1. Hartford, Connecticut-based health insurer Aetna has been ordered to pay over $17 million in a privacy breach in which the company sent out mailers to more than 12,000 patients in 23 states in mailing envelopes with clear display windows revealing confidential HIV information. Aetna called the error an “unfortunate incident.”
2. Trump appointee Carl Higbee has resigned as the public face of service organization AmeriCorps after it’s been discovered that as recently as 2013 he made inflammatory, bigoted remarks on radio against blacks, Muslims, women and gays. Higbee claimed in 2013 that he was molested by a gay man when he was a boy and that “set the precedence [sic]” for him [to be homophobic].
3. “Grey’s Anatomy” made TV history last night as it introduced its first out transgender male character in the form of new intern Dr. Casey Parker, played by openly transgender actor Alex Blue Davis. “TV is opening up a greater range of roles [for trans characters]: Laverne played a lawyer on ‘Doubt,’ and I’m playing a doctor — both roles haven’t really been seen before [for trans characters],” Davis told The Hollywood Reporter. “People can see trans folks in a new light: these are people who walk among us and are human beings who have lives. They’re not defined by being trans.”
4. Rapper Offset of the hip-hop group Migos is apologizing, sort of, for rapping the following line on the new song “Boss Life” by YFN Lucci: “Pinky ring crystal clear, 40k spent on a private Lear / 60k solitaire / I cannot vibe with queers.” Offset took to Instagram and said he did not write the lyrics, then said he did not use the word “queer” to mean “gay.”
5. VIDEO OF THE DAY: The stunning “Every Day,” in theaters February 23, tells a love story that defies bounds of gender and orientation.