ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

OK I started up and there was a really, really long pause as the game did this:
After a few minutes it returned this:
I don't think it should pause for minutes at a time whilst waiting for this...

This happens a lot.

This is happening every time the game loads.

I am now swearing at it!

Could this news check be turned off or made optional or something?

Sorry server was down, I'll tyry to make net access nonblocking though