Like text.npr.org - there is also a CNN "lite" version too: https://lite.cnn.com/
I agree whole heartedly I wish more of the web were like this.
Bring back WML sites?
note: WML/WAL was a way to enable browsing a web-like thing on low powered devices.
For a bit of time, popular websites were available in two variants, wml and html (more info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Application_Protocol)
See too: CBC lite[0]
In a similar vein, I've been using https://brutalist.report/ for a while just to browse headlines. All the links lead to the full regular pages, so the articles themselves aren't "lightweight" like the CNN Lite version is. I still like how it lets me quickly peruse many headlines from lots of different categories and only click through onto something I'm genuinely interested in.
I wasn't aware of CNN Lite, I will add this to my news bookmarks.