“A little blue pill is creating a stir in Hollywood,” said pharmaceuticals expert Dipa Kamdar on The Conversation. “And no, it’s not Viagra.” Celebrities have been singing the praises of propranolol, a beta-blocker originally designed for heart conditions that also helps with anxiety. Kristen Bell, Rachel Sennott and Natasha Rothwell have all mentioned taking the pill at red-carpet events over the past year.

These A-lister endorsements have helped to fuel a surge in demand for propranolol prescriptions, especially among young women and girls. It’s now the “go-to pill for dealing with all sorts of stressful situations, from public speaking to first dates”, said The Wall Street Journal.

How does it work?
The beta-blocker was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1967 for the treatment of heart problems including high blood pressure, arrhythmia (irregular heart rate) and angina. But the drug was also found to reduce physical responses to anxiety, such as high heart rate, sweating, nausea and trembling hands. And while other medications prescribed for anxiety can take weeks to work, propranolol can take effect within an hour.

Unlike drugs such as Xanax or Valium, which “act directly on the brain and can leave people feeling sedated, foggy, or zoned out”, propranolol doesn’t address anxiety’s “underlying roots”, said The Boston Globe. Instead, it blocks the physical symptoms, by slowing down the heart rate and lowering blood pressure.

How widely is it used?
In the US, propranolol prescriptions are up by 28% from 2020. NHS England figures show an increase of 37.6% over the past decade, according to data seen by The Observer. The biggest rise in the UK has been among girls aged between 12 and 17 – up from 618,813 prescriptions in 2015 to more than 1.1 million in 2025. The second-highest increase in use, at 81.7%, is among women aged 18 to 23.

Are there any risks?
Compared to Xanax or Valium, propranolol is a non-addictive and low-risk medication. However, “it’s not without risks or side-effects”, said Kamdar on The Conversation. Because propranolol works to reduce blood pressure and heart rate, common side-effects include dizziness, fatigue, cold hands and feet, and vivid dreams. “More serious risks – though rare – include heart failure, breathing difficulties and allergic reactions.”

The Iran conflict represents a “war-like situation” for South Koreans, President Lee Jae Myung warned earlier this month. 

Rising oil prices, and the weakening of the won against the dollar, are “dealing a double blow” to the Korean economy, said The New York Times. Oil reserves are dwindling and it would take a long time for supplies to catch up even if normal service in the Strait of Hormuz were to resume. 

‘Draconian’ measures
The “brightly illuminated” satellite images of South Korea at night, set alongside the “sea of blackness” in the North, have long been seen as a “wider triumph of capitalism and democracy”, said The Telegraph’s transport industry editor Christopher Jasper. But due to the Iran war, these lights could be extinguished “in a matter of weeks”.

Compared with fellow developed countries, South Korea is “almost uniquely lacking in natural resources”, relying on imports to meet “90% of its energy needs”. Around 70% of its crude oil shipments, and 20% of its natural gas, come from the Gulf. South Koreans are now facing surging fuel prices, a ban on driving one day per week, and orders to reduce shower times and to charge electric cars and phones only in the daytime. Much more “draconian” measures could be weeks away.

‘Catnip’ calls
South Korea must face a “difficult home truth”, said David Fickling in Bloomberg. Behind the “sleek modern society” is an “insatiable appetite for fossil fuels that’s undermining its economy”.

The war is “serving as a significant turning point” for South Korea to shift to renewable energy, Minister of Climate, Energy and Environment Kim Sung-hwan told CNBC. Energy targets predating the war include generating 20% of the country’s electricity from renewables by 2030 and phasing out coal by 2040. 

But the “catnip” calls to transition to renewables have “no chance of being met”, said Fickling. For instance, state utility Korea Electric Power Corporation has “effectively banned” all new generators in the “renewables-rich” east until 2032, because its “crumbling grid is supposedly incapable of accepting new connections”. Decisions such as these will do “nothing to advance South Korea’s energy transition”. Society as a whole needs to fight against those who have kept them “hooked on polluting power”.

Two great egret chicks perch in a nest at a bird rookery in St Augustine, Florida. The wading birds were hunted almost to extinction for their feathers in the 1800s, but are now a common sight across the US state thanks to conservation efforts.  

Ronen Tivony / NurPhoto / Getty Images

Pixar has been “changing the game” for over three decades with its “sophisticated” and “characterful” animated feature films, said Empire. With the studio’s hotly anticipated “Toy Story 5” due to hit UK cinemas in June, now is a great time to revisit the classics. Here are some of the best.

Toy Story (1995)
“Pixar’s first feature is still the template for every great movie the studio has made since,” said Vulture. Packed with “lots of giddy, witty, silly laughs” and “ripping action sequences”, the “best comedy of the 1990s remains perfect” three decades after its release.

Finding Nemo (2003)
Despite the “terrors” throughout “Finding Nemo”, the message is clear, said Vulture. If our children are “going to survive on their own”, we must “release them into the scary world” rather than “smothering” them. 

Ratatouille (2007)
This is one of Pixar’s “smartest and deepest films”, said IndieWire. The action follows Remy, an intelligent rat with an extraordinary sense of smell who “dreams of becoming a great chef”. He soon finds an “ally” in hapless kitchen porter Alfredo Linguini, who works in the restaurant of his “culinary idol” in Paris.

Up (2009)
“Everyone talks about the wordless opening section” of this “devastating” tearjerker, said GQ. The montage follows a couple from their “first blush of childhood love all the way to the uncomfortable and unavoidable truth” that most happy marriages will end when one partner dies before the other. “Heavy stuff for a family film”, but it quickly unfurls into an “utterly original flight of whimsy”.

The rush to appease Trump led Keir Starmer into this ethical void
Rafael Behr in The Guardian
Peter Mandelson’s “disastrous” appointment as US ambassador “flowed from panic” over Donald Trump’s “chaotic, petulant style of administration”, writes Rafael Behr. The very “traits that should have disqualified” Mandelson were “mistaken” for “credentials” by Keir Starmer, who now “says he regrets it as a lapse of judgment”. What he’s “unable to explain, because it exposes the abdication of ethics in an epic foreign policy miscalculation, is why he thought it was a good idea at the time”.

Why America is falling out of love with Israel
Edward Luce in the Financial Times
“Fewer Americans think of Israel as David standing up to the Arab world’s Goliath,” writes Edward Luce. According to recent polling, “more and more associate it with heavy-handed militarism”. Donald Trump’s advisers were sceptical about Benjamin Netanyahu’s urgings to attack Iran, and the Democrats, who once “eagerly sought money” from the pro-Israeli lobby, have now “voted to block US arms sales to Israel”. The “one thing” Netanyahu can “bank on is that whoever comes after Trump is likely to be far less friendly”.

A break-up gift candle? I favour shredding an ex’s trousers and revenge sex
Carol Midgley in The Times
In “the good old days, people got over a break-up” by “scissoring out the crotches of their partner’s best trousers” and having “a very ill-judged ‘revenge shag’”, writes Carol Midgley. Now, “we have a ‘break-up gift registry’”, with sellers hawking “twee clutter bearing meaningless ‘inspirational’ messages” or “‘hate poetry’ to counterbalance ‘betrayal melancholia’”. But “what’s wrong with an old-fashioned wax doll and a pin”? Or better yet, “a ‘divorce voucher’ that buys you a consultation with a hotshot lawyer”?