Author: DispatchTimes News Desk

The Trump administration has delayed the launch of a controversial federal portal containing state-by-state lists of citizens deemed eligible to vote, abandoning a deadline set for Friday, 4 September – exactly 60 days before the US midterm elections. Justice Department lawyers told opponents in two lawsuits that the government would instead provide 48 hours’ notice before making the portal available to state election officials, according to court filings. The project is intended to identify people aged 18 and over who the administration believes are US citizens and eligible to vote in each state. It would represent the first known attempt…

Andy Lee has revealed how Hamish Blake secretly arranged an elaborate bucks party ahead of Lee’s wedding to Rebecca Harding, tricking him into arriving at a building site before unleashing 15 stages of increasingly unusual challenges. The comedian had been told by his builder to attend a meeting at his new Melbourne home on Saturday 29 August to discuss a list of outstanding issues. Instead, he was directed towards the basement, where about 30 friends were waiting to surprise him. “I got told by our builder that there was a long list of things that I needed to go through…

Google is rolling out a redesign of the Timers tab in its Clock app, bringing one-tap presets, a more prominent start button and a grid layout for users running several timers at once. The update is arriving with Google Clock version 9.1 through a server-side rollout, meaning it may appear on some devices before others. The refreshed interface follows a new app icon and a recent update to Google’s Now Playing app. Four preset options – one, five, 10 and 15 minutes – now sit within the timer interface. Tapping one starts the countdown immediately, while the time labels have…

Texas hospitals are losing an estimated $27 million (£20.4 million) a day after the Trump administration withheld approval for almost $9.8 billion in Medicaid funding at the start of the state’s new financial year. The payments are intended to help hospitals cover the gap between what Medicaid reimburses them and the cost of treating patients. The dispute centres on the way Texas raises its share of the funding through taxes paid by hospitals to local government bodies. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has not approved three payments programmes for the year beginning on September 1: the Comprehensive…

Distressing text messages sent weeks before Molly Ticehurst was murdered show she asked Daniel Billings why he wanted to “kill me” and “do all the bad stuff to me”, a court has heard. Billings, who pleaded guilty to murdering his former partner, killed the 28-year-old mother inside her home in Forbes, in New South Wales’ Central West, on 21 April 2024. In messages exchanged in March that year, Ms Ticehurst confronted Billings over his behaviour. He replied: “Maybe my thought process was if I couldn’t have you then I didn’t want anyone to.” Ms Ticehurst had reported allegations of sexual…

US federal prosecutors have charged Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Christian Castro with making false statements about the shooting of Venezuelan immigrant Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis. Castro was taken into federal custody in Texas on Thursday, 3 September, after a grand jury returned a six-count indictment. The charges remain sealed and are expected to be made public once he is formally brought before a court. The indictment follows a separate case brought by Minnesota prosecutors, who accuse Castro of four counts of second-degree assault and falsely reporting a crime over the same incident. He was arrested in Texas on…

Britons are being urged to keep food supplies at home as ministers face growing risks to the national food chain from extreme weather, cyber attacks, disease outbreaks and international conflict. The warning comes from the National Audit Office, which said disruptions were becoming more likely and potentially more severe. It called on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to work more closely with households, local authorities and food businesses to prepare for shortages. Food is classed by the Government as one of 13 critical national infrastructure sectors because its disruption could affect essential services, national security and the…

Donald Trump has appointed Adam R. Telle as acting secretary of the US Army, following the resignation of Daniel P. Driscoll after months of reported tension with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. Mr Telle, who currently serves as assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, will take charge of the service’s civilian leadership after Mr Driscoll stepped down on Monday. Mr Trump described him as “a Great Patriot, who is respected by all” in a post on Truth Social. Under the Army’s usual succession arrangements, Michael Obadal, the under secretary and principal deputy to Mr Driscoll, would have been expected…

Japanese household spending fell 3.6% year on year in July, marking an eighth consecutive month of decline and undershooting forecasts, government data showed. The drop in consumer spending was sharper than the median market expectation of a 1.6% fall, highlighting continued weakness in household demand in the world’s fourth-largest economy. On a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, spending edged up 0.5%. Economists had expected a 2.6% increase. The figures, compiled by Japan’s Internal Affairs Ministry, will be closely watched by the Bank of Japan as it considers whether to raise interest rates as early as September. Household consumption is a key…

A dispute over claims that Freddie Mercury fathered a secret daughter has erupted again, as the Queen frontman’s former partner Mary Austin publicly questioned the story days before what would have been his 80th birthday. Mercury was born on September 5, 1946, and died aged 45 in November 1991. The long-running argument centres on the biography Love, Freddie, which says he had a daughter, known only as “B”, following an affair with the wife of a close friend in 1976. According to author Lesley-Ann Jones, the woman enjoyed a close relationship with Mercury until his death and was entrusted with…