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Pat Fitzgerald was fired as Northwestern football coach Monday after a hazing scandal tarnished the program he helped build.

Reports of football player hazing have sent shock waves across Northwestern, resulting in the firing of Fitzgerald. Former players, students and Illinois lawmakers reacted to the troubling allegations, some offering potential solutions to combat hazing in the future.

As a child, Ramon Diaz dreamed of studying at Northwestern University and playing football for the Big 10 school. Yet he said the experience left him traumatized because of hazing, rampant racial slurs and a generally toxic culture, which he said endured from 2005 to 2009 as an offensive lineman.

Sports columnist Paul Sullivan writes: “In the end, Pat Fitzgerald had nowhere to hide.” See a timeline of Fitzgerald’s playing and coaching career at Northwestern.

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As Northwestern deals with the fallout from allegations of hazing on its football team and the dismissal of coach Pat Fitzgerald, the university has been mired in a different controversy centered on first-year head baseball coach Jim Foster, sources said.

Current and former players, alumni and people close to the baseball program told the Chicago Tribune that they alerted university administration — including President Michael Schill and athletic director Derrick Gragg — of problematic behavior from Foster starting last fall before the team kicked off its 2023 season. At least some of those complaints spurred a human resources investigation.

Thompson, 54, the former 11th Ward alderman and scion of the Daley political dynasty, was sentenced to four months in prison in July 2022 for tax evasion and lying to banking regulators. He served his time at the minimum security facility in Oxford, Wisconsin, and was released five days before Christmas, records show.

As part of the sentence, Thompson was ordered to begin paying approximately $60,000 in restitution within 60 days of his release.

Kina Collins hopes three is her magic number as she runs again to represent a U.S. congressional seat stretching through Chicago’s West Side that has been held by U.S. Rep. Danny Davis for over a quarter century.

Collins this week announced her third straight bid for the Democratic nomination in the overwhelmingly Democratic 7th Congressional District, arguing that the progressive political organization she’s built and the connections she has with voters will finally carry her to victory.

It has been a long time since people gathered for dinner in the basement space of the building at 1300 N. Astor Street in the heart of the Gold Coast, arguably the city’s wealthiest and loveliest neighborhood. But that was the case over the weekend as the private Astor Club opened for business.

People in at least 17 states may have a chance this week to glimpse the northern lights, which are typically seen in Earth’s northernmost regions.

The Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks forecasts high auroral activity on Thursday in Midwestern states like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana.

Maddie Deiters, 16, said the East Dundee piece will be the 13th mural she’s done and the fourth she’s been commissioned to do this year. Self-taught and homeschooled, most of her works are in her hometown of Marion, in southern Illinois, but she also has murals in St. Louis and North Carolina.

Baseball’s best arrived at T-Mobile Park for the start of All-Star festivities Monday. Center fielder Luis Robert Jr. and pitcher Justin Steele were there for Chicago representing the White Sox and Cubs, respectively.

Here are three takeaways ahead of Tuesday night’s All-Star Game.

To traverse one of Chicago’s best sandwich streets, walk to the corner of West Grand Avenue and North Aberdeen Street and look up. That’s where you’ll find a massive American flag flapping atop Sterling Bay’s towering 200-foot-tall flagpole.

This just happens to coincide with the beginning of a 0.8-mile stretch of Grand Avenue containing more great sandwiches than seems fair for a few odd blocks.