The Odyssey star Samantha Morton has admitted that it stung to be replaced by Scarlett Johansson for a major role earlier in her career.

Back in the 2010s, Samantha was due to lend her voice to Spike Jonze’s sci-fi romance Her, about a man who develops a romantic relationship with an artificial intelligence operating system.

In fact, Samantha even spent months on set of the Joaquin Phoenix project, and recorded her lines as the central AI service (whose name, confusingly, was also Samantha).

However, in the end, the director opted to have Scarlett take over in the role, which Samantha was asked about during an appearance on the podcast Happy, Sad, Confused.

“My version of Samantha was very […] English,” the British actor recalled. “It was just very, very different. And I think Scarlett Johansson has a beautiful voice. She’s incredibly evocative.”

Recalling how “sad” she was to miss out on appearing in the film – on which she was credited as an associate producer due to her contributions to the production – Samantha continued: “It does hurt when you’re fired from something or before it. I don’t know.

“What I’d have wished for was another chance in a booth to do an American accent.”

“But I think, you know, Scarlett Johansson!” she conceded. “I mean, come on.”

Spike said in a statement back in 2013: “Samantha was with us on set and was amazing. It was only in post production, when we started editing, that we realized that what the character/movie needed was different from what Samantha and I had created together. So we recast and since then Scarlett has taken over that role.

“I love Samantha. I’ve been friends with her forever and I hope we make lots of things together in the future.”

Her was both a critical and commercial success, earning Spike an Oscar in the Best Original Screenplay category, while the film itself was nominated for Best Picture.

We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about a study that linked greater levels of “interoception”, or body awareness, to a higher likelihood of orgasm among women.

“Our study empirically demonstrates that women need to get out of their heads and into their bodies in order to have more frequent and satisfying orgasms,” researcher Dr Megan Klabunde said.

And another paper published in Archives of Sexual Behaviour, which collected data from over 52,000 online surveys, found that the moves used during sex seemed to matter, too.

In this study, researchers asked a variety of respondents (men and women, who were a mix of gay, straight, and bisexual) about their experience with the Big O.

During sexually intimate moments, the percentages of people who said they always or usually orgasmed during sexual intimacy were:

• 95% for straight men,
• 65% for straight women,
• 89% for gay men,
• 86% for lesbian women,
• 88% for bisexual men,
• 66% for bisexual women.

No group of women finished more often than any of the groups of men, though among the ladies, lesbians got the best results. Not that straight men seemed fully aware of the extent of the discrepancy, as 45% said their partner always reached orgasm, whereas only 33% of heterosexual women said they did.

Perhaps a stat might provide clues as to why: about 30% of heterosexual men believed penetration was the best way to make women orgasm, whereas in this study, only 35% of women said they usually or often got off to vaginal sex alone.

44% of women said they rarely or never orgasmed from this type of intercourse.

80% of straight women, and 91% of women, however, said they usually or always orgasmed from manual genital stimulation, deep kissing, and/or oral sex.

Speaking to The Guardian, the study’s co-author, Professor Elisabeth Lloyd, said called this combination “the golden trio”.

The paper also found that women who orgasmed more often were likelier to receive oral sex, praise their partner in bed, make dirty calls, wear lingerie, and express love during the act.

They also acted out their fantasies more often and had higher odds of asking for what they wanted in the bedroom.

Seeing orgasm as the “point” of sex can paradoxically make your experience of it worse, thus lowering your chances of finishing, experts say. But if you’re not happy with your current rate and/or are looking to try something new, hey: science says theb “golden trio” might not be a bad place to start.

During Madonna’s Celebration Tour back in 2024, the Queen of Pop gifted pop fans with a moment they’d been waiting four decades for, when she was joined on stage by none other than Kylie Minogue for an impromptu duet.

Fast-forward two years, and the two music icons have finally combined forces on a new collaboration, which is coming later this week.

Last week, Kylie was a surprise guest during Madonna’s Club Confessions event as part of World Pride in Amsterdam, where the two sang along to a remixed version of the Like A Prayer singer’s recent musical offering Love Sensation.

It’s since been revealed that a remixed version of the track with new vocals recorded by the Australian pop superstar is coming on Thursday.

Check out a brief preview for yourself below:

Madonna and Kylie previously teased that a collab could be on the cards during the recent BBC special Madonna & Graham, where the Can’t Get You Out Of My Head singer made a brief cameo.

During the special, host Graham Norton put Kylie on the spot about whether she could be appearing on Madonna’s then-upcoming album Confessions II, with both stars remaining coy at the time.

Back in 2014, Kylie spoke to HuffPost UK about her hopes to team up with Madonna one day.

“That would be incredible!” she enthused. “It’s like maybe the world would stop mid orbit! Yeah, it would be incredible.

“I don’t know if it would ever happen. Maybe it’s something that will live in our imagination.”

Reacting to her Love Sensation remix earlier this week, an emotional Kylie wrote on Instagram: “Tell your 15-year-old self that you’ll be on… a… Madonna,.. record… one… day.”

Love Sensation is taken from Madonna’s latest album Confessions II, which earned rave reviews, topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic last month and is her first release in almost two decades to give the Grammy winner two UK top 40 hits.

Zack Polanski’s popularity has plummeted amid the row over him sharing an Instagram post suggesting Nigel Farage should be beheaded.

The Green Party leader was reported to the police after he accepted a collaboration on a series of photos, one of which showed a man in a t-shirt featuring an outline of a guillotine and the words: “We’re only making plans for Nigel.”

Polanski later deleted the entire post, but refused to apologise when grilled by the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire.

He said it was “quite obvious he had not done anything wrong apart from make an inadvertent mistake”.

Although Reform UK accused him of “incitement to violence”, police later said they would be taking no further action.

However, polling by the More in Common think-tank suggests the row has damaged Polanski and the Greens.

His personal approval rating has fallen to minus 28, making him the most unpopular major party leader in the country.

More than half the public (55%) say they do not believe Polanski’s explanation of the row, with the same number saying he should apologise to Farage.

Meanwhile, 56% of voters now say the Greens are an unserious party.

More in Common director Luke Tryl said: “After a meteoric rise, Zack Polanski has increasingly been dogged by questions of his judgement in recent months.

“Our latest polling had the Greens on 8%, virtually reversing the ‘Polanski wave’ of new support they had gained since he became leader. And Polanski’s personal approval rating has continued to decline, making him the most unpopular major party leader on -28.

“Polanski’s resharing of a t-shirt with violent imagery about Farage exemplifies these struggles.

“A majority of voters, including nearly a third of current Green voters, did not believe his explanation for the incident, and strong majorities of the public believe he should apologise.

“While most were sceptical of Reform’s decision to report Polanski to the police, Polanski has clearly misread the mood of the country, which has no tolerance for posts that risk condoning or endorsing political violence.

“Especially after the shocking murder of Ann Widdecombe, Britons want to see public figures behaving responsibly online.

“While the Greens have clearly tapped into a widespread desire for a progressive alternative over the past year, and Polanski has owned the attention economy a combination of a Burnham bounce and leadership missteps risks setting them back.”

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

Zack Polanski has claimed he and the Green Party helped “topple” Keir Starmer as prime minister.

Speaking at a press conference focused on the climate crisis, he alleged that his party’s success at the Gorton and Denton by-election in February this year accelerated Starmer’s downfall.

He said: “I think one of my biggest achievements in my coming up through the Green party was toppling a very popular prime minister.

“I am in no doubt that if we had not won Gorton and Denton, Keir Starmer would not have had the leadership crisis he had.”

The Greens’ Hannah Spencer took the Manchester seat from Labour in a surprise win five months ago as the party shot up in the polls.

Starmer and Labour’s executive body blocked then-Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham from running in the by-election.

The PM’s net favourability was at -47 at the time, and voters appeared to be flocking to the Greens.

But it was not until after the party’s shockingly poor performance in the May elections across England, Wales and Scotland that Labour MPs publicly called on Starmer to quit.

Makerfield MP Josh Simons then announced that he was vacating his seat so Burnham could return to parliament.

Burnham won the Makerfield by-election on June 18 and Starmer announced he was resigning just days later.

Burnham then ran uncontested to be the next prime minister and was sworn into office on July 20.

But Polanski told the media on Wednesday that the Greens’ victory in Gorton and Denton helped create the “version” of Burnham who criticises neoliberalism.

He added: “And obviously I very much agree with that and that’s something I’ve been talking about all year, and something the Green Party has been talking about for decades.”

The Greens peaked in popularity back in March, when pollsters found the party had leapfrogged Labour and secured second place behind Reform UK.

A YouGov survey for Sky News and The Times put the party on 21% after their support surged by four points with Reform on 23% and Labour trailing at 16%.

But the latest YouGov voting intention poll put Reform at 23%, Labour 22%, the Conservatives on 19% and the Greens far behind in fourth place, on 13%.

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

In May of this year, astronomer Bill Gray said on his site, Project Pluto, that a large section of SpaceX rocket Falcon 9 was set to crash into the moon on August 5.

He couched his prediction a little, saying: “I can be sure it will impact near the time and place I’ve predicted, but those varying forces mean that the actual impact will be at least a little off from that time and place”.

But scientists, including those from the Paranal Observatory in Chile, seem to have spotted the crash on its predicted date this morning. Nasa expected the incident to have taken place at 7:35am BST.

The space agency added that the collision will probably leave an 18-metre-wide, 14-metre-deep crater on the moon’s surface.

It could take days or weeks to confirm images of the suspected impact, however.

Speaking to the BBC, NASA spokesperson Jimi Russell said there’s no risk to us here on Earth as a result of the crash.

And Dr Matt Bothwell, public astronomer at the University of Cambridge, also told the broadcaster: “It’s something really huge smashing into the moon. It’s not remotely dangerous; we can just watch the show”.

We’ve even sent items to crash into the moon on purpose before.

Per ScienceAlert, the Falcon 9 is a partially reusable rocket, which means “its first, larger stage returns to Earth and alights on a barge so it can be refilled and re-flown, while the second stage remains in orbit”.

The part believed to have hit the moon is that second bit – the “upper stage” of the rocket, which carries the payload of the vessel.

Usually, companies leave this part of a rocket in orbit. They’re often designed to detach.

The section some believe may have hit the moon has been orbiting the Earth for about a year. It was the 10th rocket launched by the company, whose CEO is Elon Musk, in 2025.

On Monday, Julianna Scheiman, SpaceX’s director of NASA science and Dragon programmes, told reporters: “What has happened is essentially a mixture of solar activity and gravity forces have put [the rocket segment] on a path toward the moon.”

Leftover parts like these form a phenomenon Gray calls “space junk”.

Usually, debris left in space is guided by the gravity of celestial bodies around it, like the Earth and moon. That can help to make tracking and predicting their movements easier, and formed most of the basis of astronomers’ predictions.

But these objects are also moved around by sunlight. This is a very slight force, but it adds up over time. As the object moves around, it’s hard to say exactly how much sun will hit it.

Despite this variable, however, scientists seem to have been pretty accurate in their guesses here.

That’s highly unlikely without special equipment, BBC Sky At Night suggests.

And even with great telescopes, amateur and pro astronomers alike might struggle to spot the expected dust plume a crash may kick up as it’s likely to have happened near the visible edges of the moon.

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It’s the plight of modern life: you buy more things to make your life easier, only to make it harder by giving yourself something else to clutter your space.

Over the last few years, there have been several new ‘must-have’ appliances to add to your collection.

And while we’re all for levelling up your space with an air fryer, or even a water purifier, your kitchen counter can end up taken over pretty quickly.

If you’re tight on cooking space already, the last thing you want is a big black slow cooker taking up half of it.

Should your countertop clutter bring you utter misery though, we’ve found it: an appliance garage.

“Appliance garages help people keep everyday essentials within easy reach while maintaining the streamlined, peaceful aesthetic many are now striving for in modern kitchens,” explains the kitchen expert at B&Q, Jodie Spray.

Okay, we know what you’re thinking – isn’t adding something else into your kitchen kind of missing the point? Don’t worry, though, an appliance garage is designed to hide the mess, rather than add to it.

“An appliance garage is a dedicated storage space built into your kitchen,
usually a pantry-style cabinet,” says Spray.

“It’s designed to keep everyday appliances such as kettles, toasters and coffee machines tucked away but still easy to access when you need them.

“The goal isn’t to make your kitchen look empty, it’s to make it feel calmer and more intentional without sacrificing practicality.”

“The way you install an appliance garage will depend on your kitchen layout,
but there are options for both new kitchens and existing spaces,” explains Spray.

“Some are built into cabinetry as part of a renovation, while others can be created by repurposing a section of worktop.”

Just as there’s not one kitchen table for every space, you’ll need to think about what your space needs before buying or building an appliance garage.

“Before installing one, it’s worth thinking about which appliances you use most
often,” Spray adds.

“Good appliance garages prioritise convenience as much as appearance, so the aim should be to make appliances easier to put away and retrieve, not create an extra obstacle in your daily routine.”

Depending on what you already have in your kitchen (and your DIY abilities) you can either buy a cabinet to hide your appliances away in, or build your own using a cabinet, door, handles, and hinges.

To eliminate kitchen eyesores, we’ve rounded up the best of both types to shop now, from as little as £30.