Question About Eager Loading Syntax
How about stacking all the element query params into a single object?

{% set entries = craft.entries({
    section: 'news',
    order: 'sticky desc, postDate desc',
    limit: 9,
    with: [
        ['newsHighlightImage', {
            withTransforms: ['newsMedium', 'newsSmall']
        }]
    ]
}) %}


Also, I don't believe you need to use the find() function here. The examples in the documentation only use find() when eager-loading just the image transforms related to a single asset field.

{% set assets = entry.assetsField.find({
    withTransforms: [
        'heroImage',
        { width: 100, height: 100 }
    ]
}) %}