The Daily Star Sunday is a weekly tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom. It was launched as a sister title to the Daily Star on 15 September 2002.

The Daily Star Sunday is published by Express Newspapers

Express Newspapers

Northern & Shell is a British publishing and television group. The holding company name is "Northern and Shell Network Ltd". Launched and founded in December 1974 and currently owned by Richard Desmond, it publishes the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday, and the...

, which along with the Daily Star also publishes the Daily Express

Daily Express

The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...

and Sunday Express. The group is owned by Richard Desmond

Richard Desmond

Richard Clive Desmond is an English publisher and businessman. He is the owner of Express Newspapers and founder in 1974 of Northern & Shell, which publishes various celebrity magazines, such as OK! and New!, and British national newspapers Daily Star and Daily Express...

's Northern and Shell company. The paper predominately features stories about celebrities, sport, and news and gossip

Gossip

Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others, It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted...

 about popular television programmes, such as soap operas and reality TV shows.

The current editor is Gareth Morgan, who took over the post in 2003 from the paper's launch editor, Hugh Whittow.

Regular features

The newspaper features a picture of a glamorous woman on Page 3, however in contrast to its daily stablemate, the Daily Star Sunday is almost always nudity-free. It contains regular opinion columns from Matthew Wright and Sally Bercow

Sally Bercow

Sally Bercow is the wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow. She was a housemate on Celebrity Big Brother and was evicted from the house on 26 August 2011.-Early life:...

 along with a showbiz column Rehab, edited by James Ingham.

Other regular features in the Daily Star Sunday include Bushell On The Box, a TV column by Gary Bushell

Garry Bushell

Garry Bushell is an English newspaper columnist, rock music journalist, television presenter, author and political activist. Bushell also sings in the Oi! band The Gonads and manages the New York City Oi! band Maninblack. Bushell's recurring themes are comedy, country and class...

, The Big Picture, a film review column by Andy Lea, Game On, a gadgets and games section by Paul Vale, and Mark Forsyth's No Limits motoring page. In the sports pages, sports editor Ray Ansboro writes a column called Ray's Yer Game.

Like the Daily Star, the paper runs a readers' comment page based around text messages that are apparently printed verbatim.

Madeleine McCann

Both the Daily Star Sunday and its daily equivalent, as well as its stablemates the Daily Express

Daily Express

The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...

and Sunday Express, featured heavy coverage of the missing toddler Madeleine McCann

Response to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann

On the evening of Thursday, 3 May 2007, shortly before her fourth birthday, a British child, Madeleine McCann, went missing from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in the Algarve in Portugal, in which she was staying with her parents. The initial investigation by the Guarda Nacional Republicana,...

 following her disappearance in May 2007. In 2008 the McCann family sued the Star and Express for libel following the newspapers' coverage of the case. The action concerned more than 100 stories across the Daily Express, Daily Star and their Sunday sisters, which accused the McCanns of involvement in their daughter's disappearance. The newspapers' coverage was regarded by the McCanns as grossly defamatory. In a settlement at the High Court of Justice

High Court of Justice

The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...

, the newspapers agreed to run a front-page apology to the McCanns on 19 March 2008, publish another apology on the front pages of the Sunday editions on 23 March and make a statement of apology at the High Court. They also agreed to pay costs and substantial damages, which the McCanns plan to use to aid their search for their daughter. In its apology, the Daily Star apologised for printing "stories suggesting the couple were responsible for, or may be responsible for, the death of their daughter Madeleine and for covering it up" and stated that "We now recognise that such a suggestion is absolutely untrue and that Kate and Gerry are completely innocent of any involvement in their daughter's disappearance."

Political allegiance

Like its sister paper the Daily Star, the Daily Star Sunday carries fewer political stories than its rivals, and it has never openly supported one political party. However its political stance has been seen to be more centre-ground than the right-of-centre Daily Star, and when the daily paper was accused of supporting the far-right English Defence League

English Defence League

The English Defence League is a far-right street protest movement which opposes what it considers to be a spread of Islamism, Sharia law and Islamic extremism in the UK. The EDL uses street marches to protest against Islamic extremism...

, the Sunday version pointedly spoke out against the group.