"Maid" author Stephanie Land on the struggles of emotional abuse and what people get wrong about welfare
CBSN
Before her memoir "Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive" was even an idea, Stephanie Land was a single mother who had escaped an abusive relationship, was living in a homeless shelter and cleaned houses for money.
Land was inadvertently thrust into the private lives of her clients, getting an up-close and personal look at how the other half lives. She began journaling everything she witnessed, which turned into a small piece, then a viral essay, and eventually, a bestselling memoir. It even made former President Barack Obama's summer reading list in 2019. He called it an "unflinching look at America's class divide."
The Netflix adaptation, "Maid," debuted on October 1, exposing an entirely new audience to a fictionalized version of Land's life. The series follows Alex, a hardworking mother played by Margaret Qualley, who grapples with leaving an abusive relationship as she struggles to survive in a system that seems destined to fail her.
President Joe Biden said France was America's "first friend" at its founding and is one of its closest allies more than two centuries later as he was honored with a state visit Saturday by French President Emmanuel Macron aimed at showing off their partnership on global security issues and easing past trade tensions.
The Consumer Federal Protection Bureau last week launched an inquiry into what the agency is calling "junk fees in mortgage closing costs." These additional fees, involving home appraisal, title insurance and other services, have spiked in recent years and can add thousands of dollars to the final cost of buying a home.
Retired Maj. Gen. William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic "Earthrise" photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90.