School buildings in England made with certain type of concrete forced to close over safety fears
School buildings in England made with a certain type of concrete that is prone to collapse will be immediately closed over safety fears, the government has announced.
Around 104 schools or “settings” will be disrupted on top of 50 that have already been affected this year.
The Department for Education (DfE) said the “vast majority of schools and colleges will be unaffected by this change” – but Labour criticised the move as “staggering display of Tory incompetence”.
The type of concrete forcing the closures is Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete, known as RAAC.
It is the same type of concrete that has been found in some hospitals that have been deemed to be unsafe, prompting Health Secretary Steve Barclay to fast-track them into the government’s hospitals-building programme.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said: “Nothing is more important than making sure children and staff are safe in schools and colleges, which is why we are acting on new evidence about RAAC now, ahead of the start of term.
“We must take a cautious approach because that is the right thing to do for both pupils and staff.
“The plan we have set out will minimise the impact on pupil learning and provide schools with the right funding and support they need to put mitigations in place to deal with RAAC.”
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Secretary of state must ‘get a grip on her department’
Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said the government was “failing” children by needing to close schools just before the new term started.
“This is an absolutely staggering display of Tory incompetence as they start a fresh term by failing our children again,” she said.
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England’s crumbling schools
“Dozens of England’s schools are at risk of collapse with just days before children crowd their corridors. Ministers have been content to let this chaos continue for far too long.
“It’s long past time the secretary of state got a grip on her department.”
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, also said the “news is shocking, sadly it is not hugely surprising”.
“What we are seeing here are the very real consequences of a decade of swingeing cuts to spending on school buildings,” he said.
“The government is right to put the safety of pupils and staff first – if the safety of buildings cannot be guaranteed, there is no choice but to close them so urgent building work can take place.
“But there is no escaping the fact that the timing of this couldn’t be worse, with children due to return from the summer holidays next week.”
The DfE said the majority of the school sites would remain open for face-to-face learning and only specific parts of buildings closed where RAAC is used.
It said a minority will need to either “fully or partially relocate to alternative accommodation” while mitigations are put in place.
Some hospitals deemed ‘unsafe’ because of RAAC
The department said the government has been aware of RAAC in public sector buildings since 1994 but the issue came to light in 2018, when a roof collapsed at a Kent school.
That year the DfE published guidance for schools stating the need to have “adequate contingencies” in the event of evacuations caused by concerns over the use of RAAC.
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In June this year, the National Audit Office (NAO) said a school collapse in England that causes death or injury was “very likely” – but that the government did not have sufficient information to manage “critical” risks to the safety of pupils and staff.
Around 24,000 school buildings – more than a third of the total number in England – are beyond their estimated design lifespan – with school leaders branding the scale of building safety issues “shocking”.
Questions were also raised about the state of UK hospitals after Mr Barclay said that five new sites would be added to the government’s programme to build 40 new hospitals because the presence of RAAC made them unsafe to operate “beyond 2030”.
Five new sites – Airedale General in Keighley, Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn, Hinchingbrooke near Huntingdon, Leighton Hospital in Cheshire and Frimley Park in Surrey – were added to the programme as a priority.
Jay Clayton, recently appointed interim US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has begun offering statements in criminal cases involving crypto fraud.
In an April 23 notice, the US Attorney’s Office said Eugene William Austin, also known as Hugh Austin, had been sentenced to 18 years in prison following his conviction on conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property. Together with his son, Brandon, sentenced to four years, Austin offered fraudulent crypto investment services, resulting in roughly $12 million in losses to more than 24 people.
“For years, Hugh Austin was the leader of a fraud and money laundering scheme that stole more than $12 million from more than two dozen victims,” said Clayton. “Austin involved his own son in his crimes, working with him to rip off victims and spending investor money on personal expenses, like luxury hotels […] Austin will now be held accountable for the harm he caused to individual investors and others.”
The criminal case involving digital assets marked one of Clayton’s first public statements since becoming the interim US Attorney on April 22. US President Donald Trump nominated Clayton on Jan. 20 when he took office. The district has since seen the resignation of acting US Attorney Danielle Sassoon in response to the Justice Department directing her to halt a case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
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The nation’s ‘sovereign district’ overseen by a Trump appointee?
Under current law, Clayton can serve as interim US Attorney for the district for 120 days without Senate confirmation. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blocked a vote on Clayton’s nomination, saying Trump had “no fidelity to the law.”
Clayton will likely oversee SDNY during the sentencing hearing for former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky and potentially other criminal cases involving cryptocurrency. The district is home to Wall Street firms and many of the country’s most prominent financial institutions.
Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) crypto task force, headed by Hester Peirce, has continued meeting with digital asset company representatives as the agency explores regulatory changes.
In an April 24 notice, the SEC task force disclosed a meeting with representatives from crypto firm Ondo Finance and the law firm Davis Polk and Wardwell to discuss “issuing and selling wrapped, tokenized versions of publicly traded US securities.” Ondo Finance donated $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund, and the law firm announced on April 22 that it would represent the US President’s social media company, Truth Social, to launch crypto-linked exchange-traded funds.
According to the meeting request, Ondo Finance planned to discuss registration requirements for tokenized securities, compliance with financial laws, and potentially launching a regulatory sandbox. Cointelegraph reached out to the firm for comment but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
The April 24 meeting was the latest in the SEC crypto task force’s outreach to the industry following the departure of former chair Gary Gensler. Former commissioner and Trump appointee Paul Atkins took over leadership at the agency on April 21 after his swearing-in ceremony, but has yet to take action on his proposed crypto agenda.
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Continuing outreach to industry under new SEC chair
On April 25, the crypto task force will host a roundtable event to discuss custody, including representatives from Kraken, Anchorage Digital Bank, WisdomTree, and others. Following the approval of crypto exchange-traded funds in 2024, many financial institutions have seen demand for digital asset custody in the US grow significantly.
It’s unclear what the SEC’s intentions may be regarding pursuing crypto enforcement cases under Atkins. The commission has stated it will continue cases involving fraudulent activity, but dropped a complaint against Hex founder Richard Heart on April 21.
The agency has already announced it will stop investigations or lawsuits against many firms, including Ripple, Coinbase, and Kraken. All three exchanges donated or had executives who supported Trump’s 2024 campaign or inauguration fund.
Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions
Opinion by: Igor Zemtsov, chief technology officer at TBCC
Crypto security is a ticking time bomb. Updatable firmware might just be the match that lights the fuse.
Hardware wallets have become the holy grail of self-custody, the ultimate safeguard against hackers, scammers and even government overreach. There’s an inconvenient truth, however, that most people ignore: Firmware updates aren’t just security patches.
They’re potential backdoors, waiting for someone — whether a hacker, a rogue developer or a shady third party — to kick them wide open.
Every time a hardware wallet manufacturer pushes an update, users are forced to make a choice. Hit that update button and hope for the best, or refuse to update and risk using outdated software with unknown vulnerabilities. Either way, it’s a gamble.
In crypto, a bad gamble can mean waking up to an empty wallet.
Firmware updates aren’t always your friend
Updating firmware sounds like common sense. More security! Fewer bugs! Better user experience!
Here’s the thing: Every update is also an opportunity not just for the wallet provider but for anyone with the power, or motivation, to tamper with the process.
Hackers dream of firmware vulnerabilities. A rushed or poorly audited update can introduce tiny, almost imperceptible flaws — ones that sit in the background, waiting for the right moment to drain funds. And the best part? Users will never know what hit them.
Then there’s the more unsettling possibility: deliberate backdoors.
Recent: Hardware wallet Ledger helps competitor Trezor resolve security vulnerability
Tech companies have been forced to include government-mandated surveillance tools before. What makes anyone think hardware wallet makers are exempt? If a regulatory agency — or worse, a criminal organization — wants access to private keys, firmware updates are the perfect attack vector. One hidden function. One disguised line of code.
That’s all it takes. Still think firmware updates are harmless?
Firmware vulnerabilities are already being exploited
This isn’t some far-fetched, doomsday scenario. It has already happened.
Ledger, one of the biggest names in crypto security, had a major security crisis in 2018 when security researcher Saleem Rashid exposed a vulnerability that allowed attackers to replace Ledger Nano S firmware and hijack private keys. Nearly 1 million devices were at risk before a fix was rolled out. The scary part? There was no way for users to know if their devices had already been compromised.
In 2023, OneKey suffered a similar nightmare. White hat hackers demonstrated that its firmware could be cracked in mere seconds. No crypto was lost — this time. But what if real attackers had found the flaw first?
Then came the “Dark Skippy” exploit, taking firmware-based attacks to an entirely new level. With just two signed transactions, hackers could extract a user’s entire seed phrase — without setting off a single alarm. If firmware updates can be manipulated this easily, how can anyone be sure their assets are safe?
The hidden price of updatable firmware
To be fair, not all firmware updates are security disasters. Ledger uses a proprietary operating system and secure element chips for added protection now. Trezor takes an open-source approach, allowing the community to scrutinize its firmware. Coldcard and BitBox02 give users manual control over updates, reducing — but not eliminating — risk.
Here’s the real question: Can users ever be 100% sure that an update won’t introduce a fatal flaw?
Some wallets have decided to eliminate the risk altogether. Tangem ships with fixed, non-updatable firmware, meaning that its code can never be altered once the device leaves the factory. No updates. No patches.
Of course, this approach has its trade-offs. If a vulnerability is discovered, there’s no way to fix it. But in security, predictability matters.
Real crypto security means taking back control
The crypto market was worth $2.79 trillion as of March 2025. With that much money on the table, cybercriminals, rogue insiders and overreaching governments are always looking for weak points. Hardware wallet makers should be laser-focused on security.
Choosing a hardware wallet shouldn’t feel like gambling with private keys. It shouldn’t involve blind trust in a corporation’s ability to push updates responsibly. Users deserve more than vague reassurances. They deserve security models that put control where it belongs — with them.
Security isn’t about convenience. It’s about control. Any system that requires trusting unknown developers, opaque update processes or firmware that can be changed at will? That’s not control. That’s a liability.
The only real way to keep a hardware wallet safe? Remove the guesswork. Strip away the blind trust. Always research the developers’ backgrounds, check their track record for security incidents, and see how they’ve handled past vulnerabilities. Stick to verifiable facts — security should never be based on assumptions.
Opinion by: Igor Zemtsov, chief technology officer at TBCC.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
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