How the smiley evolved from newspaper icon to a movement for a better world

MY flatmate has started taking online French lessons. ...

We can’t predict exactly how you’ll be feeling as the year comes to a close, but our best guess is that you’ll be in need of a breather. Because for many of us, 2025 has not been painless. Political t

IT was new to Eleanor, this feeling. An image of Michele floated into her mind during every moment of her day – an outline of him, or the colour of his eyes. He disturbed her vision when he wasn’t pre

In 1976, the revolutionary singer-songwriter LAURA NYRO returned from self-imposed exile. But her comeback confounded expectations, shifting away from the impassioned intimacies of her early albums to embrace more radical perspectives. Fifty years on, Nyro’s collaborators revisit her striking second act. “She was a hip American from the Bronx,” one friend and producer tells Rob Hughes. “But her soul was old.”

£50 Star letter

‘THE STORY AHEAD’ AND THE HUMAN TOUCH