Verónica Zaragovia
Health Care ReporterVerónica Zaragovia was born in Cali, Colombia, and grew up in South Florida. She’s been a lifelong WLRN listener and is proud to cover health care, as well as Surfside and Miami Beach politics for the station.
Verónica has a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master's degree in journalism. For many years, Veronica lived out of a suitcase (or two) in New York City, Tel Aviv, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, D.C., San Antonio and Austin, where she worked as the statehouse and health care reporter with NPR member station KUT.
In 2016, she received a Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship and moved to Germany’s capital city of Berlin where she lived for several years, working as a freelance reporter and radio instructor to American college students at the Center for International Educational Exchange (CIEE). In between that time, she also spent six months in Colombia, reporting on the peace treaty between the Colombian government and the former FARC guerrilla group, with the support of a grant from the Pulitzer Center.
Verónica speaks English and Spanish fluently and can converse in French, German and Hebrew. She loves warm weather and friendly, diverse people, and that’s why Miami will always be home.
Contact Verónica at vzaragovia@wlrnnews.org
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Town commissioners voted 3 to 2 in favor of conditionally requiring the developer of the former Champlain Towers South property to move the loading dock away from the memorial space. -
The majority of Surfside commissioners voted not to censure Mayor Shlomo Danzinger for making racial insults and sexist remarks directed at Commissioner Nelly Velasquez.
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Plans to include garbage collection and a loading dock on the same street as a proposed memorial site for the 98 people killed in the collapse of the Champlain Towers South building have angered and outraged relatives of some of the victims, along with elected town officials.
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The Coalition of Immokalee Workers implores more retailers, especially Publix, to join their program aimed at protecting workers from developing heat illness.
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Medicaid enrollees in Florida face long wait times to get through to call centers for help reapplying — especially Spanish speakers. With hundreds of thousands of people removed from the state's Medicaid rolls since April — and many of them still eligible for the program — advocates fear a 'fiasco.'
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DAMAC International responds to statements made in a July 25 special meeting in Surfside to discuss a memorial on the former Champlain Towers South property.
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Tensions have boiled over in Surfside after the town's mayor Shlomo Danzinger proposed a plan for a memorial that critics say benefits a new building's developer.
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Miami Beach commissioners approved the appointment of Wayne Jones as the city’s new police chief — meaning he will replace Chief Richard Clements to become the city's first Black police chief.
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Miami-Dade Police Department Director Freddy Ramirez remains hospitalized in Tampa after a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said he had offered to resign in a call to her after an incident that had led to local police being called.
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The Health Foundation of South Florida recently announced a grant of $290,000 for community workers called Peacemakers who work against gun violence.
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The town of Surfside held events to remember the victims, beginning Saturday at 1:22 a.m., the exact time the disaster began to unfold.
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After pandemic-era protections expired in March, more than a million Americans were dropped from Medicaid. More than 205,000 of the disenrolled are in Florida and still qualify — many are children.
