The American Charge d’Affaires in Ankara, Philip Kosnett, said there is a “strong sense of unity in Congress between Republicans and Democrats” that Brunson – accused of belonging to a terrorist organisation which Turkey blames for a failed coup – should be released.

Kosnett added: “[There is] a similar sense of unity between Congress and the administration that in order for the relationship between Turkey and the US to progress, we need to resolve that status not only for Brunson but also for other American citizens and local Turkish employees of US missions who we feel are detained unjustly under the state of emergency.”

Republican Lindsey Graham and Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, both Senators, visited Turkey’s capital last week to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to directly appeal for Brunson’s release.

Speaking about what he hoped the trip would achieve, Shaheen told the New Hampshire Union Leader: “Pastor Brunson has been unjustly imprisoned and kept away from his family for well over one year. The opportunity to see him and his wife, Norine, and to appeal directly to President Erdogan, were my main objectives on this trip.”

Brunson was summoned to a local police station in October 2016 and later charged with links to a failed plot to overthrow the Turkish government in July 2016. He has been told he faces up…

Alesha MacPhail was reported missing from her grandmother’s home in Rothesay on the Isle of Bute at 6.25am on Monday.

Her body was found in woodland on the site of a former hotel in Ardbeg Road by a member of the public around two-and-a-half hours later.

Following the results of a post-mortem examination on Tuesday, police confirmed they are treating the schoolgirl’s death as murder.

The island community has been left in shock by the murder of the girl, who was a few days into a three-week break to visit family.

Rev Owain Jones has opened his United Church of Bute in Rothesay to allow people to visit at any time.

He said: “We’re all absolutely staggered, we have no words for this and it’s beyond any power of words to express. “We’re all just really sitting in a kind of shared stunned silence just trying to uphold each other.

“Bute is one of these places that is incredibly safe, you take all sorts of things for granted here and don’t panic if you forget to lock the house or whatever.

“It’s not a remote island in the classic sense – it’s only 90 minutes to Glasgow – but even so it is an island and we all know each other at least by sight, and it’s an extremely safe place and there is no context for this.”

Police said they have had a “very good” response to public appeals and are pursuing a number of lines of inquiry. Islanders have been warned to be vigilant about the…

Christians Against Poverty’s (CAP) new report ‘Powerless People’, found that while private companies have made great strides in the way they treat people in debt, debt collections from government and councils are increasingly becoming more aggressive and frightening.

Rachel Gregory from the charity told Premier about the depths of suffering from people chased for debts like council tax and benefit overpayments.

With council tax arrears – which just under half of the people we help at Christians Against Poverty have – what we see is that things can escalate very quickly from missing one payment to having a demand to pay the full year’s council tax in full and very quickly then going to court to get a liability order to have enforcement officers at someone’s door.”

Almost half of all debt clients helped by CAP have a debt with the DWP, HMRC or their local authority, with 41 per cent more likely to have considered suicide than those with only private sector debts.

The study also found 69 per cent of debtors were so stressed that they skipped meals and 93 per cent had suffered sleepless nights as a result.

Gregory said more compassion is needed towards people struggling financially.

“People we’re helping that have these types of debt are more likely to be vulnerable. We’re seeing higher rates of mental health problems and lone parents and learning difficulties. And…

“Do not lose faith or hope,” Juan Carlos Aguilar advised the twelve boys and their football coach trapped in flooded caves.

He told The Daily Telegraph that, after he was buried alive with his colleagues by the collapse in the San Jose mine, their faith helped sustain them until they were rescued.

“There was one [miner] who did lose hope – from the first day he was saying we were going to die, but us, with the prayers and all this, this maintained us, and it maintained us united.”

Meanwhile, the Thai football team-mates, who have been stranded for more than a week, have said they are healthy, in a newly released video.

In this July 3, 2018, image taken from video provided by the Royal Thai Navy Facebook Page, a Thai boy smiles as Thai Navy SEAL medic help injured children inside a cave in Mae Sai, northern Thailand.

The group are seen sitting with Thai navy Seals in the dark cave with their visibly skinny faces illuminated by the beam of a flashlight.

The boys, many wrapped in foil warming blankets, take turns introducing themselves, folding their hands together in a traditional greeting and saying their names and that they are healthy.

The video lasting about a minute was recorded sometime on Tuesday and was posted on the navy Seal Facebook page on…