Three teenage girls trick-or-treating in costume have been hit by a vehicle and killed while on a pedestrian crossing at junction in southern California.

A woman who says she was abducted a decade ago by a man who forced her to marry him and fathered her child has said she is now happy and feels blessed to be back with her family.

A schoolteacher was arrested after at least 300 living and dead pythons were found in plastic bins inside his stench-filled suburban home in California, police said.