Sara Moniuszko
Sara Moniuszko focuses on the human stakes of health and wellness, turning outbreaks, medical research and cultural flashpoints into clear, practical coverage grounded in everyday choices. Her work at USA TODAY centers on how public health events, clinical evidence and emotional experience intersect, with an emphasis on what symptoms, diagnoses and policy debates mean for individual people.
Health risks, outbreaks and care decisions
She is a health and wellness reporter for USA TODAY, covering topics that range from disease outbreaks to lifestyle and culture trends. Recent coverage includes reporting on cyclosporiasis, where she tracks how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention coordinates with states on rising cases and explains how cuts to food surveillance can affect outbreak investigations. In a companion service piece on explosive diarrhea from cyclosporiasis, she breaks down symptoms, treatment options and when to seek medical care, framing a frightening condition in direct, practical terms.
She contributes to broader health news such as Pennsylvania’s measles-related deaths, adding context on the risks of vaccine-preventable diseases. Her explainer on urgent care versus the emergency room walks through how doctors themselves distinguish between settings, spelling out where people should go for common scenarios rather than repeating generic triage advice.
Across these stories, her distinguishing focus is on translating public health alerts and system-level decisions into concrete guidance on risk, symptoms and care pathways.
Complex diagnoses and medical research in plain language
Moniuszko regularly takes dense clinical topics and renders them into accessible explanations without losing detail. In her piece on Pam Bondi’s thyroid cancer diagnosis, she outlines how malignant cells develop in the thyroid gland, describes the organ’s role in hormone production and walks through standard treatment options including surgery, radioiodine therapy and targeted therapies.
She explains thyroid cancer using straightforward anatomical and clinical language, focusing on what the diagnosis entails rather than the drama around a public figure. A recent article on whole grains condenses study findings that show improvements across multiple health factors when people reach a specific daily intake, drawing a clear line between the research and everyday eating.
Her coverage of statins parses a meta-analysis of 66 outcomes, highlighting that only a small number of side effects show meaningful increases while concerns like memory loss, depression, sleep disturbance and weight gain do not see significant excess risk.
She also reports on cardiovascular risks linked to the sweetener xylitol, emphasizing relative increases in heart attack and stroke risk over different follow-up periods and situating the findings within broader conversations about sugar substitutes. These pieces distinguish her by consistently foregrounding study design, effect sizes and the difference between perceived and documented risk, helping readers weigh benefits and harms instead of reacting to headlines alone.
Culture, celebrity and the emotional side of health
A significant strand of Moniuszko’s work examines how health, body image and mental well-being play out in public culture.
She co-writes about Ariana Grande and the cruelty of body commentary, using the scrutiny around a celebrity to explore the psychological toll of comments on weight and appearance. Her story on Hilaria Baldwin beginning to diet at age 5 situates an individual narrative of long-term disordered eating within expert views on how early diet culture and parental messaging can shape children’s relationships with food.
In coverage of Aaron Rodgers and Shailene Woodley’s breakup, she focuses on the lingering bitterness that can follow relationship endings, tying the details of a high-profile split to broader patterns in how people process rejection and loss.
The piece on Presley Gerber, the “27 Club” and the pain of losing someone young uses a celebrity death to explore grief, shock and the meaning people attach to early deaths, rather than dwelling on tabloid detail. She also writes about the internet’s fascination with “otroverts,” distilling a buzzy personality label into what it says about social interaction and self-perception. Together, these stories show a consistent interest in the emotional impact of public narratives on health, identity and relationships, setting her apart from more transactional entertainment coverage.
Crossing health, lifestyle and policy
Her staff biography notes experience writing for a health-focused news platform as well as USA TODAY’s travel and entertainment sections, reflecting a background that spans clinical topics and lifestyle storytelling.
That range underpins her ability to move between celebrity-driven features and hard health news while maintaining an explanatory, service-oriented tone. Moniuszko appears on pieces where health and politics converge, including an article about President Donald Trump’s surgeon general pick, Dr. Nicole Saphier, which centers on an intense exchange over vaccine safety and the nominee’s insistence that childhood vaccines do not cause autism.
She situates the viral hearing moments within the scientific consensus on vaccines, illustrating how public officials’ comments feed into wider debates about trust in medicine and public health policy. Across her recent work, she returns to the same through-line: complex, sometimes politicized health issues broken down into clear, empathetic coverage that emphasizes evidence, personal impact and practical choices.
4 more politics journalists.
A.D. Quig
A.D. Quig follows money and power through Chicago and Cook County government, showing how political decisions, taxes and public spending affect residents and businesses. At the Chicago Tribune, she covers city and county politics, municipal finance, tax policy, budgets and the structures shaping mayoral and council authority. She joined the Tribune in 2022 after covering politics for Crain’s Chicago Business and The Daily Line. Her work examines council power, ethics rules, police leadership, tax incentives, public agencies and pandemic aid. She has reported on data center tax breaks, property tax errors, federal relief spending and the fiscal effects of major development proposals. Quig combines insider government reporting with public accountability journalism. She uses public records, data and budget documents, follows committees and staff negotiations, and explains complex decisions in plain language with precise numbers and a direct link to everyday consequences.
Adam Daly
Adam Daly covers politics for amNewYork with a focus on the inner workings of city and state government and the low-profile forums where power is exercised and negotiated. He reports on commissions and panels that shape how New York is governed, treating charter reform and government efficiency as central political terrain. His coverage of moves to replace an Adams-era charter commission with a new government efficiency panel foregrounds mandate, authority, and what “efficiency” means in practice for agencies and services. He tracks who gains and loses influence when one commission supplants another and which constituencies are being answered to. Daly explains dense procedural questions in clear, reader-facing terms, using specific institutional details and occasional wordplay to connect jargon-heavy reforms to public spending, service delivery, and mayoral power.
Adam Pack
Adam Pack covers Capitol Hill through power struggles, investigations and ideological fights, focusing on how Congress intersects with Donald Trump’s agenda. He is a politics writer on Fox News Digital’s Capitol Hill team, covering Congress, federal elections, legislative battles, election rules, war powers, primaries and intraparty fights. He previously wrote for the Daily Caller News Foundation. His reporting examines deadlines, vote counts, bill language, campaign spending, court rulings, oversight reports, culture clashes and emerging issues such as AI-backed political groups. He has covered FISA reauthorization, defense spending, the SAVE America Act, housing policy, redistricting, candidate absences, primary spending and disputes over sex, gender, religion and race-based caucuses. He reports primarily through news features and investigative-style pieces built around documents, committee reports, court records, unearthed video and specific legislative details. He often co-writes complex Capitol Hill stories and publishes “FIRST ON FOX” exclusives.
Adam Sullivan
Adam Sullivan is a veteran politics reporter for WCAX who connects elections and party disputes to everyday life. He covers statewide races, party primaries, federal representation, political rhetoric, extremism, and accountability across the Upper Valley and neighboring states. His reporting includes Becca Balint’s victory over Molly Gray in the Democratic U.S. House primary to replace Congressman Peter Welch. He also reports when political controversies affect public safety, political culture, towns, and institutions, including a New Hampshire Libertarian Party post endorsing violence against elected Democrats. Sullivan follows cultural stories with civic consequences, such as Noah Kahan’s appeal to fans to stop stealing a Strafford road sign linked to his music. He writes straight news centered on concrete events, official reactions, political context, community impact, and what comes next.