MA News

  In 2017, the Weinstein investigation and #MeToo movement shook the world. Where does the industry stand today? When actress Sarah Ann Masse saw the  New York Times ’ investigation of Harvey Weinstein, published five years ago this October, her heart dropped into her stomach. For the first time since Weinstein had interviewed her in his underwear to be a nanny for his children in 2008, pulling her into a tight hug and telling her he loved her, she learned she was not alone. “I saw the first story and started thinking,  Well, maybe now I can talk, maybe now I can tell my story, and my career won’t be destroyed ,” she remembers. She  told her story in  Variety  at the time and ended up joining the class action lawsuit against Weinstein, who has since been sentenced to 23 years in prison in New York and faces further charges in Los Angeles. “I was most fearful about retaliation,” Masse says. “And in those first couple of months, after people started coming forward with their stories abou

  The Mom Who Stole Her Daughter’s Identity When a young victim of domestic violence showed up in a small town in Missouri, the residents took her in. But she wasn’t who she said she was. MOUNTAIN VIEW POLICE DEPARTMENT / ARTWORK BY MATTHIEU BOUREL In early 2016, a blonde stranger with round cheeks arrived at a domestic violence shelter near the small town of West Plains, Missouri, visibly shaken. She said her name was Lauren Ashleigh Hays and that she was 22 years old. The story Lauren told was both familiar and sad: She was running from a boyfriend who beat her. She needed help starting over. A woman affiliated with the shelter had friends nearby named Wendy and Avery Parker, who offered to take Lauren in. The Parkers, an older married couple, found Lauren an old truck to drive and a place to live in their town of Willow Springs, a quaint community with 2,160 residents and a main street lined with red brick buildings. They helped her enroll at a satellite campus of Southwest Baptist