Walk on in / Chicago’s fire failures / Oscars shocker

… aaaaand Chicago Public Square is back.*

Walk on in. Effective today, Cook County’s COVID-19 mass vaccination sites are no longer requiring an appointment.

■ Here they are.

■ A professor of medicine explains why the benefits of restarting the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine outweigh the risks.

■ Politico: “Kids are finally returning to school. But most of them are white.”

European vacation? The European Union reportedly plans to let vaccinated Americans visit this summer …

■  … but maybe not the millions skipping second shots.

■  AP: Panic has set in as the coronavirus has broken India’s health care system.

Chicago’s fire failures. A Better Government Association / Chicago Tribune investigation exposes political leaders’ broken promises on safety rules to prevent deadly fires.

■ Dozens of people have died in buildings where the city’d been notified of fire safety problems.

■ The Sun-Times’ David Roeder turns a spotlight on landlords’ pandemic plight: “They had to shoulder a strange burden of giving away their product for free, something not required of the pharmacy or the grocery or the public utility as people were dealing with hard times and personal loss.”

‘Chicago is a dangerous city.’ Trib columnist Dahleen Glanton is exasperated: “Every mayor for the last 30 years has failed to keep his or her promise to bring the violence under control.”

■ A Sun-Times editorial implores the mayor and the City Council: “Create an online database that would let the public search Chicago Police Department misconduct files.”

■ Ex-Congressman Luis Gutierrez blasts Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx: “You turned your back on all of us that are seeking justice.”

■ Snopes: “Did Chicago Police Tweet ‘We Are All Derek Chauvin’?” Nope.

‘I couldn’t help smacking my head.’ Streetsblog Chicago’s John Greenfield pens a gobsmacked “Dear Chicago Police Department” letter: “Please stop endangering bystanders by firing guns in stations and on trails.”

■ The Tribune recalls a deadly train wreck that killed 45 people 75 years ago in Naperville.

‘He is boring them to death.’ New York’s Jonathan Chait explains how President Biden has frustrated critics in his first 100 days—while reshaping America.

■ Politico: “Biden’s Armenian Genocide Declaration Really Is a Big Deal.”

■ The Onion jokes: “Acknowledgement Of Armenian Genocide Risks Drawing U.S. Into WWI.”

Oscars shocker. Sun-Times critic Richard Roeper says the late Chadwick Boseman’s failure to win the Best Actor award last night—for his role in the Chicago-set Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom—upended “a foregone conclusion” that accounts for a notable change in the category presentation order.

■ The Best Picture award—for Nomadland—was accepted by its producer and star, Gibson City, Ill., native Frances McDormand …

■  … who also took the award for Best Actress.

■ The author of the book that inspired Nomadland writes in The New York Times: “No one should have to live in constant fear of the knock.”

■ A Gary, Indiana, native is one of the first two Black women to share an Oscar for Best Makeup.

■ See all last night’s winners listed here.

■ A 14-screen movie complex on the South Side has won a reprieve.

■ Oak Park native, writer, editor and star of stage and screen Tavi Gevinson: Entertainment producer “Scott Rudin’s downfall is an opportunity to change Hollywood.”

Sesame Street unseen. A TV doc about the show’s first 50 years, airing tonight, includes footage from an episode that never aired.

■ From the archives: 17 minutes in 1997 with one of the show’s late creators.

A lifesaving iPhone. The Sun-Times’ Mitch Dudek talks to a guy now in “a very small club of people in Chicago saved from serious injury—or worse—by a something that happened to be on their body.”

■ Tech journalist Damon Beres in the Times: “Years from now, what creature will digest the new iPads and AirTags that Apple announced on Tuesday? What soil will absorb their metals?” (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)

■ iFixit’s Sam Goldheart finds Apple’s environmental boasts unconvincing: “The true magic is in keeping the device you already have going. Recycled can never compete with repaired in carbon footprint reduction.”

Chicago Public Square supports Public Narrative.

Thanks, Mike Braden, for making this edition better.

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* … after a break for scleral buckling surgery. (Don’t watch this explanatory video unless you have a stomach of steel.)