I should add that I do have one Gmail account, also.

If you're not interested in the star, the simplest thing to do is disable the star column. Right-click its label (which is actually a button) and de-select it on the pop-up menu.

In a gmail account, you can go to their website and enable or disable certain functions such as "Important" and "Starred".

It is deselected but all the new messages come in starred !

What is deselected? Thunderbird simply cannot show stars if the stars column is hidden.

Perhaps you're actually seeing the orange asterisk which seems to denote a newly-arrived message?

I right click on the tool bar which has the column titles: Subject, From, etc.

A menu opens which lists: Thread, Starred, Attachments, etc.

The menu item Starred is unchecked.

If I uncheck a column heading like From, the From column goes away, but even though Starred is unchecked the stars still display.

Hello,

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Thank you!

Thanks for the advice; the screen shot is attached.

I take it back; after more investigating I see it is not the Starred column that I am seeing but that the newly received messages have a yellow icon of some sort preceding the subject. Can you tell me the significance of that icon ?

This article says it means "New", but they don't explain "New".

I understand it to mean messages that have arrived since you last opened this folder. But I don't know what particular events trigger the change of state of this flag.

Yes, if I read an email and then mark it as Unread, the listing typeface becomes bold again but the yellow icon does not reappear. Thanks to all for your assistance.