Over a year the 27-year-old teacher paid more than $28k - unwittingly, to the 14-year-old she was sleeping with.

The inner strength of a little girl starved, beaten and imprisoned in a tiny urine-soaked closet amazed her rescuers.

A woman took shelter in a bathtub and the tornado lifted the tub out of the home and deposited it in the woods - she still survived.

A former Texas middle-school teacher who was impregnated by a 13-year-old student has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

You may have thought Auckland house prices were bad, but check out these palatial homes from around the world that fetched huge sums.

A teen and her three young brothers have been gassed to death by a lethal pesticide sprayed under their Texas home.

Explore these wilderness areas and you'll find a staggering variety of animal species.

The last anyone heard of Brandon Lawson was in a terrified 911 call as he fled from unknown attackers after his vehicle broke down on a Texas highway.

Cheeseburgers, steak and peanut butter cups formed some of the last meals of the 19 men killed on America's death row in 2016. WARNING: Disturbing content.

Isidro Zarate intervened when he saw a man pulling a woman's hair and beating her in a Texas parking lot. The man did, but only to reach for his gun.

Two Texas students were reprimanded after they performed a skit portraying the assassination of President-elect Donald Trump.

A woman who killed her cheating millionaire husband in a road rage attack was sent thousands of taunting messages by his mistress.

Houstonians love their city and love to share it, writes Leena Tailor.

Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka, has her own dedicated army of followers - or should we say clones? They're spending big to look just like their idol.

If you've just been groped on a plane, but it's too late for the captain to kick the offending passenger off the flight, what would you do?

A lawyer who injured nine in a shooting rampage in Houston was wearing Nazi emblems and was carrying nearly 2600 rounds of ammunition in a Porsche.

A female shooter has injured a classmate before turning the gun on herself at a high school in Texas, according to local reports.

It's unanimous ... on Twitter: Dallas police chief David Brown should join the race to become the next president of the United States.

Torrential rains in Texas have deluged hundreds of homes, led to prison evacuations and killed at least 16 people in the past week, US officials say.

The arrest of a Kiwi online predator helped authorities in the US nab a child sex offender.

"Y'all not from round here, are ya? Ain't nobody drinks Buuuud. This is Shiner Bock country, sir."

Sweetwater, Texas, has a big annual event. The centrepiece is a bloody hunt: thousands of Western diamond rattlesnakes are caught, milked, and skinned.

Winston Aldworth flies aboard NZ28, the inaugural Auckland-to-Houston flight.

The brash, bold Texas of JR Ewing's day is still there, but is now overlaid with a veneer of culture, writes Samuel Muston.

Ewan McDonald sips the flavours of the Old South in Texas and New Orleans.

The Texan capital has an outlaw spirit that makes it the perfect place to party, writes Ewan McDonald.

Bigger, better, busier - that's Texas, writes Megan Singleton.

There's plenty more to Dallas than JFK, finds Megan Singleton.

Sample the cowboy lifestyle - hire a car and visit the best that Houston and nearby Texas Hill Country have to offer, says Tim Lamb.