The British street artist Banksy has financed a boat to rescue refugees attempting to reach Europe from north Africa, the Guardian can reveal.
The vessel, named Louise Michel after a French feminist anarchist, set off in secrecy on 18 August from the Spanish seaport of Burriana, near Valencia, and is now in the central Mediterranean where on Thursday it rescued 89 people in distress, including 14 women and four children.
It is now looking for a safe seaport to disembark the passengers or to transfer them to a European coastguard vessel.
An artist in Yorkshire, England, has been painting murals to pay tribute to National Health Service workers and other helping and supporting them during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Rachel List was asked by a Pontefract pub to paint a mural in support of the NHS. It was so successful, she’s been asked by others to make similar graphic statements, including a tribute to children in lockdown who are drawing and painting rainbows to be put up in hospital wards to cheer patients up.
As well as the hundreds of thousands of NHS workers, volunteers have stepped up to help. When the government put out a call for 250,000 volunteers, more than 400,000 signed up in 24 hours to deliver prescriptions or help transport patients to hospital for essential, non-coronavirus-related appointments.