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.
Read more:
Pupils face disruption at start of new school term due to probe into school buildings firm Caledonian Modular
Hundreds of crumbling schools to be renovated but critics say it won’t make up for ‘years of underfunding’
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.
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.
The government will decide by the summer on controversial proposals to charge some households more for their electricity than others, Sky News understands.
The energy secretary Ed Miliband has been mulling over plans for “zonal pricing”, which would see different regions of the country pay different rates, based on supply and demand levels in the local area.
The idea is to attract industry to build in low-cost areas, and incentivise new electricity generation in regions where people need it most.
Supporters say zonal pricing could lower everyone’s bills to some extent by making the system more efficient – but some would fall more than others.
Critics, including renewable energy generators, warn the plans would create a postcode lottery for bills and put investors off certain areas, risking jobs.
It is not yet clear how the changes would be passed on to household bills. But it could see people in the south of England pay much more than those in parts of Scotland – though not, the government hopes, more than they do now.
Mr Miliband is expected to make his recommendation to fellow government ministers in the coming weeks, before the government decides either way by the middle of this year.
They are keen to resolve the issue – which was also considered under the last Tory government – before businesses start bidding for fresh renewable power contracts in summer.
UK still ‘vulnerable and exposed’
It comes as the UK government hosts a summit on energy security in London today, lobbying other countries to leave fossil fuels behind.
Read more: UK clean energy vision collides with Trump’s fossil fuel frenzy
Mr Miliband said the government’s push to generate more clean power at home was as much about energy security as it was about fighting climate change.
“As long as energy can be weaponised against us, our countries and our citizens are vulnerable and exposed,” he said in a speech.
But he also said North Sea oil and gas would “continue to play an important role” in the UK energy mix, fuelling campaigners’ fears it may yet allow the Rosebank oil and gas field to go ahead, despite hurdles in court and the government’s own concerns.
Mr Miliband quoted a message from King Charles that said the “transition to more sustainable energy sources can itself lead to more resilient and secure energy systems”.
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Miliband reads King’s letter at summit
Trump’s representative invokes God
US President Donald Trump’s junior representative at the summit, acting assistant secretary Tommy Joyce, quoted the Bible in his address.
He urged delegates to “remember God’s golden rule, and that is that we should love our neighbour as ourselves”.
That means helping them out of poverty through access to affordable energy, according to Mr Joyce.
About 750 million people in the world still have no access to electricity, and team Trump says American oil, gas and coal are the answer.
However, a report by RMI suggests that new wind and solar are the cheapest option for new electricity in 82% of the world – though for some countries are hard to finance upfront.
Mr Joyce also continued Trump’s ongoing attacks on climate policies, criticising what he described as “so-called renewables” and the “net zero agenda”.
‘Most delicate debate’
Before the summit, a senior UN official said the idea that the switch to clean power compromised energy security and affordability “is just not true”.
“We really need to dispel this notion,” said the source, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “If you are dependent on volatile and expensive fossil fuel imports, fossil fuels equal energy insecurity.”
A senior official from Brazil, which in November is hosting the COP30 UN climate summit, also this week said there had been a “rather successful” attempt by some to frame energy security and the switch to clean energy as a question of “either/or”.
“We don’t believe it is.”
He called it “one of the most delicate debates” of the moment.
South Korean exchanges Upbit and Bithumb have suspended deposits for Synthetix (SNX) tokens after it was flagged by the Digital Asset Exchange Alliance (DAXA) for potential risks.
DAXA, the self-regulatory organization establishing industry standards for South Korean exchanges, designated SNX as a cautionary item.
Assets receiving this designation typically undergo rigorous evaluations to determine whether trading can continue or if delisting is necessary.
Exchanges may take action, such as adding a warning tag to the asset and urging investors to take caution when engaging with it. Trading platforms can also perform additional measures, like blocking deposits or suspending trading support temporarily.
Upbit and Bithumb block SNX deposits
In response to the designation, the biggest exchanges in South Korea said they are blocking deposits for SNX tokens on their platforms.
Upbit announced that it had added a trading caution ticker and suspended token deposits. The exchange said it had been monitoring the developments related to the Synthetix USD (sUSD) depegging. It added that this event may damage investors through potential volatility, as SNX is used as collateral for sUSD.
The exchange added that it had determined a lack of use cases for the asset, which may cause investors to suffer losses. Upbit said it would conduct a comprehensive review to decide whether to delist the asset or resume normal operations for the token.
Bithumb has also blocked deposits for SNX and added a cautionary tag for the token. However, the exchange said this decision could be overturned depending on internal circumstances. If the reason for the designation is resolved, Bithumb said it would lift the restrictions.
Korbit and Coinone also published investor alerts to caution traders. The two exchanges added cautionary tags to SNX tokens to alert investors who may want to trade the token.
Cointelegraph reached out to Synthetix for comment but did not get a response by publication.
Related: South Korean crypto emerges from failed coup into crackdown season
sUSD struggles to recover dollar peg
On April 10, the sUSD stablecoin dropped to a five-year low of $0.83 after struggling to maintain its dollar peg in the first quarter of 2025. With the stablecoin being collateralized by the project’s native asset, Cork Protocol co-founder Rob Schmitt compared the token to Terra USD (UST), which collapsed in 2022. However, Schmitt said that sUSD has a “more manageable” debt system.
On April 18, the stablecoin dipped further to $0.68, with SNX falling by 26% in a 30-day period. A Synthetix spokesperson told Cointelegraph that their team has short, medium and long-term plans to mitigate the risks.
On April 21, Synthetix founder Kain Warwick threatened SNX stakers with “the stick” if they didn’t take up a newly launched staking mechanism to fix the sUSD depeg. The executive said they may put extra pressure on stakers if they don’t see enough momentum on the newly implemented mechanism.
Since the warning, sUSD prices increased by 27%. On April 24, the stablecoin briefly reached $0.87. However, the token has still failed to recover its dollar peg.
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