Amaris Encinas
Amaris Encinas tracks how viral culture, celebrity news and brand-driven moments move across platforms and into everyday life for USA TODAY. Working on the national trending desk, she writes quick-turn pieces that explain why particular incidents, products or online trends are capturing attention now. Her recent coverage ranges from celebrity encounters and sports controversies to viral food hacks and nostalgic tech, showing what is driving conversation across entertainment and pop culture.
Celebrities, sports figures and entertainment headlines
Encinas’s core coverage revolves around recognizable names and entertainment-adjacent storylines, often using a single incident to capture a broader moment in pop culture. She reports on high-profile athletes and celebrities when their lives intersect with news, such as Simone Biles describing a break-in at her home where three masked men allegedly stole her Porsche.
In another piece, she relays Jimmy Kimmel’s recollection of an Emmys bathroom encounter with Matthew McConaughey, treating the anecdote as a slice of awards-show lore that fans will recognize and share.
Her entertainment work also includes programming and legacy figures, exemplified by coverage of AMC Theatres screening two of Dolly Parton’s most popular movies, which ties a theatrical promotion to the enduring appeal of a music and film icon. She writes about the friction around celebrity-fronted advertising, including Sophie Cunningham calling a Sydney Sweeney sports commercial “unauthentic,” a story that sits at the intersection of sports, endorsement culture and expectations of authenticity.
These pieces are concise, news-driven snapshots that keep pace with the latest developments in celebrity and sports culture rather than long-form criticism.
Encinas also contributes to more in-depth coverage when entertainment connects to identity and media representation.
Her Women of the Year story on the founder of Revista Étnica in Puerto Rico follows a “journey of self-discovery” that leads to creating a publication dedicated to amplifying Afro-Latinx voices and stories across identity and generation. That profile shows she can move beyond quick hits to situate a subject within larger conversations about race, media and cultural visibility while still anchoring the narrative in a current honor and news peg.
Brands, consumer news and viral food culture
Encinas frequently uses brand announcements and consumer products as entry points into trending stories, especially where they overlap with entertainment or online hype.
She covers corporate pledges and public sentiment, as in her report on Walmart’s CEO saying the company will not use artificial intelligence to set personalized prices, a story that ties technology, retail strategy and consumer trust into a straightforward business and policy update. Her work on Wegmans pulling a jasmine white rice product from shelves explains the recall decision and its reasons, delivering a clear piece of consumer news that is easy for shoppers to act on.
Food and drink appear in her entertainment beat through limited-time offerings and fandom partnerships. Encinas reports on Taco Bell’s “Pink Baja Blast,” a new variation of the popular drink tied to Olivia Rodrigo and marketed as available at participating locations nationwide, blending brand promotion, pop star fandom and fast-food culture in a trending story. In another piece, she writes about an experiment with “crispy” Krispy Kreme doughnuts that sparks a viral food hack, showing how a simple tweak to a familiar product can become social media content and newsworthy in the context of widespread sharing.[anchor] Across these stories, she focuses on what the brand is doing now, why people are talking about it and how it fits into current tastes and online chatter.
Internet trends, nostalgia and tech
Encinas spends significant time on internet-native trends and the consequences they carry offline. Her coverage of a viral “Cat in the Hat” trend links social media behavior to arrests and school lockdowns, underscoring how online challenges can escalate into public safety and law-enforcement responses. The piece frames the trend not just as quirky content but as a phenomenon with concrete impacts on schools and communities, aligning with her broader focus on the real-world effects of what circulates online.
She also taps into digital nostalgia and technology news.
In her story on 44 Cartoon Network Flash games becoming playable again, Encinas highlights a collection of early-2000s browser games being preserved in a curated archive, capturing both the emotional pull of childhood media and the institutional effort to keep that history accessible. As part of a team covering a major Apple event, she contributes to live updates on hardware announcements like a foldable iPhone Duo and new Apple Watch models, situating device news within the spectacle of a large tech launch that commands widespread attention.
Together, these pieces show her range from playful nostalgia to serious trend analysis within the broader stream of technology and internet culture.
Breaking news and prior reporting experience
Before her current focus on national trending stories, Encinas built experience reporting breaking and general news, including public safety and cultural milestones. Earlier work highlighted incidents such as a 16-year-old girl becoming the sixth person shot by Anchorage police in three months and a traveler throwing a computer at airline workers in Chicago, demonstrating familiarity with fast-moving, incident-based coverage. She has also written on symbolic cultural recognition, such as Celia Cruz becoming the first Afro-Latina featured on U.S. currency, a topic that connects history, representation and national institutions.
Professional profiles describe her current role as centered on entertainment, viral news, arts and interviews at the national level, building on prior reporting for regional outlets in Arizona in breaking news and arts and life. That path explains the blend of hard-news instincts and pop-culture fluency in her USA TODAY work: she treats celebrity, brand and viral stories as news events, grounding them in clear facts, timelines and stakes rather than commentary.
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