Tories pledge £20m for 30 towns as Labour embarks on ‘power up’ bus tour
The Conservatives have pledged to give £20m to 30 towns across the country – a move the Labour Party has branded a “reckless, unfunded commitment”.
Rishi Sunak’s party said it would add the towns – many of which are based in the Midlands and north – to its existing long-term plan for towns, increasing the number that will receive financial support to more than 100.
The Tories said local people in each area would decide how the money would be spent, through new town boards composed of community leaders, businesspeople, local government and the local MP.
The prime minister said the “bold action” would “transform” 30 towns, as he claimed Labour’s record in government “shows they don’t care about towns – “neglecting their needs, allowing them to decline and focusing instead on cities.”
“Sir Keir Starmer has no plan to unlock opportunities in towns and would take us back to square one,” he said.
General election latest: Keir Starmer says Diane Abbott is ‘free’ to stand as Labour candidate
“Building on our strong track record of levelling up in Teesside and the Midlands, we will go further across the country to build a secure future for our children and grandchildren.”
Some of the towns proposed to be added to the scheme include Tamworth, Preston, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Corby, Halifax, Bognor Regis, Newtown, Flint, Perth and Newry.
Nearly all are being defended by Tory candidates in this election, with only five being most recently represented by Labour.
The 30 new towns come on top of Mr Sunak’s decision on the eve of Tory party conference to award £20m to 55 “overlooked” towns across the UK over a 10-year period.
A further 20 then formed part of the second tranche, which was announced at the March budget
The Tories said the cost of funding the additional 30 towns would be around £60m per year, which they said was “affordable” under plans to clamp down on tax avoidance.
But Labour argued the funding ringfenced to pay for the investment was the same as that being used to fund recent announcements to create a new tax free allowance for pensioners and the National Service Plan that would compel those over 18 to take part in either community or military training.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Deputy leader Angela Rayner will promote the party’s own “power-up agenda” with a 5,000-mile battle bus tour on Saturday, where she will be joined by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Labour has said its Take Back Control Act will devolve power from Westminster and give communities a new right to request more powers.
It has also put forward its own Green Prosperity Plan, which it says will create 650,000 jobs across the country – although it will no longer spend £28bn a year for the rest of the decade on the country’s green transition.
Ms Rayner said: “Just days ago, Rishi Sunak raided levelling-up cash to fund his teenage Dad’s Army.
“Today he’s back making yet another reckless unfunded spending commitment, sure to be broken as quickly as it was made.
Read more:
Sunak says Abbott decision shows Angela Rayner is really ‘in charge’ of Labour
How do Labour and the Conservatives’ energy pledges measure up?
“Everywhere you look, communities up and down the country are feeling the impact of 14 years of Tory decline: boarded-up shops, soaring bills and a widening wage gap with London.”
Liberal Democrat levelling-up, housing and communities spokesperson Helen Morgan said: “This isn’t fooling anyone after the Conservatives’ broken promises on ‘levelling up’ since 2019 have completely failed to deliver.
“Their ‘levelling-up’ agenda over the last few years has pitted councils against each other and left them begging for scraps, and rural areas often failed to benefit at all. We need to see proper funding for local councils alongside more powers for them to make investments they believe in.”
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has held discussions with Everstake, one of the largest non-custodial staking providers globally, to explore clearer regulatory definitions around staking in blockchain networks.
The meeting, which also involved the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, comes at a time when over $193 billion in digital assets are staked across major proof-of-stake (PoS) networks.
However, despite the massive scale of participation, staking remains in a legal gray zone in the US as regulators wrestle with its classification under existing securities law.
The previous SEC administration also took enforcement actions against major players such as Kraken, Coinbase, and Consensys due to their staking services. The agency, under pro-crypto President Donald Trump, has recently dismissed these enforcement actions.
During the meeting, Everstake told the SEC that non-custodial staking should not be classified as a securities transaction. The company said that users maintain full control over their digital assets throughout the staking process and do not transfer ownership to a third party.
They argued that this makes staking a technical function, not an investment product.
“Our main assertion is that staking is not a financial instrument or security transaction, but rather a technical process, a base-layer protocol mechanism—akin to an oracle in a database—that maintains the integrity and functionality of decentralized networks,” Everstake founder Sergii Vasylchuk told Cointelegraph.
Related: SEC delays staking decision for Grayscale ETH ETFs
Everstake calls for regulatory clarity
In a letter submitted to the SEC’s Crypto Task Force on April 8, 2025, Everstake asked the agency to extend regulatory clarity to non-custodial staking and custodial and liquid staking models.
In the letter, which came in respond to Commissioner Hester Peirce’s call for input on regulatory treatment of blockchain services, Everstake argued that non-custodial staking should not be considered a securities offering.
It claimed that non-custodial staking, where users retain control of their tokens, does not involve the pooling of assets or the expectation of profits from managerial efforts.
In its model, Everstake said users delegate only validation rights while maintaining ownership of their digital assets. The staking rewards are algorithmically distributed by the blockchain network itself, and the firm merely provides technical infrastructure.
Related: Ethereum ETF staking will have little impact without multimonth rally: Analyst
Non-custodial staking fails the Howey test
The letter also details why non-custodial staking fails each prong of the Howey test. Users do not make an investment of money in a common enterprise, do not expect profits from Everstake’s efforts, and are not dependent on the company’s management for financial returns.
Instead, any rewards come from network-level incentives and fluctuate with the market value of the underlying asset.
Everstake proposes specific criteria that should exempt non-custodial staking from securities classification. These include user asset control, absence of pooled funds, permissionless unstaking, and the provision of purely technical services.
It likens non-custodial staking to proof-of-work mining, which the SEC has previously ruled out as a securities transaction.
Margaret Rosenfeld, Everstake’s chief legal officer, also told Cointelegraph that “with non-custodial staking, there’s no handover of assets, no investment contract, and no third-party risk.” She added:
“Treating it as a securities offering undermines the decentralized model and risks chilling innovation in the blockchain sector.”
Nevertheless, the SEC has so far withheld a definitive stance. Rosenfeld said that the agency did not make any “specific commitments” on staking guidance. However, it continues to listen to industry stakeholders.
“The Task Force is actively engaging with a range of stakeholders—including those involved with non-custodial staking, ETFs, and broader blockchain infrastructure—to gather input.”
In an April 30 letter to the SEC, nearly 30 crypto advocate groups led by the lobby group the Crypto Council for Innovation (CCI) asked the agency for clear regulatory guidance on crypto staking and staking services.
Magazine: Binance Wallet ‘killing’ MetaMask and airdrops, Chinese RWA tokens: Asia Express
A man from Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand, has been arrested in connection with an FBI-led investigation into a global cryptocurrency fraud operation that allegedly stole $450 million New Zealand dollars ($265 million).
According to New Zealand Police, the man is one of 13 individuals charged after authorities executed search warrants across Auckland, Wellington, and California over the past three days.
The charges stem from allegations that members of an organized criminal group manipulated seven victims to obtain large amounts of cryptocurrency, which was then laundered through multiple platforms between March and August 2024.
The US Department of Justice has indicted the man under federal law, including charges of racketeering, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, per the announcement.
Related: Germany seizes $38M in crypto from Bybit hack-linked eXch exchange
Scammer used stolen funds to purchase luxury vehicles
Prosecutors allege the stolen funds were used to purchase $9 million worth of luxury vehicles and spent lavishly on high-end goods, including designer handbags, watches, and clothing, as well as services such as nightclub access, private security, and rentals in Los Angeles, Miami, and the Hamptons.
The accused appeared in Auckland District Court and was granted bail with interim name suppression. He is scheduled to reappear on July 3.
“We have worked closely with our law enforcement colleagues in the United States in support of their investigation,” the police stated. They added:
“Today’s search warrant and arrest reflects the importance of international partnerships where criminals are operating across borders.”
The investigation remains ongoing.
Related: Bybit hacker launders 100% of stolen $1.4B crypto in 10 days
Crypto thefts surge to $360 million in April
Digital asset thefts skyrocketed in April 2025, with nearly $360 million stolen across 18 separate hacking incidents, according to data from blockchain security firm PeckShield.
The figure marks a staggering 990% jump from March when reported losses stood at just $33 million. The sharp rise was largely attributed to a single unauthorized Bitcoin transfer that accounted for the bulk of the month’s losses.
On April 28, blockchain analyst ZachXBT identified a suspicious $330 million BTC transaction. The incident was later confirmed as a social engineering attack that targeted an elderly US resident, resulting in one of the largest individual crypto thefts to date.
Magazine: Binance Wallet ‘killing’ MetaMask and airdrops, Chinese RWA tokens: Asia Express
Crypto entrepreneurs and their families in France will receive enhanced security measures amid a recent rise in crypto-related kidnappings in the country, Politico reported.
According to the May 16 report, the measures include priority access to police emergency lines, home security assessments, and safety briefings from French law enforcement to ensure best practices are being followed.
France’s Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau introduced the security measures as part of a broader effort to counter the recent wave of attacks.
“These repeated kidnappings of professionals in the crypto sector will be fought with specific tools, both immediate and short-term, to prevent, dissuade and hinder in order to protect the industry.”
Law enforcement officers will also undergo “anti-crypto asset laundering training,” Retailleau noted.
Retailleau met with several local leaders from the crypto industry to discuss the measures following three crypto-related kidnapping incidents in recent months.
Two kidnappings and a failed attempt in France this year
The latest incident occurred on May 13, when assailants attempted to abduct the daughter and grandson of Pierre Noizat, CEO of the French crypto platform Paymium. Fortunately, they managed to fend off the attack, which occurred in broad daylight.
The assailants tried to force the pair into a waiting van, but Noizat’s daughter managed to take one of the guns off an assailant and throw it away, local police said.
En plein Paris, un homme a été violenté par des individus cagoulés, habillés tout en noir. Ils tentaient de l’enlever. Un homme a surgi, extincteur à la main, pour les faire fuir. →https://t.co/P0qV6PR40v pic.twitter.com/9f4r2Gi7ho
— Le Figaro (@Le_Figaro) May 13, 2025
On May 3, Paris police freed the father of a crypto entrepreneur who was held for several days in connection with a 7 million euros ($7.8 million) kidnapping plot.
Related: SEC hacker sentenced to 14 months in prison
In January, the co-founder of crypto hardware wallet provider Ledger, David Balland, was abducted from his home in central France during the early hours of Jan. 21. He was held captive until a police operation on the night of Jan. 22 secured his release.
Retailleau said earlier this week that he believes the incidents were likely connected.
There have been over 150 crypto-related robbery or kidnapping incidents since 2014, with 23 of those incidents occurring in 2025 alone, according to a GitHub database maintained by Bitcoin cypherpunk Jameson Lopp.
Lopp noted many of these criminals typically identify future victims through social media posts, public conversations, meetups, and conferences.
He strongly advises against peer-to-peer trades — particularly with people you don’t trust — flaunting wealth on social media and wearing crypto-branded clothing.
Magazine: Binance Wallet ‘killing’ MetaMask and airdrops, Chinese RWA tokens
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway