I got this strange icon today showing up. Im pretty familiar with the icons but never have I seen this one - any ideas what that little mangled star is?

Hm... not sure. Did you install the Google Mail plugin from RIM? Not sure if that's it, but Google Mail uses stars to flag mail. Maybe something to do with that? Other than that, what third-party apps do you have installed, and is any of them indicating that you have some new message or notice?

Gmail is logged off, as is google voice. Yahoo IM is also logged off. The only new thing I did yesterday was join a BB IM group. But in my IM there are no new messages or updates.

Also, there are no SMS, voicemails, or anything of that nature either. Very strange icon. Ive had this BB for years and never seen this

I have no idea either. Definitely odd.

I found it! In my Blackberry IM Group, under the chat menu, there was a little star on one of them. I clicked it and opened it, and voila! the homescreen icon disappeared.

Well that's a new one for me, and apparently I'm not the only one who hadnt seen it

Interesting. I'm not running BBM5 so I had not seen it before either. Good find!