The cast of the popular, and long-running, soap opera “Days of Our Lives” has reportedly been released from their contracts as the series’ future remains uncertain. 

    During an appearance on "Dr. Oz" Monday, Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman revealed that he recently suffered from a pulmonary embolism.

    Tim McGraw celebrated his 23rd wedding anniversary with wife Faith Hill in a very sentimental way.

    Pamela Anderson shared a rare throwback photo of herself at an event with Melania and Donald Trump just days after complimenting the first couple’s leadership in an open letter.

    Lamar Odom just dropped a bombshell when he announced he is now engaged once again.

    Moby just added a dozen brand-new tattoos to his collection of body art.

    Brooke Shields opens up about how she is raising her daughters to be confident in themselves and their bodies.

    Arnold Schwarzenegger has been outspoken about climate change activism in recent years but can reportedly be seen driving a "tank" while running errands. 

    Actress Nina Dobrev is doing much better after a stint in the emergency room due to anaphylactic shock from an allergic reaction. 

    Ricky Gervais is back.

    Read full story for latest details.

    Howard Marks, co-chairman of Oaktree Capital, explains why investors should start treading lightly.

    Barnes & Noble jumped more than 20% after it said it would review a sale of the troubled company.

    Aston Martin is joining the ranks of listed automakers with an IPO that values the British company at more than $5 billion.

    Read full story for latest details.

    (University of Colorado at Boulder) Scientists have developed a new mobile app that categorizes mental health status based on speech patterns. It could be used as an adjunct for in-person therapy and to help monitor patients from afar. But, as the researchers note in a new paper, more must be done to earn public trust.

    (American Academy of Family Physicians) Organizational and functional features of general practitioner practices in 11 countries were studied in search of underlying reasons for job dissatisfaction.

    (North Carolina State University) New research shows that early life exposure to a commonly used flame-retardant mixture increases anxiety and affects socioemotional behaviors in prairie voles, particularly in females.

    (eLife ) Scientists have revealed how common respiratory bugs that cause serious infections in people with cystic fibrosis interact together, according to a new study in eLife.

    (Iowa State University) If you have trouble sleeping, you're not alone. New research from Iowa State University finds more Americans have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. The difficulties were most prevalent in people with healthy sleep length.

    DU QUOIN (WSIL) -- Authorities investigate a late-night house fire in Du Quoin.

    More than 40 vendors will gather to celebrate National Small Independent Business Owner Day and help a good cause. 

    HARRISBURG (WSIL) -- A Saline County businessman is finding success in his hometown and he's only 21 years old.  

    If you were to search “crime of the 21st century,” what do you think the results would be? Did senior financial scams cross your mind? Unfortunately, these scams have become so prevalent, they have earned this title. 

    Illinois State Police is investigating a crash on interstate-57 in Franklin County that left one man dead.

    This blog post originated in the 2018 Science Mission Directorate Science and Technology Report.PROJECTHigh-Performance In Situ Dust Analyzer (Hyperdust)KEY POINTSHyperdust’s unique ion optics design combines the ability to provide high-performance composition measurements with the aperture that is needed to detect a statistically significant number of particles in space over a standard mission duration of a few years.The Hyperdust prototype instrument’s ion optics. (Image credit: Tibor Balint)The history of the formation and evolution of the Solar System is encoded in the compositional diversity of its small bodies, including comets and asteroids, and the solid material that was the source of it all: interstellar dust. But there are simply too many small bodies to be visited and investigated individually. Instead, what if scientists could survey the tiny particles (microsamples) that originate from these bodies and are delivered near Earth’s orbit by dynamic processes?The High-Performance In Situ Dust Analyzer (Hyperdust) Project is developing a highly capable instrument to measure the compositional diversity of many thousands of solid particles in space. The Composition Analyzer part of this instrument is now in development for deployment on NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission to be launched in 2024. Over the past four years, the Hyperdust Project has been maturing a novel instrument concept that will provide the capability of analyzing the composition of micron- and submicron-sized cosmic dust particles with higher resolution and sensitivity than ever before. The National Research Council’s 2013 Planetary Science Decadal Survey notes that, “There are too many asteroids, comets and KBOs [Kuiper belt objects] to explore individually by spacecraft.” Over the past 30+ years, in situ composition measurements have been obtained only for a handful of asteroids and comets. The Hyperdust instrument offers a paradigm shift, from an approach limited to observing a few bodies individually, to one surveying the entire solar system and beyond.The schematics of the full Hyperdust instrument. The Hyperdust Project team developed many of the key technologies enabling the instrument’s unique capabilities. (Image credit: Tibor Balint)Hyperdust is a complex instrument that measures the velocity vector and composition of each cosmic particle encountered in space. The former measurements are accomplished by the Trajectory Sensor, which consists of an array of wire electrodes that sense the particles when they enter through the aperture. The velocity information is used to identify the origin of each particle based on its orbit around the Sun. The Composition Analyzer then measures the composition of ions that are generated by the high-speed impact of the dust particle on a clean metal surface. This information reveals the elemental and chemical composition of the impacting dust. The Hyperdust project team developed key elements of this measurement capability, namely the sensitive electronics needed to detect the particle in the Trajectory Sensor, the refined ion optics, and the ion detector.The full Hyperdust instrument is approximately 70 cm tall and has a disk-shaped impact collection surface that is 40 cm in diameter. Such large size is needed to collect a statistically significant number of particles and their composition information. The Composition Analyzer part of the instrument has been selected to fly on the IMAP mission—the fifth mission selected in NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Probes program. The goal of the IMAP-bound instrument is to map out the composition of interstellar particles traversing through the solar system and link their composition to the characteristics and physical processes of the interstellar medium.Two copies of the SUDA ion detector prototype. The SUDA detector is built on the Hyperdust technology development. (Image credit: LASP/CU)Besides detecting and analyzing cosmic dust in interplanetary space, the technology advanced during development of the Hyperdust instrument is also supporting exploration of icy worlds and their habitability. For example, NASA is developing the SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA) instrument for the Europa Clipper mission. SUDA carries an ion detector that is based on that developed for Hyperdust. The SUDA instrument will analyze the icy particles originating from the surface of the Jovian moon Europa, and identify the chemicals embedded in the ice, both organic and inorganic.SPONSORING ORGANIZATIONPlanetary Science Division’s MatISSE ProgramPROJECT LEADDr. Zoltan Sternovsky, University of ColoradoRead more Technology StoriesMaster Image: 

    Mars 2020 Rover Launch Learn More

    Equilibrium climate sensitivity -- how sensitive the Earth's climate is to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide -- may be underestimated in individual climate models, according to a team of climate scientists.

    A team of environmental and computation scientists is using deep neural networks, a type of machine learning, to replace the parameterizations of certain physical schemes in the Weather Research and Forecasting Model, an extremely comprehensive model that simulates the evolution of many aspects of the physical world around us.

    A new type of material for next-generation solar cells eliminates the need to use lead, which has been a major roadblock for this technology.

    QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson big key to UCLA's second-half turnaround

    With one full season as St. Louis Cardinals manager under his belt, Mike Shildt has some hardware to show for it.

    Mike Shildt of the St. Louis Cardinals wins NL Manager of the Year award

    The Chicago White Sox have hired Scott Coolbaugh as their assistant hitting coach

    Cowboys build model by paying line, Pats win another way

    Anybody can become a Twitch star, but getting set up can be complicated, especially on the PC. While console gamers can start streaming quickly, configuring a Twitch stream on your PC involves using third-party software, ensuring all your hardware is detected, wading through audio and video mixing, and more. It’s not that hard, but it sure does involve some busywork. But Twitch’s own Twitch Studio software, which launched in open beta today after a closed beta period, aims to simplify the process and get you streaming to the masses quickly.To read this article in full, please click here

    Microsoft began rolling out the Windows 10 November 2019 Update to “seekers” on Tuesday, capping off a lengthy testing period on what is expected to be a fairly minor update.Microsoft typically rolls updates in two ways: to people who actively look for feature updates through the Windows Update tab, and through a more general rollout where updates are pushed to the world at large. This is the first phase, where the Windows 10 November 2019 Update will only download for users who visit Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and select Check for Updates.To read this article in full, please click here

    In this episode of The Full Nerd, Gordon Mah Ung, Brad Chacos,  and Adam Patrick Murray are joined by AMD’s Robert Hallock for a deeper look at the newly announced 3rd-gen Threadripper CPUs and the 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X!These beastly processors aim to stomp all over Intel’s Core i9-9900KS and Core X chips when they launch later this month, and Hallock explains exactly how (though you should always wait for reviews). AMD’s chip whisperer gets nitty-gritty on power efficiency, the new Eco mode coming to 3rd-gen Ryzen processors, why there isn’t a 16-core Threadripper this time around, optimal memory speed and timing for the new chips, cooling for PCIe 4.0-equipped motherboards, how Ryzen’s inclusion in the next-gen Xbox “Project Scarlett” and PlayStation 5 could accelerate multi-core gaming even faster, and more.To read this article in full, please click here

    Microsoft has pushed Minecraft Earth live to iOS and Android users in the United States in early access, meaning that pretty much anyone can download the preview and start exploring Microsoft’s virtual world.Microsoft’s Minecraft Earth account tweeted the news on Tuesday morning, and I was able to download the game on an Android phone and begin playing. Microsoft has placed download links for iOS and Android on its Minecraft Earth page.  Mark Hachman / IDGWhile you can place Minecraft Earth builds on ordinary objects (such as my back deck) be sure you’re in a well-lighted environment.To read this article in full, please click here

    NordVPN in brief:P2P allowed: Yes. Dedicated servers.Business location: PanamaNumber of servers: 3,000+Number of country locations: 58Cost: $69 (billed annually)VPN Protocol: OpenVPNData encryption: AES-256-CBCData authentication: TLS 1.2 with 2048-bit DHHandshake encryption: SHA2 - 512Panama-based NordVPN is a popular choice among VPN users and is also the recipient of much praise from experts. After spending some time with the service, it’s not hard to see why. First off, NordVPN lets you watch U.S. Netflix from anywhere in the world—a rare feat these days. NordVPN also manages to create an interface that’s simple yet feature-rich enough to satisfy power users willing to dig a little deeper.To read this article in full, please click here

    Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday said "many, many, many people" were pressuring her to consider a 2020 presidential bid, but held that it is "absolutely not in my plans."

    When Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California decided to join the House Intelligence Committee in 2008, leading an impeachment inquiry one day wasn't quite what he anticipated.

    • Read: Democrats circulate memo pushing back on GOP impeachment talking points• Opinion: Because of Trump, the suburbs are nearly gone for the GOP

    President Donald Trump has raised firing the intelligence community inspector general, Michael Atkinson, for deeming a whistleblower complaint regarding the President's Ukraine dealings to be credible and reporting it to Congress, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

    • Tracking the action in the impeachment inquiry

    Berlin was dubbed the ‘capital of spies’ during the Cold War, and Germany's capital remains a hotspot of espionage to this day.

    A spate of violent explosions and shootings around Copenhagen this year has prompted Danish authorities to tighter border controls at the country’s crossings with Sweden.

    A river near the inter-Korean border ran red after being polluted by blood from pig carcasses after an outbreak in South Korea of African swine fever. 

    A shark attacked an American diver off the coast of Mexico on Monday, taking a bite out of his forearm, officials said.

    As explosive wildfires rage dangerously across Australia's most populated state on Tuesday, firefighters who saved a man's home from the flames made heartwarming news with their kindness.