Celebrating its 12th year online, Soap Opera Network is currently experiencing its biggest year on record in terms of page views and unique visitors. This year we’ve been able to provide exclusive insight into the world of soaps while bringing readers inside the minds of some of their favorite characters and actors featured on “The Bold and the Beautiful,” “Days of our Lives,” “General Hospital” and “The Young and the Restless.” As we come off of the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend, we’re gearing up for even more features in the coming weeks and the new year including the return of the SON Awards along with the annual Airhog Awards, while introducing new features such as our first annual best and worst of the year report and our new best of soaps weekly poll highlighting the best actors, best soaps, and best storylines of the week for both daytime and primetime soap opera related programming. To better present all this content we’ve made significant alterations to our website design that gets rid of clutter and inactive coding that previously prevented the site from being presented in the best way possible. The new design codenamed “refresh” was launched today.

“All My Children” actress Francesca James (ex-Evelyn Johnson) is in the middle of a plot fit for a thriller film. According to The New York Post, the Emmy winner was named co-executer of the estate of recently deceased Broadway star Julie Harris, and friends and former employees of the Tony-winner are accusing James of “worming” her way into Harris’ life, taking control of her business and medical affairs and alienating her from her son, Peter Gurian — all so she could inherit part of Harris’ estimated 10 million fortune!

Following the tragic news of Paul Walker’s sudden passing yesterday, cast members from “The Fast and the Furious” film franchise shared messages on social media websites in loving memory of the actor who was the only cast member to have appeared in five of the last six films and will also appear in the upcoming seventh installment, “Fast 7,” which is scheduled for release on July 11, 2014. Universal Pictures, which produces and distributes the films worldwide, released the following statement: “All of us at Universal are heartbroken. Paul was truly one of the most beloved and respected members of our studio family for 14 years, and this loss is devastating to us, to everyone involved with the Fast and Furious films, and to countless fans. We send our deepest and most sincere condolences to Paul’s family.”