of firefighters battling flames that moved out into easier, sparser terrain from the rugged mountains of the Angeles National forest onto the floor of the high desert Antelope Valley.

Full containment was expected in a week as terrain, and officials expressed guarded optimism Monday.

"What a difference a day makes," said LA County Deputy Chief David Richardson.

Firefighters expected cooler temperatures, lighter winds and rising humidity to help them make more progress overnight, said U.S. Forest Services spokesman Nathan Judy. Water-dropping helicopters would continue to fly through the night, he said.

"We're supposed to have a good marine layer into the morning, we're hoping for it not too heat up too early," said a U.S. Forest Service spokesman Ed Gililland.

The fire was most active Monday in the northwest, pushing through a brushy area and had not burned since the 1930s, said Ronald Ashdale, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service. On Monday winds had swept across a dozer line set up by firefighters, pushing the area of containment out by another 5 acres.

But with only widely scattered homes in the area, firefighters were able to work more on attacking flames than on structure protection. At least six houses have been destroyed by the fire, and nine more damaged.

The fire continued to threaten about 275 homes Monday evening, down from 1,000 earlier in the day.

Monique Hernandez, 37, saw the fire jump Lake Hughes and decided to flee the mountaintop home she and her parents rented in March.

The family put their dog, photos and clothes into a van and sped down a mile-long dirt road. An hour later, they learned their home had burned.

"I saw it on the news," Hernandez said at the Red Cross shelter in Palmdale with her 3-year-old daughter, Angelique. "It was all gone. It was down to ashes."

About 2,100 firefighters took on the flames, aided by water-dropping helicopters and airplanes unleashing loads of retardant across the flanks of the fire.

The cause of the fire was under investigation. Three firefighters had minor injuries, but no one else was hurt.

Smoke from the Southern California wildfire and from Nevada fires hung over Las Vegas, where Clark County officials advised Monday that it could bother sensitive people such as those with respiratory conditions.

In the West, two major wildfires were burning in northern New Mexico, and weather conditions were not expected to be helpful to firefighters.

The Tres Lagunas fire north of Pecos in Santa Fe National Forest had grown to 12 1/2 square miles, causing smoke to spread across much of the region.

It previously prompted the evacuation of about 140 houses, mostly summer residences, but no structures had been burned.

Drier and windier weather was moving in, said interagency fire management team spokeswoman Denise Ottaviano. "It's going to be challenging," she said.

Firefighters were working to protect a group of homes in Holy Ghost Canyon and prevent the fire from spreading east, where it could endanger a river watershed that supplies Las Vegas.

Meanwhile, the Thompson Ridge fire near Jemez Springs remained at nearly 3 square miles. Forty to 50 houses were evacuated late last week.

A light gray haze blanketed the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east of Santa Fe and a thicker haze nearly obscured a view from Santa Fe of the Jemez Mountains to the west.

In Evergreen, Colo., about 30 miles west of Denver, sheriff's officials made about 9,900 automated calls telling people to evacuate as gusts carried sparks a half mile from where a fire burned an estimated 25 to 35 acres. The exact number of evacuees wasn't known because some homes receive calls to multiple numbers.

The fire was settling down Monday night and authorities said some evacuees will be able to return home.

In Alaska, wetter, cooler weather was giving crews a reprieve at many of the 40 active wildfires in the state. There have been 150 fires in Alaska this year, with more than 66 square miles burned.

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Associated Press writers Christopher Weber and Tami Abdollah in Los Angeles, Paul Davenport in Phoenix and Rachel D'Oro in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed to this story.

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