Emmy Awards producers, struggling to keep viewers’ attention, promise a faster-paced show with more entertainment Sunday night.

“Family Guy” is the first animated series to be nominated for best comedy since “The Flintstones” in 1961.

Last year’s show barely missed becoming the least-watched Emmys telecast, prompting executive producer Don Mischer to find ways to prevent it from becoming a “niche show that the majority of people don’t want to watch.”

Mischer — also known for producing memorable Super Bowl halftime shows — has said the writing is on the wall for the Emmys unless the show is changed.

Here are a few things to watch for during the three-hour CBS telecast, which begins at 8 p.m. ET:

What sort of surprises will the show have in store?

If we knew, then it wouldn’t be a surprise. But Mischer has promised “moments of unpredictability” throughout the telecast to keep viewers entertained — though these shouldn’t be surprises to producers. (If someone commandeers a microphone, Kanye West-style, during an acceptance speech, it may be a surprise to Mischer, too.)

Incidentally, Mischer wasn’t the producer of the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson’s infamous breast exposure. He was hired to take over the next year, when the emphasis was on a controlled show. Nevertheless, the producer has teased viewers with promises of a “surprise opening.”

Catherine Zeta-Jones will hit the big 4-0 this month, Sept. 25 to be exact — and has never looked better. The actress took a stroll in New York City Sept. 16, 2009, wearing a flatterring pencil skirt. Her marriage to actor Michael Douglas, who is 25 years her senior, is still going strong, and so is her ageless beauty.
(James Devaney/WireImage/Getty Images)

Sgt. 1st Class Jared Monti is one of six Medal of Honor recipients — all awarded posthumously — in current wars.

When President Obama gave a Medal of Honor to Sgt. 1st Class Jared Monti’s family this week, it was just the sixth time the nation’s highest medal for valor has been awarded to a hero of the current conflicts.

Sgt. 1st Class Jared Monti is one of six Medal of Honor recipients — all awarded posthumously — in current wars.

In all six cases, the awards were presented posthumously.

During World War II, the D-Day invasion of Normandy produced four recipients, the attack on Pearl Harbor produced 15, and the battle of Iwo Jima had 27.

In all, more than 3,400 Medals of Honor have been awarded since the medal was created during the Civil War, with about 620 of them bestowed posthumously.

Why then have there been so few recipients — and only deceased ones — for Iraq and Afghanistan?

“I’ve been asked this question many times,” said Gary Littrell, a Medal of Honor recipient from the Vietnam War. “There is a possibility that the award is overprotected.”

Littrell is one of 95 living Medal of Honor recipients in the United States. More than 50 of them gathered this week in Chicago, Illinois, for their annual convention. Each year, the gathering gets smaller.

The decrease in the number of Medals of Honor is not a result of any change in the criteria for the award.

“The rules haven’t changed; the rules and the requirements are still the same,” said Gen. James Conway, commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps.

The honor is given to service members who distinguish themselves “conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States.”

The phrase “at the risk of his life” may help explain why since World War II most medals have been awarded posthumously.

“I think it has something to do with the level of intensity of the conflict,” Conway said. “If you go back and look at some of the fights that took place in Vietnam, Korea, World War II, there were massive numbers of troops involved in massive engagements over a period of days. That’s not the type of conflict that we are seeing in a type of counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“So I think that’s perhaps the single most determining factor here as you look at awarding or not awarding a medal.”

In many respects, no one wants any more Medals of Honor awarded.

“You don’t want your soldiers to be put in that situation to where any of them have to rise to the occasion,” said Brian Thacker, an Army veteran who earned the Medal of Honor in Vietnam.

Conway echoed that sentiment. “Any time a soldier or a Marine wins the medal, then his unit is in extremis, and he’s doing very heroic things … to make that situation better. I don’t want to wish that on anybody.”

But the United States has nearly 200,000 troops fighting two wars, and that means troops risking their lives, displaying gallantry. And even at the highest levels, people want those heroes recognized, especially if the honoree can be there for a ceremony at the White House.

“This has been a source of real concern to me,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.

“I think it was one of President Bush’s real regrets that he did not have the opportunity to honor a living Medal of Honor recipient,” added Gates, who also was defense chief in the final two years of Bush’s administration.

Michael Jackson’s mother can challenge the administrators of his estate without losing her share in a family trust, a Los Angeles judge has ruled.

Katherine Jackson’s lawyers had said she wanted more say in the estate even though Jackson’s will contained a “no contest” clause to the family trust.

The singer appointed his long-time lawyer John Branca and music executive John McClain as executors.

The family trust gives Mrs Jackson more than $1m (£606,000) a year.

The money from the estate is to be used to support herself and her son’s three children.

The amount was approved by a judge in Los Angeles in August. Michael Jackson’s estate is estimated to be worth $400m (£246m).

Judge Mitchell Beckloff ruled on Friday that Katherine Jackson would not violate the “no contest” clause if she were to challenge decisions of the estate’s administrators.

Court cases

Michael Jackson is thought to have left about $400m (£246m) in debt when he died in June but his assets are estimated to outweigh considerably his debts.

The singer had partial ownership of the Sony/ATV music catalogue and many Beatles songs.

The singer’s three children also receive a monthly allowance of $60,000 (£37,000). Various charities also benefit.

After his death, Michael Jackson’s children went to live with their grandmother at the family home in north Los Angeles.

They are still living there and Katherine Jackson has been granted permanent guardianship.

Judge Beckloff has been presiding over a string of court cases regarding the unravelling of Michael Jackson’s estate, his business dealings and the wrangling over future earnings.

There are plans to produce a wide range of Michael Jackson memorabilia and a movie including footage from rehearsals for his planned comeback tour will be released in late October.

Branca and McClain have said they expect the merchandising to have boosted the late singer’s estate by $200m (£123m) by the end of 2009.

Michael Jackson died from high levels of drugs in his body including the powerful anaesthetic propofol, more commonly used on hospital patients before surgery.

A police investigation into how he procured the drug has focussed on his personal physician Dr Conrad Murray. No charges have yet been brought in relation to the singer’s death.

The Mexican government posted security camera footage Saturday of a shooting inside a subway station that left two people dead and eight wounded at the height of evening rush hour.

Camera footage shows Luis Felipe Hernandez Castillo brandishing a gun.

The shooting at the Balderas station in central Mexico City happened after police stopped Luis Felipe Hernandez Castillo, 38, from writing graffiti on the wall of one of the subway platforms.

Hernandez Castillo was writing “Este gobierno de criminales,” or “this government of criminals,” federal District Attorney Miguel Angel Mancera said. As police tried to stop him, he drew his gun — a .38 Special handgun — and began firing.

The security camera footage shows a busy subway platform as the train pulls into the station just before 5:15 p.m. Friday. Just as the train comes to a stop, there is a disturbance in the crowd, and Hernandez Castillo is seen shooting at an officer in uniform.

The crowd disperses, and the officer runs out of view of the camera. The officer, who was a bank policeman, is later seen on the footage lying dead, face down on the platform.

The footage shows a man in a white shirt running off the train and trying to wrestle Hernandez Castillo. The man, who Mancera said was a federal security agent in civilian clothing, chases Hernandez Castillo around the platform. He frequently falls either because he slips or tries to avoid being shot.

The federal agent is on the floor facing him, about to get up and try to grab him, when he is shot in the head and falls to the ground.