The Takeaway with Alex

The Chicago Bears start the 2026 season with a rare dose of hope and hype. Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams aim to take the offense to new heights, and carry the team to back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time 20 years. In this episode of The Takeaway with Alex, NBC Chicago’s Lou Canellis sets the stage for this season. He shares his excitement and worry about this year’s roster, compares this year’s expectations with Bears teams of the past, and says if the Bears keep winning – they’ll be celebrated like the 90’s Bulls. Canellis also shares his major concerns with host Alex Maragos, including worries about defensive depth, strength of schedule and overall team regression.

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'Spider-man: Brand New Day' is smashing Marvel Cinematic Universe box office records. The “Superhero fatigue” Hollywood had felt seems to fade away thanks to a mix of deep characters, strong storyline, and building excitement for the next Marvel film. On this episode of The Takeaway with Alex; NBC Chicago’s Alex Maragos welcomes Entertainment & Culture Contributor Richard Roeper, who hosts Roeper’s Take on NBC Chicago and The Movie of Your Life podcast. Roeper explains why Brand New Day excelled above its superhero peers, what Hollywood executives should learn from it and why 2026 has been a special year at the movies. 

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This summer’s Cyclosporiasis outbreak is the largest in U.S. history, with thousands getting sick from the intestinal parasite. Millions of Americans have heard about the symptoms -- like “explosive diarrhea” -- and are second guessing what to eat. Taylor Farms de Mexico has voluntarily recalled all iceberg lettuce from Central Mexico, but as of July 19th the FDA had zero positive sample results for the intestinal parasite. On this episode of The Takeaway with Alex, food safety expert Brian Schaneberg shares what we know about the outbreak and what he thinks is safer to eat. As Executive Director of the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute for Food Safety and Health, Schaneberg talks about his hypothesis for the source, how the FDA tracks down the cause and what steps everyone can take to eat their vegetables and still stay safe.  

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Governor JB Pritzker is a consistent critic of President Donald Trump, and could run to succeed him in 2028. With the Democratic Party seeing a recent swing of progressives and Democratic Socialists win primaries, Pritzker talked about the future of his party and the country on the Season 2 premiere of The Takeaway with Alex. NBC Chicago’s Alex Maragos covered a range of topics with the governor: inflation, Democratic Socialists’ success, his accusation that Trump has dementia, US support for Israel, the 2028 DNC, the Bears stadium search, how Pritzker uses AI, and much more. 

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In 100 days, the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics will bring the best athletes in the world together in February 2026. Every member of Team USA has a unique story about how they got to the top of their sport, and it takes a team of people to bring those stories to the world. We close Season 1 of The Takeaway with Alex podcast with a conversation between Alex Maragos and Mike McGovern about how those Olympics stories are told. McGovern, a photojournalist, has covered four Olympic Games (London 2012, Rio 2016, Pyeongchang 2018, Tokyo 2020) and Maragos has reported on two (Beijing 2022 and Paris 2024). Together, they will lead NBC Chicago’s coverage of the Olympic Games in Italy this winter. In this episode, they discuss some of their favorite Olympic memories, the extensive planning and collaboration that an Olympics assignment requires, and the ability to deal with the unpredictable stories that every Olympic Games provides. 

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With the 2025-26 NBA season about to begin, Chicago Bulls TV play-by-play man Adam Amin takes us through the storylines for the Bulls this season. With a young core of Matas Buzelis, Coby White and Josh Giddey; Amin talks about the steps forward he hopes to see the team take at the United Center this year. The Bulls will just be one part of his very busy fall. In this episode of The Takeaway with Alex, Amin takes us through a week of his life in the fall: the game prep, the travel, the meetings, the broadcast. Balancing baseball, football, basketball in the span of several months has its own challenges, but Amin says he loves the variety and the pressure of describing and detailing games to tens of millions of people every week. Adam also dives into his love of music, and his regular runs on the turntable as a professional DJ. He shares how it got started and has now turned into more than a hobby. 

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Daylight Saving Time is an annual ritual that can be disorienting, confusing and controversial. With the time change coming up, The Takeaway with Alex sat down with Meteorologist Kevin Jeanes to dig into the law that’s been on the books for decades, how we arrived got this idea, and why people want to get rid of it. Daylight Saving Time has big effects beyond just adjusting our clocks, sleep and schedules. Kevin talks about what it does to traffic safety, energy use and how we think about our weather.

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From the earliest days of the United States, there has been a debate about where the power should lie: with the states or with a central U.S. government? Now, that debate is playing out in Chicago and the suburbs. As the Trump administration gears up to send in federal troops to bolster "Operation Midway Blitz" and its mass deportation program, state and local officials are fighting back. To help explain the legal and logistical possibilities of all of this, we're joined on the Takeaway this week by Civic Federation President Joe Ferguson and former general Richard Hayes who once served as the highest-ranking member of the Illinois National Guard. 

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For 50 years, the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa has fascinated and frustrated the FBI and millions of Americans. The famous former head of the Teamsters Union was last seen July 30th, 1975 – and while the mob connections to Hoffa were clear, the lack of an equally clear cause and manner of death has led to thousands of theories and tips. In this episode of The Takeaway with Alex, NBC Chicago’s Chuck Goudie takes us back to that summer day outside Detroit in 1975 to walk through the twists and turns of a story he’s covered from the beginning. Goudie also reveals what former FBI agents and mob figures are now telling him about how they think Hoffa's last moments were spent.

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The Netflix documentary, “America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys,” chronicles the highs and lows of the 90’s Cowboys from the perspectives of those who lived it — and willed it into existence. Across eight episodes Jerry Jones, Jimmy Johnson, Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin, Barry Switzer and many others in the Cowboys universe describe what made that time and those teams so special. Often compared to “The Last Dance,” the seminal documentary on the power of the 1990’s Chicago Bulls, “America’s Team” shows how not just the Cowboys but the whole NFL evolved throughout the decade. On this episode of The Takeaway with Alex, Dave Wannstedt, the Cowboys defensive coordinator for the ascent of that dynasty, shares more of his perspective, including some details about the Jerry Jones-Jimmy Johnson relationship that didn’t make it into the final cut of the series. 

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